LITERATURE REVIEW

Anthropology/Sociology of Law and women’s Empowerment

Starr and F. Collier (1992) studied the history and current status of Legal Anthropology, and

Power, Ideology, and Culture. They described successive transformations in the anthropological

study of law and law-like systems across cultures and through time. The anthropology of law

was emerging from almost 20 years of debate over a cross-culturally applicable definition of

"law" and the appropriateness of using Western legal categories in the description and analysis of

non-Western legal processes (Bohannan 1969; Gluckman 1969; Moore 1969; Nader 1965).

These arguments had doubtless been necessary as the sub discipline of legal anthropology sought

to define itself and its methods.

In another study by wooden explained briefly the concept of legal pluralism, social existence of

legal norms,non-state laws and state laws,and the laws of religions. Author argues that the notion

of bodies is proposed to avoid the problem arises by using the term system of laws, or sets of

legal norms. He also analyzed that if the country legal system provides two different types of

laws then the legal system does not called a unified system. As in case of marriages there are

different types of marriage contracts, formalities and modes of terminations.. It has been argued

that legal pluralism work within the state laws. But then there’s question arises that how to

diminish the role of customary laws from the societies. The author suggested that there’s need to

understand the facts behind the work within the customary laws.

Gender Discrimination against Women

Gender is a social construct that defines what it means to be man or women in a given society.

Gender often describes the roles of women and men which may vary by culture, ethics, race and

caste. Over the last couple of decades the International community has raised its efforts to

promote gender equality and women empowerment. Although the role of ladies is proscribed

solely to as a home keeper and ladies get terribly less opportunities to economic setup as

compared to men. The imprecise ratio of morality rate of males and females tells that male’s get

more preference than women’s as compared to expected biological ratio (Dr`eze and subunit

1989). Many scholars addressed this issue in their own way.

Qureshi (2014) explainedthat how gender discrimination joined to education of females in

Pakistan.The social organization, norms and values square measure combined during a manner

that establishment discriminate against girls. It will end in discrimination concerning the

resource allocation towards girls in education sector. The author more tells that there's speedy

increase in variety of private institutions in Pakistan even within the rural sector (Sathar, Lloyd,

and Haque 2000). This shows that people in Pakistan currently hunted for quality education

that’s why the boys and women each shifts to non-public institutions. This case entails the

requirement for larger analysis to investigate through empirical observation, from each social

and policy views, whether or not the demand for schooling varies by gender and, if so, then what

the factors that cause such imbalances in Pakistan. This question is even additional relevant

within the context of Millennium Development Goals among that the elimination of gender

inequality at primary and instruction ideally by 2005 and in the least levels no later than 2015 is

that the targets to attain.

But on the other side many argues that people finance more on son’s education than girls.It's

been seen that the returns by finance on sons in several developing countries square measure
over daughters. This dependence of families on their sons in adulthood becomes even additional

vital in those ancient families that regard dependence on daughters as shameful. In such societies

a female get married she is only responsible for her in laws and if she chooses to stay single for a

few reason, which is just too thought-about to be unhealthy (Rosenzweig and Schultz 1982).

So far I have studied the past literature I found that household behaviour is another cause of

gender discrimination.Two major approaches found within the literature on household behaviour.

One strand treats household’s collective models wherever an altruistic head (parent)maximizes

the joint welfare of the household subject to its resource constraints (Becker 1981). The other

approach analyses the outcomes of intra-household resources’ redistribution in terms of the

bargaining power of the members of the household [McEleoy and Horney (1981)]. Various

factors can determine the degree of bargaining power of an individual that could include the

wage earned, received inheritance and also how society defines their roles.

On the other side many argues that gender discrimination against women not only depend on

household behaviour but also onclass, age, race, ethnicity and sexual preference. Similarly

gender can be classified by both social and political context(Scott 1989).

Theories of Empowerment and Women’s Empowerment

Empowerment is related to the norms, values and beliefs of a society; therefore empowerment

can be revealed differently in different societies. The term empowerment may have some general

agreed upon qualities and definitions in the academic community, but how the word is used in

organizations or among individuals may still vary.

Women political empowerment is another topic of discussion in many countries.Many

international bodies like United Nations, but including the Inter-Parliamentary Union, African
Union, Southern African Development Community, Commonwealth, Council of Europe,

European Union, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and Organization of

American States recommend and urge member states to get a minimum of 30 percent women

quota in all elected positions (Krook 2006, p. 114, Towns 2010). Women representation in the

politics is consider one of the Millennium Development Goals and now the women political

empowerment consider as an most interesting and important issue of interest for whole world.

Many gender related and women political participation index has been introduced. A

study by Wang and I. Lindberg (2015) usedV-Dem index to explained women political

participation.The Democracy project (V-Dem) Women’s Political Empowerment Index

measures and intake women empowerment with significant spatial and chronological scope. The

index further includes three more proportions: civil liberties, civil society participation, and

political participation. The index is based on the previous judgments of almost thousands

experts of different countries who provided ordinal ratings for dozens of indicators for the period

1900 to 2012. The author used the ECM model. The result reveals thatthe short run impact of

economic development on improvement of women’s political participation is significant. In long

run the effect of women’s civil society and political participation is significant. On the other

hand the both in short run and in long run women’s civil liberties have insignificant impact. The

improvement of democracy does not only have direct impact on women’s empowerment.

But on the other side most commonly used indicators of women empowerment was Gender-

Related Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). These indices

were developed by UNDP in 1995 to set out the Human Development Indicator (HDI). The

author explained that Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) is that measure which measure the

inequalities between men’s and Women’s. It will measure gender inequalities in three areas:
political participation and decision making and power over economic process. GDI is that

indicator of gender inequality which measures the gender Gap and covers three areas: long and

healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. These indicators was quite dominating

but although replaced by another measure that is Gender Inequality Index (GII) and somehow to,

the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) (UNDP 2015). The GII measures the

differences between men’s and a woman’s regarding distribution of resources. It measures the

human development costs of gender inequality, thus the higher the value of GIImore the

inequalities between females and males. That was alarming situation for human development

(Wang and I. Lindberg (2015).

The concept of women empowerment differs country to country and culture to culture. Many

argues that the concept of women’s empowerment emerged from several important critiques

anddebates generated by the women’s movement throughout the world during the 1980s,

whenfeminists, particularly in the Third World, were increasingly discontent with the largely

apoliticaland economist ‘WID’, ‘WAD’, and ‘GAD’ models in prevailing development

interventions. Similarly the South Asia document by Batliwala (1993) defined empowerment as

a process that transforms the power between individual social groups. Since feminist activists

were among the first to use this word widely, it also had a specific gendered meaning: the

transformation of the relations of power between men and women, within and across social

categories of various kinds. On the other side in south Asia empowerment defined as a process

that shifts social power in three critical ways: by challenging the ideologies that justify social

inequality (such as gender or caste), by changing prevailing patterns of access to and control over

economic, natural, and intellectual resources, and by transforming the institutions and structures

that reinforce and sustain existing power structures (such as the family, state, market, education,
and media The framework stressed that the ideological and institutional change dimensions were

critical to sustaining empowerment and real social transformation(Batliwala 2007).

Empowerment is a topic of debate since last 2 decades. Morgen (1988), Macy (1983), Hartsock

(1981) at al, saw empowerment as a process which breaks the boundaries between the public and

private sphere of influence. These scholars also explained the different domains where power can

be practiced. Author further linked the notion of empowerment with the notion of community.

The perception or notion of community assumes an organic wholeness. The community is

perceived as a natural social unit. The author believed that if there is unity among people as

individuals and as groups, in struggles against racial discrimination, and sexism then

discrimination is impossible.The author further linked the empowerment with ethnicity, culture

and identity. Ethnicity relates to the politics of collectivity boundaries, dividing the world into

‘us’ and ‘them’ around, usually , myths of common origin and /or destiny and engaging in

constant process of struggles and negotiations. Author further concludes on a note that to fill the

gap of empowerment the concept of transversal politics can be implemented. Transversal politics

will help the women to get empower and reduces the gap between men and women power.

Shikai Karokhail presented her presentation at the symposium of HBF. Karokhail is the founder

of (AWEC) Afghan Women Education Center and Member of Parliament. She explained the

traditional legal structures like Shura’s and their impact on the life of a woman in

Afghanistan.(Case studies conclusions)She quoted some evidences to prove her point and to

highlight the issue that how traditional legal system discriminating women. How these traditional

legal structures provide man clean chit for their own crime against the compensation of women.

Further she explained the role of CDC’s (Community Development Councils) and the impact of
these CDC’son Afghan women. These CDC’s started addressing the women related issues and

increased the involvement of women in decision making at the council level. People adopted this

concept and also they welcomed it and they considered it eastern concept. She mentioned some

(Conclusions)case studies to empower her argument against women discrimination by the law of

tradition. She further highlighted the need of statuary law working with the traditional law to

minimize the discrimination against women.She also shed light on the need of the change in this

existing traditional legal system however it raises the wide range of more questions.(What

questions)

Author named as Marianne Elliot from New Zealand further developed her argument on the

basis of the raised question in symposium. She and some other authors argue that how that

change can be achieved and what is the appropriate way of achieving it.The other point of

discussion was that what can be the appropriate tool to measure this change.People of

Afghanistan reported many cases to Amnesty International against women rights violation by the

informal justice system. (Amnesty, 2005). Amnesty conducted a research in 2003; they

concluded that at the end of their research, most of the local women also want change. Thelocal

people express their desire they were unhappy by the prevailing system. Many other researchers

found the same results. These structures do not allow women to participate (Boesen, 2004).

Kandiyoti mentioned that, the Afghan culture is very rigid especially for women. So the desire

for change started because of the rigidity of Afghan culture. The rigid culture forced people and

especially women to raise their voice (Kandiyoti, 2005).

Local powerful men will try to shift the attention of people towards some other issues.(What

issues) They will shift the focus from the core issues regarding women isolation and like early

marriages etc. (Kandiyoti, 2005)

Another theme emerged was that, wsho is the best person to involve to enhance women

participation. Some says, empowering women to engage other women. However the other school

of thought suggested that, there is a need to engage the local powerful elements to facilitate

women in participating. ARUE (2005) hosted a workshop in Afghanistan (Kabul). To discuss the

outcomes achieved by different approaches. One group of scholars emphasized on actors. Mainly

men are the ruling elite and they run most of the developmental project in a community. So men

need to be involved to support women participation by traditional ruling structures.

Author elaborates that only physical attendance of women cannot make any difference. Women

will be empowered when women will have any say in decisions of the meetings.

Literature in context of Pakistan tells the political participation of women in Pakistan. Where did

Pakistan stands in context of women political participation around the globe. Farah Pervez

Saleh’s article on locating women in democratization clears some picture of participation of

Pakistani women in democracy. New adopted system refers to devolution of power to the lowest

level, likewise provinces to districts to union councils. The division took place and three tiers

emerged, the district government, the tehsil government, and union council. Quota for women

specified up to 33% in all tiers. LFO (Legal Framework Order) also allotted 17.5% seats to

women is legislative bodies. According to reviewed(to the writings of) literature the era of

General Musharraf gave some political status to Pakistani women despite the fact that this

representation is only symbolic or women are real representatives. Devolution system has been

adopted in the era of Musharraf which increased the number of women political participants.

Author further explained that even this representation of women in politics is not enough to call

our women empowered or ifwe compare the status of men and women we can’t find any

comparison.However author further suggested that there is need of increase in the seats of
women at legislative bodies. Women must be given more representation at the policy making

level to raise their voice. Which will help these women’s to highlight women related issues.

The results of another study by Nhede revealed that, the people of six provinces of Zimbabwe

shown interest in devolution of power out of ten provinces. In democratic state people’s view

must be given especial importance because people are the final users of any product or service

provided by government. The supporters of devolution argue that devolution of power to lower

bodies will enhance the governance quality and transparency. People understand the fruit of

devolution and then wanted to transfer the power to lower tiers of government. At the same time

there were people who were against devolution. Other way around people argued against

devolution by saying that, it will scatter(Why) people. It also raises misconceptions in people’s

mind regarding devolution. Their major argument was devolution will weaken the social

affiliation of Zimbabwean citizens.

According to author only inclusion of devolution in constitution is not enough. What we need to

see is up to how much extent government will transfer power to the local bodies. Government

will make policies but government will implement them or not is the real question. Literature

suggested that devolution model is good with appropriate changes for any country’sprogress.

The real thing is that how much that devolution helpslocal people to raise their living standards

and to utilize the fruit.Another study concludes in favor of devolution and giving autonomy to

the local bodies.

Miss Asma Afzal Shami in her research named as Political Empowerment of Women in

Pakistan. According to author since when the nationalist movement of Pakistan was started

women were the integral part of the movement. The reason behind that was to show the more
strength during rallies and also to increase the vote bank of Muslim League.Mr. Muhammad Ali

Jinnah in 1940 breaks the cultural barriers and liberalized and supported women to participate in

general politics. However that participation was not long lasting. Right after independence of

Pakistan women’s political participation has gone down again. Some political figures continued

their struggle and participated according to their own capacity.

In Pakistani politics Miss Fatima Jinnah, Begum Rana Liaqat Ali Khan and Begum Fida Hussain

are the names which are important to mention. These women’s breaks the shatter’s and actively

took part in politics after the independence of Pakistan.These women won the case of women for

share in inheritance under the rule of Sharia Law. However the women of the time remain unable

to taste that fruit of inheritance because of male dominant society. Begum Shaista IkramUllah

and Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz raised voice for the rights of women. However the rule of

women appointment on reserve seat remained same in spite of various struggles by women

representatives in parliament and by different women rights organizations. Begum Jahanara said

women representatives as dummy.

According to author Musharaf’s era was comparatively better for the women of Pakistan.Even

Musharaf’s time has not given women suffrage back as per the constitution of 1956. He

increased women seats in both local and general elections. He increased women seats up to 20%

in Assembly and 33% in local body’s elections.Musharaf also sent many women as an

ambassador of a country in other different countries in some way he has broken the shell.

Musharaf’s era was the step forward towards the women empowerment. Now it’s the duty of the

women representative in parliament to solve women related issues and raise their issues in

legislative bodies meetings.

According to another author Azra Asghar Ali women’s representation in the mainstream politics

of Pakistan is so nominal. In fact women are 50% of the whole population of world so no

country can run their democracy by ignoring half of their population. In past women were not

allowed to take part in any public premises because their defined premises was the domestic

sphere. As politics also lies in public sphere so culture bounds women to remain in domestic

sphere and restricts the mobilization of women.

According to Ali empowerment can be understood as a social phenomenon and participation of

people to own the hold over other societies. In this way empowerment is not to achieve power

but to use power to make an impact. So it means that power stands against the political and

social structure of a society and talks about the welfare of the people. In context of Pakistan,

Pakistan is lagging behind in terms of making an impact on women’s life. However in terms of

numbers or quantity somehow women’s are empowered than before but not qualitatively.

She further said that Pakistani women have very less representation in political and social

institutions so most women related problems remains unaddressed. This is because of women’s

restricted mobilization but meanwhile women mobilization differs by the choice and also by the

class structures as well. Needs and preferences of women vary due to different class and different

interests. Government institutions must beengaging the women of different classes according to

their need, interests and capacity.

Further Ali talks about the mobilization of the women in the history of Pakistan. Begum Shah

Nawaz is one of the inspirational names for the women’s of before partition. She participated

actively in many reformists movements of that time. She was also the member of All India
Women’s Conference. She asked for 10% quota for the women and she succeeded to win 3%

quota for the women’s in 1935 in franchise committee.

Many historic scholars like Plato, Aristotle, Hobbs and many other big names defined the

premises of the women away from politics. . According to these scholars men are fit by all

means to rule the politics. Women earned their rights after so many struggles. At time of World

War 2 the movement of using vote was at its middle stage. Both men and women struggled for

their suffrage and representation. However men became the winner of the contest because they

had more number of supporters on the other hand women’s representation was low which

effected the representation of women in development process.

Quaid I Azam was very big supporter of women participation in politics in mainstream

politics.In 1946’s convention Quaid I Azam talked about the importance of women participation

in every field of life. He said it’s the time of revolution especially for the Muslim women’s. If

women’s will work along with men so no power can stop that nation to progress.Low political

participation is also the cause of low economic condition of the women. However the bad

economic condition is because of low rate of literacy. The literacy rate of the women was 45.2%

in 2010 and on the other hand men’s literacy rate was 69.5%. Pakistani women remained

marginalized throughout the history of Pakistan.