IV. Feminist Movements
Feminist Movements in the West: First Wave, Second Wave and Third Wave Feminism
The history of
feminists’ struggle to end discrimination, oppression and marginalization
against women is divided into three waves. They are known as first, second, and
third wave of feminism. These waves, although they had started in Europe, had
global impact on the status of women, including women of Pakistan.
- First Wave of Feminism: The first wave of feminism officially started with the Seneca Falls Convention, 1848. It continued till 1920 after women of New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States gained voting rights. The time period between 1848 to 1920 in women socio-political history is known as first wave of feminism. During this time period, women all around the world embarked upon to stop discrimination based on sex and they demanded economic rights such as right to do job, social rights such as equal right to gain education, and mainly legal rights such as right to vote (Women’s suffrage). Contributions: The National Women Suffrage Association (NWSA) was established in 1869 in the USA. First American Birth Control League (ABCL) conference was organized by Margart Sanger in 1921. Alice Poll (Head of National Women’s Party) first introduced ERA in congress in year 1923 by saying 19th Amendment is not enough. Achievements: a) Legal: Voting rights to women was given by the New Zealand, UK, and the USA in 1893, 1918, and 1920 respectively. b) Social: College degree for women started, 39% women were earning college degree. Flapper generation started who challenged traditional values of women in American societies in 1920s. Women were included in Olympics in 1928. c) Economic: Women started to get pink-collar jobs.
- Second Wave of Feminism: It started in 1960s and continued till early 1980s. It focused on multiple issues such as, pay equity, rape, domestic violence, pornography and sexism in the media, reproduction choice, and access to birth control issues faced by women. The Feminine Mystique is a book written by Betty Friedan that is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States. It was published on February 19, 1963. This movement is also known as “Sexual Revolution Movement” because it aimed at eradicating sexism from society. It demanded for radical change in social structure. Achievements: President Kennedy formed first women commission on status of women in 1961. The commission submitted report in 1963 and highlighted many discriminatory areas. The Civil Rights Act in 1964 was passed and it stopped discrimination on the basis of race, color, and gender. National Organization for Women (NOW) was established in 1966 first president was Betty Friden. Shirley Anita Chisholm In 1968, she became the first black woman elected to the United States Congress. Selling and promotion of birth control in Canada become legal in 1969. The Congress passed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to guarantee equal rights regardless of sex in 1972 but it has never been ratified till today. Supreme Court of Canada Struck down abortion laws in 1988.
- Third Wave of Feminism: Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, responding to perceived failures of the second wave and to the backlash against second-wave initiatives. This ideology seeks to challenge the definitions of femininity that grew out of the ideas of the second-wave, arguing that the second-wave over-emphasized experiences of upper middle-class white women. The third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating how race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender, and nationality are all significant factors when discussing feminism. It examines issues related to women’s lives on an international basis: It is characterized by: Non-Universality: Rejection of universal category of women. Women come from many backgrounds. This includes religion, nationality, culture, sexual preference, and women of color. Intersectionality: Address the women’s problems based on religion, nationality, culture, sexual preference, and women of color. The problems of women within each of these backgrounds deserve to be heard and second term feminism ignored this. Cultural Relativism: Women of one part of the world (e.g., White women) cannot judge about common experiences women in other parts of world (e.g., black women or women of third world countries). Plurality and Diversity: Abolish the categories ‘men and women’ while discussing feminism and include rights of other genders too also discuss impact of factors other than sex on women, globally.
United Nation Conferences on Women
In June, 1946 the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) established the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to ensure the empowerment of women and gender equality, and to provide recommendations to the council on the obstacles relating women’s political, economic, civil, and social rights. Over the years, CSW has organized different conferences in order to assert and improve the rights women. So, far, four world conferences on women have taken place.
First World Conference on Women (1975): The first world plan for action was adopted in Mexico City. The led to establishment of International Research and Training Institute for the advancement of Women (INSTRAW) and United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). The conference called upon governments to develop strategies to bring gender equality, eliminate gender discrimination, and integrate women in development and peace building.
Second World Conference on Women (1980): The 145 members states meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to review the Mexico Plan for Action. It was emphasized that special actions are needed to be taken in areas such as, employment opportunities, adequate health care services and education.
Third World Conference on Women (1985): It held in Nairobi. Three new areas were identified to be included in women equality objectives of commission. These include, social participation, equality in political participation and decision making.
Fourth World Conference on Women (1995): It held in Beijing, China. It was the largest conference the United Nation had ever organized. Over 189 governments participated along with thousands representative of NGOs and journalist. Beijing Plan for Action (BPFA) was adopted unanimously to ensure the improvement of all women without any exception. The BPFA outlined 12 critical issues, which were hindering the advancement of women, and identified range of actions to overcome them.
Since Beijing, four five years review have been held to discuss government’s progress in implementing the BPFA.
- Beijing +2000: First five-year
review of the implementation of the BPFA took place in 2000 during 23rd
special session of General Assembly on “Women 2000: gender equality,
development and peace for the twenty-first century”. A Millennium Declaration
was adopted by members.
- Beijing +5: A ten-year
review and appraisal of the BPFA was conducted as part of the 49th
session of the CSW.
- Beijing +10: The fifteen-year review of the BPFA held during the 54th session of the CSW. Member states reaffirmed their commitment to the BPFA.
- Beijing +15: The UN ECOSOC requested review to the CSW as “Beijing+20” and it held in 2015.
Women’s movement in Pakistan. What are its strengths and weaknesses?
Women’s
movement has been alive in Pakistan since the country was born. During
partition of the British Indian Empire in 1947, a Women’s Relief Committee,
which oversaw refugee transfers between India and Pakistan, was founded by
Fatima Jinnah, the sister of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founding father.
Then Begum Ra’ana Liaqat Ali, the wife of Pakistan’s first prime minister,
founded the All-Pakistan Women’s Association in 1949; that organization worked
for the moral, social and economic welfare of Pakistani women. Ms. Jinnah ran
in the presidential elections in 1965, but lost to the dictator then holding
the office, Gen. Ayub Khan. Fatima Jinnah was interested to make women of
Pakistan to become independent in financial matters, she desired an end to
women’s economic dependence on men. Once she said, “it is necessary for women
that they should earn money for themselves. It is the duty of men to take care
of women and financially support them. It is most important that men and women
should understand the problems of one another”.
The major
turning point for current struggles was the era of Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation
era when a spate of discriminatory laws were passed that affected women
directly. In particular, the Hudood Ordinances of 1979, which include the
highly controversial Zina Ordinance, the Law of Evidence of 1984, and the Qisas
and Diyat Ordinances raised serious questions, not only regarding the status
and position of women in society, but about the direction that the state was
taking more generally. These measures were accompanied by the Islamisation of
the judiciary by creating a parallel religious judicial system, and major
changes in education and the media in the name of Islam. All these steps
threatened to create a state dominated by the clergy, and based on a version of
Islam highly detrimental for the rights of women and religious minorities.
The state’s
resort to such tactics to prove its ‘Islamic’ credentials provided the impetus
for a small but strong women’s movement under the umbrella of the Women Action
Forum (WAF), formed in 1981. Soon after its formation in Karachi, WAF opened
chapters in Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar. Although WAF was composed primarily
of middleclass women, who are often the frontline of most liberation movements,
the issues it raised, in particular the Zina Ordinance, strongly affected the
women of poor classes and rural areas. Despite its small numbers, WAF had a
strong impact in that it was able to place vital issues of concern for women on
the national agenda. It gained somewhat of an international recognition for its
efforts in fighting against discrimination.
The 1990’s saw
a new debate among feminist and women rights activists. It was whether to
define feminism through a secular or an Islamic lens? The scholar
Margot Badran has identified two threads of feminism in the Muslim world:
19th-century “secular feminism” and 20th-century “Islamic feminism.” Islamic
feminism, pioneered by scholars like Riffat Hassan, Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas
and Fatema Mernissi, seeks to reclaim Islam from male interpretations by using
passages in the Quran to combat institutional misogyny. Islamic feminism as
practiced in Pakistan is accessible to the middle and upper middle classes, who
enthusiastically attend Quran classes held in Urdu, where they analyze verses
and learn about the rights that the religion affords them. It also inculcates
solidarity with Muslim women around the world. But with its emphasis on
academic learning, it can limit empowerment to educated women, marginalizing
the unschooled and the poor.
Pakistani feminists like Shahnaz Rouse, (Professor
at Sarah Lawrence College), and Farida Shaheed, a sociologist who heads the
Shirkat Gah women’s resource center in Pakistan, have done vital work in the
field of Pakistani gender identity and class analysis, while Fouzia Saeed has
been instrumental in raising the issue of sexual harassment. But their work,
and that of other theorists and activists whose primary basis for feminism is
not Islam, is often dismissed as favored only by an English-speaking elite with
little relevance to greater Pakistani society.
Yet secular feminism has a more democratic scope; its proponents agitate for the rights of all women in Pakistan, non-Muslim as well as Muslim. It links to other feminist movements worldwide, not just Islamic ones, and is more pluralistic. By appealing to secular nationalism as well as Islamic modernism, it is not restrained by the need to base all thought in Islamic scripture, although secular feminists also use this powerful tool when necessary.
Presently, more complex form of feminism exists in Pakistan. Feminist self-definitions in Pakistan exist within a range of religious and secular identities, or eastern and western. Many feminists are proud of their hybrid identity and for them, being a feminist does not make them any less Pakistani or Muslim. A feminist movement can succeed only when it mirrors the makeup of the women and the society for whom it operates. Pakistan needs a feminism that elegantly marries both strands of feminism — secular and Islamic — because that’s how Pakistan was formed: on both Islamic and secular principles.
Discuss the influence of three major waves of feminist movements in Pakistan:
The first wave
of feminism officially started with Seneca Falls Convention, 1848 and continued
till 1920 after the women of New Zealand, UK, and America gained voting rights.
In between the first wave and second wave of feminism, which started in 1960s,
Pakistan got independence. The Pakistani women were granted the suffrage in
1947 with provision of reserved seats in the Parliament existing throughout the
constitutional history of Pakistan from 1956 onwards.
Being a woman
of newly born country, Pakistani woman had to do way more to establish her
worth and gain some status quo in the society. Like the western women, Pakistani
women, during the second wave, were also victim of sexism, harassment at
workplace, degradation and objectification. For example, Fatima Jinnah also had to bear character
assassination at the hands of a dictator along with other setbacks, including
poor finances and an unfair and unequal election campaign.
Inspired by the western second wave of feminism in 1960s, Pakistani women started to embark on improving
their social and economic conditions. They argued that having voting rights, do
not guarantee the end of their oppression in the hands of men. The initial influence
of feminist movement during second wave in Pakistan included, issuance of ‘The
Muslim Family Law Ordinance, 1961’. This new law aimed to regulate family
affairs by protecting women rights. In the subsequent year, another law ‘The
West Pakistan Muslim Personal Law Sharia Act, 1962’ was introduced in the
country it allowed Pakistani women to inherent all forms of property.
In an article
published in Express Tribune, Mehreen Ovais writes that “western women’s
liberation movement also influenced Pakistani men”. She writes that, “Rangeela,
was the first Pakistani to publically express his concerns regarding the
treatment of women in Pakistan and support the liberation movement of the
1970s. He did so via a film called Aurat Raaj which he directed, produced and
even acted in. Released in 1979, the film depicted the story of a housewife who
stands up against her chauvinist husband and goes on to form a political party
for women across the country, eventually becoming the national leader”.
The third wave of feminism started in 1990s. Its focus was to globalize feminist movement and help every woman around the world regardless of the race, color, class, and ethnicity. The Transnational Feminist Networks (TFNs) were established around the world to achieve the objectives. In the second wave, Pakistani government worked on country’s Women in Development (WID) profile to reduce gaps between socially defined roles and responsibilities of women and men. But, realizing the need of the time during third wave the focus shifted to gender mainstreaming as a part of Gender and Development (GAD). Government of Pakistan aimed at promoting gender equality by involving women in all spheres of life. In the new century, Pakistani women have enabled themselves in gaining higher participation in socio-political and economic fields. They have secured their quota in local government departments, bureaucracy, media houses and parliament.
Type of feminism which can elevate the socio-cultural, economic and political status of women in Pakistan:
Although, Pakistani women have gained some fundamental rights, encoded in the constitution under article, 25 & 34 and various laws that exist to protect them against harassment, violence such as acid attacks, and honor killing, yet, their socio-cultural and economic conditions have not improved compared to male members of the society.
Despite the
constitutional protections and prevalence of the laws, Pakistani women still
face subjugation in the hands of males at their homes, offices, and outside in
the society. They are not been given an equal access to education, and
employment opportunities. They still receive low wages than the men for the
same nature and amount of the work. Their political participation is restricted
by setting meager quota denying the fact that they make fifty percent of
country’s population. Their participation in family decision making is not
encouraged. Still, most of the Pakistani women are not free to marry the man of
their choice. The number of children which they want to have is also decided by
their male counterpart.
In a broader
perspective, Pakistani women are not victim of subjugation just on the basis of
their sex but also on their family status, color, and the ethnicity. A brown
lower-middle class woman has different problems than a white elite woman of
Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. In a similar way, a girl belonging to a
particular religious sect faces family restructuration to marry a boy having
different sect.
There are so
many hurdles and structural intricacies in improving such a peculiarity about
women status in Pakistan. Country like Pakistan, which is founded in the name
of Islam and where ninety nine percent of Population is muslim cannot afford to
implement western secular model of feminism or the Judith Butler’s theories of
post-modern feminism.
The Islamic
feminism supported by scholars like Riffat Hassan, Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas and
Fatema Mernissi, will be helpful in elevating poor socio-cultural, economic and
political status of women in Pakistan. It seeks to reclaim, the due status of
women from male’s inaccurate interpretations of Quran, to combat structural
prejudice against women. The theory of Islamic feminism is accessible to every
class of the Pakistani society in the form the Quran. Even middle-class women
can learn about the rights that the religion affords them.
One of the
major problems in way of women empowerment in Pakistan is ‘social-stigma’,
which presently exists among masses due to lack of education and awareness.
However, it can be eliminated and even the support of orthodox man-and-mullah
can be gained, to empower Pakistani women, if a fresh and organized wave of
Islamic feminism can be initiated in the country.
For this, Pakistani feminist need to adopt radical approach to transform the attitude and behavior of both men and women by establishing gender scholarships and institutions.
