2. Gender Studies – An Introduction
‘Gender’ is a grammatical term borrowed from linguistics;
it is the collective term for the categories of masculine,
feminine or neuter.
At first, the gendered roles in society were assumed to be
the natural result of one’s sex. However, cross-cultural
studies demonstrate that while sex is a universal
condition; gender roles vary across culture.
Gender refers to the role in a cultural or social setting; it is
characterized by:
Attitudes
Feelings
Behaviors
3. Difference between Sex and Gender
Sex
Sex refers to a person’s biological and physiological
status. It is typically categorized as male, female or
intersex.
There are a number of indicators of biological sex:
Chromosomes
Gonads
Internal reproductive organs
External genitalia
Secondary sex characteristics
4. Difference between Sex and Gender
Gender
Gender refers to the socially constructed roles,
behaviors, activities and attributes that a society
deems appropriate.
Gender allows us to see human roles and personalities
based on social factors instead of nature.
5. Difference between Sex and Gender
Sex Gender
Natural Social
Biologically and physiologically defined Defined by society and culture
It is a universal term It is variable in terms of time,
geographical and socio-cultural settings
6. Gender Studies
Gender studies investigates the biological differences
between men and women but focuses on these differences
in a socio-cultural context.
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field. It draws
upon academic areas such as:
History
Psychology
Sociology
Anthropology
A woman is not only a woman but she also has a certain
place in our society and gender studies tries to understand
this place.
7. Women Studies
Women studies is an academic field devoted to topics
concerning women.
Feminist theory
Women’s history
Women’s health
Women’s fiction
Focuses on women and their struggles and
achievements.
It started as a discipline during the second wave of
feminism.
8. Difference between Gender and Women Studies
Gender Studies Women Studies
Issues regarding genders Issues about women
Diverse study: roles in society, how they
are shaped, their impacts, etc.
Focused study: women and their roles
in the society
Gender studies interrogates the way
society perceives all genders.
Women studies interrogates on
women’s history
Inclusive of all genders Exclusively for women
9. Gender Studies - Development
Short history – emergence in 1960s after the second
wave of feminism started.
During the 1970s, differences and inequality between
men and women came to the attention of sociologists
(especially women sociologists).
Initially, the studies focused on ‘filling in the gaps’ in
knowledge about women but later shifted to
significant aspects such as women roles in a society
and the issues they faced.
10. Gender Studies – Multi-disciplinary Nature
In 1991, the National Women’s Studies Association announced that women’s
studies and women’s studies programs are fundamentally interdisciplinary.
Gender studies explores women’s past and present contributions to societies as
persons, creators and thinkers.
It also explores the cultural, racial and economic diversity of women’s
experiences.
Gender studies draws upon methods from a wide range of disciplines
including:
Anthropology
Literature and Arts
Biology
Economics
History
Political science
Psychology
Religion
Sociology
11. Gender Studies – Multi-disciplinary Nature
The goal is to study gender from a feminist perspective
and recognizing women’s experiences and ambitions.
It also explores the ways that femininity and
masculinity affect an individual’s thought process.
It analyzes how gender plays out in politics, intimate
life, culture, technology, health, science, etc.
The increasing global concern about equal rights of
sexes, their obligations and their opportunities has
brought attention to gender studies.
It also provides critical thinking skills.
12. Gender Studies – Multi-disciplinary in Nature
History has overlooked women contributions due to
wars, conquests and display of brutality. Gender
studies tries to highlight women’s role in history like in
industry, agriculture and creativity.
A separate gender studies discipline that is linked with
other disciplines will help highlight issues of women
and also not deprioritize them.
13. Autonomy vs. Integration Debate
A debate in the US states whether to make an
autonomous department in universities for
Gender/Women studies or to incorporate it as a
subfield into traditional disciplines.
During the late 1900s, women studies came out as a
discipline and it was taught in two ways:
Teaching in Women Studies Centre
Teaching within many disciplines.
This launched a debate whether the institution of
women studies should be integrated or
autonomous.
14. Autonomy vs. Integration Debate
Autonomy arguments:
Identity to the institution of women studies
Separate decision-making body
Separate budget and resources for teaching
Separatists believe that women studies is an entity in itself
and should be studied as a unit rather than it being scattered
across different disciplines.
Integration arguments:
Autonomy would reduce impact of women studies
Gender blindness will remain in other disciplines regardless
Lead to ‘academic ghettoization’
In the end, Jean Fox O’ Barr concluded that it is both a
discipline and interdisciplinary field.
15. Status of Gender Studies in Pakistan
History of women activism goes back quite a long time
to the 18th century when women expressed themselves
through oral traditions of storytelling, singing, etc.
The major turning point for current struggles was the
era of Zia-ul-Haq and the Hadood Ordinance which
were a series of discriminatory laws that affected
women:
Zina Ordinance
The Law of Evidence 1984
Qisas and Diyat Ordinance
Hadood Ordinance alienated large sections of society
and only pleased one particular section.
16. Status of Gender Studies in Pakistan
Impacts of Hudood Ordinance:
Women beaten, sold, murdered in the name of Karo Kari, Swarah and
Vani.
Poor rural women in jails
The government created the Ministry of Women’s Development
(MoWD) and its main purpose was ‘mainstreaming gender issues
through integration into all sectors of national development’.
In 1998, Nawaz Sharif endorsed the National Plan of Action (NPA)
prepared by MoWD which focused on:
Law
Human rights
The media
The girl child
Education
Domestic violence against women
17. Status of Gender Studies in Pakistan
Education:
Institute of Women Development Studies (1994)
Gender/Women Studies Department of Allama Iqbal
Open University (1997)
Women Study programmes in Karachi University
Gender/Women Studies Centre, University of
Balochistan (defunct)
MA programme at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad
( made but not started yet)
NGOS:
Pakistan Gender/Women Studies Association (PWSA)
