Patriarchy: No silver lining

by Sidra Mazhar

Even in a war, a woman's contribution has it' place- in the kitchen.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

At the “International Conference on Gender, Work and Society” held on April 22^nd – 23^rd, 2017, the keynote speaker, Dr. Edwina Pio, spoke about how patriarchy can sometimes be beneficial for society. She gave the example of a woman opening her own business and seeking help from her husband in managing its finances. She was perhaps implying that a woman asking a man for help supports patriarchal norms, since it puts a man in a position of authority; but that accepting, or even utilizing, this unequal power relationship can help the woman.

Beyond a shared language

by Saba Aslam

World War I era poster in Yiddish to encourage food conservation.
Caption (translated) "Food will win the war - You came here seeking freedom,
now you must help to preserve it - Wheat is needed for the allies - waste nothing."
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

As social science researchers, we have to routinely work across language barriers with our respondents.

It is highly likely that the native language of a researcher (Urdu in my case) may be different from the respondents’. Great care is taken to simplify questionnaires so that they can be translated into the local language with minimal difficulty. The hiring of translators is also considered to be a high priority task in the research process and their proficiency in the local language is a deciding factor. Effective translation can play an important role in mitigating the language barrier between a researcher and a respondent. For this to happen, a translator should be well trained in the research process. Some people might argue that it is not necessary to train translators, and that their job is to simply ‘translate.’ But well trained translators not only understand the value of questions in the overall research process, they also experiment with different ways to get the respondent to understand the questions. The ownership and motivation of translators arise only when they are fully immersed into the research process. In my own involvement in the design and translation of an anthropometric training for a LANSA study on women’s work and nutrition in Sindh, I leveraged on my understanding of the study while translating some key concepts to the participants.

Who works and why: Detangling women’s agricultural work

by Sidra Mazhar

A woman cuts sugarcane in Mirpurkhas.
Photo credit: Collective team

Throughout the world, women play a very important role in the agricultural sector. In the last few decades, agriculture has undergone a gendered transformation termed the ‘feminization of agriculture’. National level statistics in developing countries show that there has been an increase in female involvement in agriculture accompanied by a steady decline in men’s participation. It is commonly believed that this increased participation in agriculture empowers women economically and socially. However, our LANSA survey on women’s work and nutrition in rural Sindh, where we surveyed new mothers about their work before, during, and after pregnancy, tells a different story.

Does empowerment work really empower?

by Marium Ibrahim

Mural by Chite Yarumo
Translation: We need to recreate a language which shows respect for women .If as men, we walked in the shoes of women we would be outraged.
Photocredit: Pixabay.com

Donor efforts to empower women often start with the reallocation of economic resources between men and women. Projects provide women with capital through in-kind support, loans or grants, or enhance their capacity to use it through trainings or networking efforts. Greater capital is expected to cause a shift in the power dynamics vis-à-vis men, leading to more empowered women. It is undeniable that such programs have led to economic freedom for women, and to better economies. But does having more economic resources necessarily lead to empowerment of women?

Access and Empowerment in the Age of Smartphones

by Ebad Pasha

Mobile phones are increasingly becoming accessible to a wider audience.
Photocredit: greenbookblog.org

The advent of 3G and 4G technologies at affordable rates coupled with abundant availability of low price Chinese mobile phones in the market has meant that an internet capable smartphone is becoming increasingly accessible to the lower and lower-middle income groups in Pakistan. We conducted fieldwork in three low-income neighbourhoods of Lyari, Korangi and Sultanabad late last year for a project interviewing youth of the areas. It revealed that although the technology has not been completely embraced by the lower income groups in Karachi, affordability and literacy were not impediments for smartphone usage.

What women do

by Haris Gazdar

Women and girls cut grass for fodder in Mirpurkhas
Photo credit: Collective team

We use the word ‘right’ a lot, but it is a haloed and distant term. In many languages it invokes truth – an aura of goodness and an assuring feeling of timelessness. A nation has the right to self-determination, an individual has the right to her or his conscience, and a child has the right to education. A nation can be hundreds or thousands of years old, and might have always had the right to self-determination, but it can practice self-determination once it is recognised by other nations. Ask any Palestinian. The individual’s right to conscience might have existed since before the day Socrates drank poisoned hemlock, but it can be practised when other individuals and the legal and political systems recognise that a person cannot be punished for their beliefs alone. The child always had the right to be educated but will actually be schooled when the community recognises this right and provides the necessary resources. Recognition, therefore, is the more accessible fellow-traveller of right. It is not only the way in which rights are realised, but is also a step towards making rights enforceable.

Aid: Who gets credit?

by Hussain Bux Mallah

Logos are one way aid agencies claim recognition, but what do they mean to the populations they serve?

Photo credit: Flickr/DFID

During our work in communities, I often encounter very interesting myths about where development aid comes from.

In 2004, when I was working on a project on social protection programmes in Sindh, I spoke to a government official affiliated with the Zakat-Ushr and Baitulmal programmes. He believed that the funding source for these programmes was “Maal-e-Ghanimat” sent to Pakistan by the Saudi government. In other words, he thought the state programmes were funded by income generated from booty accumulated during wars fought at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, which was donated to the country’s poor by Saudi Arabia. After the 2010 floods in Pakistan, we were conducting a survey on food insecurity and found little to no acknowledgement of the aid provided by the government, key aid agencies or international bodies for rescue and relief work. Most respondents believed that the work was done and funded by the Pakistan Army and NGOs. Another interesting misconception was around the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), an unconditional cash transfer programme for Pakistani women living in extreme poverty. The stipends from the programme were often referred to as “Benazir’s Money,” with a common (erroneous) assumption that the financial assistance given is generated from Shaheed Benazir Bhutto’s life insurance deposits, and not state and multilateral aid.