Women’s Day 2007

A report from the Equalities Review, commissioned by Tony Blair, recently found out that women with young children suffer more discrimination at work than any other group in the United Kingdom.

The number of working moms, the report found out has increased from 22% in 1975 to 55% currently, but as Madeleine Bunting has observed in The Guardian, "the sheer number of women in employment has not solved all the problems, in fact, it has created a new type of inequality - a tiered workforce in which mothers often find themselves at, or close to, the bottom in every type of workplace."

It isn’t a coincidence that I chose to write about these findings of that report today, on March 8, the International Women’s Day. It’s been more than a century since women first got out on the streets to protest against the inequalities they are subjected to, with the first of such protests having taken place on March 8, 1857 in New York, when women from the clothing and textile factories complained against poor working conditions and pay.

In all these years, women have come a long way, but as the report would suggest, the struggle for equality, if it is that, is an ongoing one. My own deliberation in recent times, has increasingly, not been on how far we women have come along in this struggle, but if this struggle is really about equality at all. I spoke to a couple of working moms over this past week, and the more I spoke to them, the more I was convinced this was so much more than just simply about gender equality.

Mrs. Nazish Hassan heads the Pre-Primary Department in a distinguished private school in Karachi; she has been a ’working mom’ for 12 years. When I asked her how difficult it was to manage her career with her home, she said she wouldn’t advise any other women to adopt a similar lifestyle if they had the option. "When I come back from work in the afternoon, sometimes in the evening, I’m very tired," she said, observing that it wasn’t easy to motivate your self to do the household chores now with the same perfection and dedication one put in their jobs earlier in the day. "But you still have do everything afterwards: cook, clean, see to the family, even the society".

Being a working mom isn’t a social stigma anymore, not even in third-world country like Pakistan, so why do you have to see to "even the society" as Mrs. Hassan implied, I wondered. Another long-time working mom from L.A., California, Mrs. Tanweer Waseem explained, "Because society still expects women, as it rightly should, to fulfill her role as home maker first."

Mrs. Waseem and her family migrated to the States almost two decades ago, for the majority of which duration Mrs. Waseem has worked. I spoke to her while she was in Karachi on a brief holiday. "My husband and children are much more supportive and helpful than most other people from our part of the would generally tend to be" she said, "but I still serve everyone breakfast before I leave for work every morning, and I serve lunch to the kids again when I came back home in the afternoon."

And the pressures of a job don’t ease up too much either: "Before I came here for this holiday" she told me, "I had to finish up all my office work and make arrangements for the kids to manage on their own while I was away."

Speaking to both Mrs. Hassan and Mrs. Waseem it was evident being a working mom was a hectic occupation, not just physically tiring, but there was also the constant mental strain of doing your best at your job whilst also sustaining your home. But why put yourself through it?

We’ll go back to Madeleine Bunting’s commentary to find an answer to that particular question: "Opting out of the work-struggle is a draconian option," Bunting elucidated, "and one only available to those with partners earning enough money to keep the whole family."

So I was right. The modern woman’s struggle isn’t simply or solely about securing absolute equality, it’s not even possible, in many ways, to dream of absolute equality (men can’t for instance, share the pain women go through during child bearing). This struggle, and its an on-going one, is one of identifying our changing roles within society and our homes, it’s about understanding and accepting all that women stand for.

This struggle in Pakistan has different facts in different parts of the society. For women like Mrs. Waseem and Mrs. Hassan, it is to get both their employers and their families to understand their ordeals, and help them cope with their dual responsibilities better. For the non-working moms, it’s about making their families realize that they aren’t just there to look after their needs, but they ought to have an equal say in decision making.

As for the non-moms, like my self, the struggle is perhaps the biggest. It’s deciding how to go forward, what way to take, in many ways it’s an amalgamation of both the working and stay-at-home moms’ struggles. For all of us collectively, it’s a struggle to be heard, understood and respected, for all that we are, and all that we continue to be.

Like last year, I still think every day of the year should be a celebration of this great character of womanhood, but this year, as I wish my fellow sisters and friends a happy international women’s day, I do it with the additional hope that we’re all better able to recognize our changing roles in society, and society in turn better understand us.

Have a very good Women’s Day!