The Government of Pakistan is a signatory of the CEDAW convention – which asks for

discrimination at all levels against women to be mitigated and also calls for creating
conducive cultural and social environments which may help the female gender achieve
equality

However, in Pakistan girls especially in rural areas girls face discrimination in being able to
attain education

•At the primary level 5 million children are out of school, girls
taking up 60% of the proportion with more girls being out of
school in rural areas
Discrimination in attaining education

Cultural explanations include –

+son-preference in a patriarchal society where sons are seen as assets and an important
investment for a family’s future, whereas a daughter is seen as a liability – so money
invested in a son’s education

+fear of violence/harassment of sending girls out in public ==

+domestic work – “reproductive duties” which need to be carried out by daughters, look
after the house and other siblings, help their mothers out in domestic work

+ It is also important to take into account that the Government of Pakistan itself fails to
provide a good supply of primary level schools, especially in rural areas, which further
impedes a girl’s ability to achieve an education

Perpetuating gender stereotypes and further discrimination through educational textbooks

Another important point to be taken into account is that despite being a signatory to
CEDAW – the government has failed to remove gender stereotypes prevalent in public
school textbooks ==

In analyses of state-sponsored textbooks for the primary level across the provinces of
Pakistan in the last decade researchers found images and stories which portray girls and
women as ‘domestic’ ‘weak’ and primarily carrying out work within the household, whereas
men and boys are portrayed as working men or in historical leadership roles and ‘strong’.

Furthermore, the nationalist ideology of Islam is also found to be intertwined with gender,
whereby a good Muslim Pakistani woman is portrayed as one who covers herself, with
pictures of women who are wearing dupattas on their heads. In addition to that although
examples of Hazrat Ayesha or Khadija are employed, they are primarily done so to portray
their qualities as good Muslim sisters or wives.

In light of these findings the Aurat March in the next 5 years seeks to increase the number
of girls attaining education in rural areas primarily at the primary level:

- Plans to open more primary level schools in rural areas with phased launches in
widely populated communities in every province, in collaboration with NGOs like
Malala Fund, with a special focus on girls making schools closer to communities and
making them low-cost to overcome the poverty and liability dilemma.
- We further seek to host nation-wide awareness raising campaigns in rural areas to
engage parents in being open to educating their daughters, educating them on the
importance of their daughters’ education.
- Demand the Government of Pakistan to effectively implement Article 25-A of the
constitution which claims ‘ The State shall provide free and compulsory
education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such
manner as may be determined by law.” – in light of this article we
demand the government to increase its education budget with a
special focus on rural areas and primary-school girls

Furthermore, as for reducing gender stereotypes in state-sponsored textbooks the Aurat

March seeks to:
- Raise awareness regarding the detrimental effects of gender-stereotyped education
material on the wider gender inequality in society to bring to the fore the imperative
need to overcome this barrier
- Work with educationists familiar with the gender and development field to make
prototypes for gender-neutral primary level education books, including English, urdu
and science text-books
- Present the prototypes to the Education Ministry and demand the Government of
Pakistan to bring a change in the stagnant and discriminatory education curriculum
Schooling the ‘other’: the representation of gender and national identities in Pakistani
curriculum texts

Textbooks are a powerful means for aiding children in learning about

gender and their cultural heritage. The textbook is an indispensable
medium of power that works in shaping the ways in which children think
about themselves and society. It is argued that text into children’s
textbooks determine models of thought and offer the preferred position to
boys and girls. Children’s textbooks provide messages about right and
wrong, the beautiful and the hideous, what is attainable and what is out of
reach and play a central role in the development of gender identity.

In the textbooks of PCTB, both men and women are confined to perform
certain tasks and to work in different spheres of life. The text at numerous
places discourages girls to explore and limits them to stereotypical roles.
When female characters appear in the textbooks, they are presented as
pious, helpless, domesticated, and tolerant figures espousing their
husbands. Moreover, the textbooks show female characters in stereotypical
gender roles, such as cleaning, cooking, raising children, washing dresses,
and taking the whole responsibility for domestic and household chores.
Furthermore, the representation of women in professional life is also
restricted to a limited number of roles such as nurses, doctors, and school
teachers primarily. There is a need to change the representation of women
in the textbook. They should be shown in a broad spectrum as engineers,
lawyers, pilots or fighters. This would shatter the preconceived idea of
gender identity for students and would help them understand the present
society more reasonably.

Women have also been underrepresented in leadership positions in the

textbooks; even textbooks of history do not include the contribution of
popular female personalities towards the making of Pakistan. Textbooks
should include examples of women like Fatima Jinnah, Begum Salma
Tassaduq Hussain, Begum Fatima, Jahanara Shahnawaz, Shaista
Ikramullah, Mumtaz Shahnawaz, Rana Liaqat and Begum Zari Sarfraz etc.

Language in the textbooks represents male superiority and undermines the

females and submerges their personal identity. Masculine pronouns are
used when the sex of the referent is unknown. The wrong perception of
gender identity created this way can be countered by creating a new
linguistic structure that places both the sexes on equal footing. Some
examples of changes that can be introduced in routine language use
include substituting humankind for mankind, chairperson for chairman etc.
The presence of gender stereotyping and underrepresentation of women in
the textbooks in Punjab will continue to limit girl’s academic achievements
and future options. It is important that PCTB considers textbooks revision to
eliminate the gender bias in them. Gender sensitive books will encourage
students to break toxic stereotypes and gain a more gender equitable
worldview, which will resultantly improve gender parity and equality.

GenderRepresenationinSchooltextbooksofBalochistanPakistan.pdf

A study carried out in 2019

Education being one of the social institutions and an agency for

socialization of younger generation. It's plays a pivotal role in shaping
the social structure of a society which is very important for smooth
functioning of society
The textbooks have important roles in socialization of young
generation because all the social norms, values and the social
structure is represented and promoted through these textbooks.
As he said that textbooks are the main sources by which children,
learn their respective gender roles such as mothering for females and
breadwinning for male. Kittelberger (2002) also agreed that gender
stereotype is constructed through books by using gender
discriminatory languages, pictures, contents and illustration in
children’s textbooks.
Khurshid et al (2010) conducted a research on representation of
female images in Urdu and English textbooks and found that women
are working in private domain such as housewives and home-related
activities and men are working in public domain such as political or
religious leaders and breadwinner etc. This research depicts that
women are only limited to home and leading qualities and earning is
responsibility attached to men

A similar study has been conducted on textbooks of Khyber

Pakhtunkhwa by and found that women/girls are greatly
underrepresented in children textbooks (Ullah & Skelton, 2013).
Further, they argued that men are given authoritative positions in the
images of children's books and women are given traditional gender
roles such as mothering, caring, and cooking etc.

Additionally, Jabeen &Ilyas (2012) carried out a research on gender

modelling in Textbooks in Sindh Province argued that women roles
are limited to nurturing, cooking, cleaning and sewing in Pakistani
textbooks. Despite these traditional roles and stereotypes, images and
texts in children’s textbooks also depict gender disparity in games.
The Textbooks of Balochistan are taken for the present study as unites
of analysis because very little researches have been conducted on this
area, which is a hard topic in the context of Balochistan. The
textbooks of class I to V were taken in the present study because these
books are more important in children’s socialization. In this age, a
child can learns most of the cultural traditions from society coupled
with information and knowledge receives from schools as well as peer
groups within the schools.

Textbooks promote and protect the male supremacy. It can be seen

from the text in a school children book that a six year boy setting
around a table with his all family members and introduces his family.
My name is Saad. I am six years old. I have six members in my
family. My grandfather and grandmother love us. I have a brother and
a sister. My father is a doctor. My mother is a house wife.

Similarly, females are believed to work in private sphere and males

are responsible for public sphere. Males are breadwinner and they are
responsible to buy the goods for family from markets and being a
shopkeeper is also a male oriented work.
Roles are given according to the gender of the individual because
roles are socially constructed. Women are portrayed with traditional
3Cs (Caring, Cleaning and Childrearing) (Henslin, 1981) while men
are represented as owners, strong, independent, responsible for family
affairs and other socially respected positions in the society.
Above, both statements are clearly showing the gendering the roles
according to his or her sexual orientation. In first statement Sadaf
(girl) is attached with doll and Ajmal (boy) is with book because
Ajmal need to get education and should get a lucrative job for running
the family in future
Glass Ceiling is a term used by different Sociologists to study the
gender discrimination in different aspect (i. e Education, Economics,
Politics etc) of society. Federal Glass Ceiling Commission defined
that it is “the unseen, yet unreachable barrier that keeps minorities and
women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder,
regardless of their qualifications or achievements (1995, P. 4).
Generally, Pakistani society believes that woman cannot run
administration system due to different weakness.
This image clearly depicts that male can only be a head of institution
as well as homes because males are serious, energetic, strong and
leaders. Leading jobs are signed to males and females are considered
weak and followers. So such jobs are assigned to females in the
society. On the other hand, second picture, female teacher who has
put her hand on little child which is the sign of love. Teaching is a
feminine job because females are sober, lover and easy job for
females. Though women can be the head of institutions, they are not
given the chance to go upper positions because of Glass Ceiling
(Wiley, 2012) and bamboo ceiling (Hyun, 2005).
Similarly, it is clear from the above given data that women are
represented as inferior, obedient, subordinate and men are portrayed
as owner, dominancy, supremacy of male members of society in
School Textbooks of Balochistan.
School Textbooks of Balochistan are promoting and perpetuating
male supremacy and dominancy. On the other hand, women are
rendered as inferior, submissive and dependent. The young generation
are taught these biased and discriminatory approaches and they would
adopt and practice them in their daily life activities.

It is recommended that the issues of women and women should be

taken in confidence while developing the policies and laws regarding
education, otherwise, women would be victimized and would be most
disadvantaged group in the society.

5-JabeenIlyas.pdf

In order to explore the ramifications of gender inequality in Pakistan, this

study aims at bringing the invisible representation of women onto scholarly
platforms by examining gender inequality and stereotypical gender role
modelling in Pakistani textbooks, with special focus on primary level
textbooks published by the Sindh Textbook Board.
Text in the curriculum in general is a reflection of the social gender
identities of every society. These gendered attributions strengthen the
already existing stereotypical norms instead of challenging them

In the content of textbooks, females are greatly under-represented, the

use of male pronouns is common to describe all humanity, and
females are only shown as acting in domestic spheres.

Therefore, girls are either invisible, or passive and caring, while boys
are skilful, intellectually dominant, naughty and of an adventurous
spirit.

A universal stereotype in these textbooks is that women are supposed

to work at home, that they are not good drivers, that they are
emotional and illogical. These images are easily absorbed into our
subconscious. Textbooks and learning materials are big sources of
such stereotypical descriptions

Mirza, 2004, noted that in the process of curricula development in

Pakistan mostly male personnel were represented.

A gendered nationalist ideology in Pakistan was promoted by

constructing binaries such as masculine / feminine, strong / weak, and
powerful / powerless (Dean, 2007). The representation of the male
frequently came first in the text. The use of male names, nouns,
pronouns, and adjectives was very high as compared to females. In
the titles and topics also, females were neglected (Bahman & Rahimi,
2010).

Similarly, language used in textbooks is not gender neutral. Female

identity and self images have been negatively portrayed whereas
male characters have been strongly portrayed and positively
represented. This representation ultimately leads towards uplifting of
strong male images, and negative and marginalized images of females
in the minds of people. It is necessary to change such gender biased
language in books and there is a need to use gender equality based
text and language in textbooks. (Hussain & Afsar, 2010)

The data shows that in Urdu textbooks 60.2 per cent space is given to
male characters. Male specific stories and domination of male
personalities was profound in Urdu textbooks.

Table No. 2 presents the direction of the stories in the Urdu textbooks
of the Sindh Textbook Board. Data in the given table reveals that the
majority of the stories (59.1 per cent) are negative so far as gender
parity is concerned, 29.5 per cent are gender neutral, and only 11.4 per
cent are positively presented which indicates a general attitude of
gender discrimination among the authors of the stories and all those
involved in approving them for publication in children’s textbooks.

With reference to the portrayal of female personalities only a few

women from Muslim history are represented, and no proper
representation is given to females from the subcontinent. The majority
of the males1 presented in the textbooks are also from Muslim history.

Table 4 shows that a total of 23 authors were involved in the

preparation of Urdu textbooks, with an overwhelming majority being
male authors (91 per cent), and only a few females (9 per cent).

The melding of religious and national identities is also evident in the construction of the Pakistani nation.
Pakistan was created on the discourse of ‘two-nation theory’ which constructed Indian Muslims as a
homogenous nation and in bipolar opposition to Hindus. Pakistani nationalism, unlike Western nationalism, was
derived from religion. Indian Muslims were, as they still are, heterogeneous

After independence in 1947, Pakistani nation-building required the forging of unity among a wide variety of
ethnic and linguistic groups whose only common thread was Islam. Islam has therefore been widely
promulgated as a source of legitimacy and coherence for the Pakistani state.

The gendered dimension of Pakistani national and religious identities is evident in the debate around the tenets
of ‘Islam’ and its implications for appropriate behaviour of ‘women’ in the public discourse on Pakistani
citizenship and national identity, particularly with the Islamisation policies of General Zia-ul- Haq in the 1980s
which legislated that Islam was to provide the definitive key to an acceptable identity for women in Pakistan.

The regulation and control of women’s roles and conduct also serves to construct Pakistan as a nation distinct
from its predominantly Hindu neighbour, India, so that Pakistani women’s identity by being Islamic is
simultaneously oppositional in both religious and national terms to that of Indian women (ibid). Given that
Pakistani identity is essentially constructed through the use of Islamic idioms (which sometimes draw on the
Quran and in other instances of various Hadiths), the raising of Western notions of gender and directives of
gender equality by women, both Pakistani and those outside of Pakistan, is regarded as threatening both the
foundations of Islam and Pakistan.

In the context of nation formation, scholars of nationalism see state-sponsored education and in particular state
controlled curricula as central to the promotion of national identity and the creation of internal homogeneity
(Gellner, 1983; Smith 1991). The curriculum is an important vehicle for both the transmission and
transformation of national identity with its integral gender norms and relations.

Pakistan uses a centralised national curriculum developed by the Curriculum Wing of the Federal Ministry of
Education. All four provinces have their own school educational boards, which are autonomous bodies set up by
provincial governments, and are responsible for the production of textbooks within their jurisdictions.

The Curriculum Wing reviews all textbooks and reserves the rights to amend/delete/reject a part or whole of the
textbooks. Because of such tight control, the contents of textbooks are more or less the same in the four
provinces.

The current National Education Policy declares that ‘the ideology of Islam forms the genesis of the State of
Pakistan. The country cannot survive and advance without placing the entire system of education on sound
Islamic foundations’

The curricular texts, thus, overwhelmingly associate Islam with Pakistani identity.

The female icons mentioned in the Social Studies textbooks are Hazrat Khadija and Hazrat Fatima and in the
Urdu textbook are Hazrat Khadija, Ume Farwa and Hazrat Khola. The first icon of Hazrat Khadija remains the
primary source for identification and emulation for the female students. Her virtues as a dutiful wife and a good
mother are emphasised. She is portrayed as having initiative and agency before her marriage to the Prophet.
Upon marrying him, this ‘successful trade woman’ whose ‘trade caravan was so huge that all the trade caravans
of Quresh put together could not match hers’ (Urdu textbook, 79) entrusts ‘the Prophet with her wealth’ and gets
‘herself busy in domestic chores’

Hazrat Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, is also praised as an obedient wife and good mother. Ume Farwa is
introduced very briefly as a righteous and knowledgeable woman while discussing Imam Jaffer, her son. Hazrat
Khola, sister of Hazrat Zarar (a Muslim warrior), is the only anomaly to this established pattern. She is glorified
for her valour and warrior virtues but even the ‘brave mujahid who attacked the enemy fiercely all alone’ is
performing gender by veiling her face (Urdu textbook, 129). She establishes the moral and dress code for
women in the outside domain.

The selected admirable qualities in women contrast starkly with the multiple ways in which male icons are
represented and admired in the texts. With few exceptions, the textbooks use conflict, military heroism and
religious leadership as the central themes in the selection and portrayal of male national icons: 64.7% of male
heroes described in the Social Studies textbook and 41.6% portrayed in the Urdu textbooks are praised for their
engagement in conflict or martyrdom or mobilising Muslims to fight against their non- Muslim enemies. From
the Social Studies textbook, these heroes include:

N Hazrat Imam Hussain who was martyred at Karbala;

N Tipu Sultan who was martyred fighting the British;
N Muhammad-bin-Qasim who defeated Raja Dahir and conquered Sindh in 711 AD; N Mehmood Ghaznavi
who invaded India 17 times and remained victorious each time; N Jamal-ud-Din Afghani, a great supporter of
pan-Islamism;

The next largest category of heroes includes Muslim political leaders. All these heroes are praised for portraying
Muslims as a nation distinct from Hindus and include Syed Ahmad Khan, Iqbal and Jinnah (Social Studies
textbook), Maulvi Fazlul Haq and Jinnah (Urdu textbook). Upholders of Islam and religious ideals constitute
another category of male heroes. The Social Studies textbook discusses the Prophet in relation to Hazrat Khadija
and Hazrat Fatima who are the main characters in the text, albeit in subordinate roles. The Urdu textbook
portrays the Prophet as conqueror of not only Mecca but also the hearts of the inhabitants of Mecca and praises
Hazrat Usman for spending his wealth on the well-being of Muslims and on a Muslim army.

Dress codes

Since dress codes are one of the many resources that people use to signal association to a ‘gender’ or ‘nation’,
they are employed in the textbooks for constructing the ‘ideal’ Pakistani woman. All graphic representations of
Pakistani women (26) and teenage girls (7) in the three textbooks show them wearing the national dress –
shalwar (baggy trousers), qameez (shirt) and dupatta (a long scarf) with their heads covered. The only two
illustrations in which a woman has not covered her head are that of a Japanese woman wearing a kimono in the
Urdu textbook (74, 76). This ‘appropriate’ and homogenised physical appearance of Pakistani women not only
draws boundaries between Pakistani men and women but also between Muslim and non-Muslim women and
strengthens the association of Pakistani identity with Islam. This ‘appropriate’ depiction of women constitutes
the ‘gaze’ which performs ‘the administrative functions of management, the policing functions of surveillance,
the economic functions of control and checking, the religious functions of encouraging obedience’ (Foucault
1977, 173–4). It serves to establish a ‘moral’ and religious code for women and denies them the freedom to
decide on their own appearance.

In addition, the textbooks portray a restricted representation of women by depicting them mostly as mothers and
engaged in familial activities. While the valorisation of motherhood is not a sign of women’s subjugation, their
total exclusion from all other roles and domains fixes the meaning of what it means to be a good
Muslim/Pakistani woman and renders any deviation from this meaning as abnormal or deviant. Conversely, the
meanings of being a boy/man are represented in multiple ways and varied positioning. They are depicted as
performing acts of heroism, bravery and courage and showing initiative and agency. A sexual division of labour
permeates the stories and lessons in the textbooks. The dominant representations of women’s domesticity are
put across not in ‘subtle and hidden codes’ but through consistent repetition that can be termed as ‘ideological
bombardment’ (

The textbooks reflect this association of space and gender relations by depicting women/girls either textually or
graphically in spaces that are traditionally or discursively feminine. ‘The meaning of space in which the female
subject and her subjectivity is ideally to be located’ is thus fixed, making it difficult to understand the female
subject outside that space (Naseem 2006, 459). Home is naturalised as a woman’s legitimate, ideological and
physical space:

Students across the schools condemned women who violated the social norm of observing purdah (women
seclusion/veiling). Some girls from both localities said they felt proud as a Pakistani because they and their
mothers observed purdah and wore chador (a big shawl used for Purdah). The rural girls ruled out any
possibility of them not observing purdah: ‘It is our duty to protect us and our family’s honour’. All Muslim
urban girls too said that purdah was good and most of them said they would observe it even if allowed not to
because ‘If we don’t observe it, men will look at us’. The non- Muslim girl told the rest of the girls, ‘If you have
modesty in your eyes, you don’t need any purdah’.