Feminist lawyers and illiterate women

Contrary to expectations, I have not found inequality between men and women to be high up on my agenda of problems to worry about - most of the time at least.  The office I work in is run by strong, powerful women, who all benefit from an excellent education, supportive families, ambition and, naturally, lots of money.

These young women think, with good reason, that they will be able to achieve as much as their male counterparts. I would even go so far as to say that career-wise some things are actually easier for these women than they would be in London.  My boss, for example, has a pampered toddler who lives just around the corner from the office.  The toddler has a live-in nanny.  The toddler and nanny have a driver, who brings them in to the office at least once a day to see mummy.  Mummy holds office meetings with toddler on her lap.  Such a scenario is hard to imagine in London.  If expense and distance between home and work didn't make it impossible, unaccommodating views about children in the office certainly would.

My female colleagues still always seem to feel that they must fight the cultural bias towards men.  They are competitive towards male lawyers and some treat the men who work beneath them with a fair amount of contempt.  Shouting at the office is a daily occurrence, and one that is rarely challenged.

One particularly hardworking and affable colleague is employed as an investigator, and is excellent at his job.  However, his English is only just passable and his IT skills are pretty shocking. (English seems to be an almost perfect indicator of class - the better someone's English is, the higher up the social scale they sit.) Recently, half way through a long and complex meeting, I saw the look of panic cross his face when he was told to take minutes.  He spent the whole of the following Sunday typing up the minutes, at a rate of a half-a-word-a-minute, until I couldn't take it anymore and offered to do the typing. He later received a ten-minute dressing down in front of the whole office for saving the document in the wrong format and was called 'stupid', 'lazy' and 'useless'. When I brought up this treatment with my boss, I was merely told they had no choice but to be tough with the men or they wouldn't respect the authority of the women in charge.  And, although I'm sure there is more than a grain of truth in this, I suspect there are, in fact, other, more substantial reasons for this treatment: status and social hierarchy.

An aspect of 'feminism', which strikes me as ill thought through (at best) is rich Pakistani women judging poorer women for veiling.  It seems to be lost on some people that in Pakistan it's a hell of a lot easier to wear tight jeans and a tank top when jumping in and out of your posh car, with a driver at its wheel, than when you have to walk the streets or ride public transport.

However, despite these initial observations, a recent visit to a prison with my boss made me to see my female colleagues' assertiveness/ agressiveness in a difference light. Whilst we were treated kindly on arrival at the prison - allowed to wait in an office and given tea and biscuits - this was actually  a pretext for patronising and making everything difficult for us.  We were told there was no way we could be allowed to do what we'd come to do.  Faced with lots of official-looking men telling me no, my instinct was to retreat and eventually accept defeat.  But luckily my colleague took an infinitely tougher stance and fought them every step of the way.  Every time they refused us something, she grew more determined. She cited law, journalism and politics. She teased, cajoled, raised her voice.  And she did not back down.  I was so impressed that rather than coming out of the prison, feeling the size of a Borrower, she came out (admittedly hours later) with everything she came for. It gave me a glimpse of how hard she fights to be taken seriously as a female lawyer, and that I shouldn't take her achievements or the achievements of those like her lightly.

For poorer women, of course, things can be difficult on a very different scale.  I have been teaching our cook, Sameena, English. She was very keen to learn, but, as she's illiterate I thought it was easier and more useful to stick to spoken English.  However, during our first lesson, she woefully picked up an exercise book from my desk and mimicked writing.  She was so happy when i started teaching her the alphabet that it suddenly struck me, like never before, how strange and difficult life must be if you can’t read a single letter.  The English I'm teaching her will not be any significant use, but she gets to join, to a very small extent, the exclusive club of words, which means the world to her. 

It quickly became evident that she's very bright, and unfortunately much brighter than her husband, who I've also been teaching.  I decided to separate their lessons, as he was getting angry and frustrated by her picking things up more quickly than him.  One day, I made the mistake of saying, "you are both very intelligent", to which Javad, who is usually a well mannered and kind man, replied, "I'm intelligent and Sameena is stupid," with such force and anger that I was quite taken aback.

Don't get me wrong.  Illiteracy in Pakistan is a hardship faced by men and women.  But, whilst the overall literacy rate in Pakistan hovers at about 46% (a shocking figure in itself), the literacy rate among women is only 16%.    This figure gives some idea of how unusual my experiences have been and how different the picture is for ordinary women.  Particularly in rural areas, it is not uncommon for girls to receive no education at all.   Sameena, having never spent a day in a classrom, is the absolute norm.

Women get a tough deal in Pakistan.  Especially poor women.  But then all poor people get a tough deal in Pakistan.  Someone said to me: " I just don't understand why these women don't want to fight for their rights." But how can a woman who can't read be expected to care about her rights? And how can a man who can't afford to feed his family be expected to care about his wife's rights?