Indians deify women, but they treat women even worse than doormats. Female infanticide is prevalent in the country. Wombs become the cemeteries of female babies even before they see the light of the world. After they are born, they are killed in various ways. Because female children are looked upon as a burden on the family and are an ill omen in the family. Even if they survive they are not educated as their male counterparts.

Just a few days back, an incident in Delhi’s satellite town of Gurgaon has reiterated the continuation of atrocities against girls. On April 12, an 18-month-old girl baby was found, abandoned by her own parents at a well-known hospital compound. The couple who abandoned the baby seems to be from a well-to-do family. Reports say that the mother of the baby told an old woman to look after her child as she was going out to purchase a medicine. After sometime, the father of the child turned out and told he would bring the car and pick up the child. Since nobody came to take the child, the old lady handed over the child to the hospital authorities. Fortunately the baby was alive when it was handed over to the police for security. Medical report of the hospital says that the child was not suffering from any ailment.

Two days prior to this incident,  a three-month-old female child died in a Bangalore hospital of cigarette burns on her head and a dislocated neck. The injuries were inflicted upon the child by her father in a bid to kill her as he did not want a girl child.

Reasons for gender discrimination in India

1) Women in India are accorded low esteem in the Indian society. They are victims of the patriarchal ideology that oppresses them. History points out that gender discrimination has been an age-old practice in the country.

2) The government recently alerted the country saying that female infanticide is a national crisis and that more than ten million girls have been killed by their own parents in India in the past 20 years.

3) Male members of the family bring income whereas female members add only burdens. Social prejudices and superstitions deny women opportunities for education and jobs.

4) Although the dowry system is legally banned in the country, the Indian parents consider girl children as liabilities, especially because of the rampant practice of dowry.

5) Crimes against women are growing everyday. Rape, molestation, kidnapping and sex abuse are increasing in the country at an alarming level. Hence, parents do not want to face such shameful discrimination by having female children.

The reasons for male domination and female discrimination in India are attributed to various social and economical conditions. Apathy to the birth of a girl baby in India is really deplorable. What can change this cruel fate of Indian women?

Geography, then, is an important factor and this can affect life chances on a surprisingly small scale: people born into a slum part of a city might face poverty while those born a mile or so away in a middle class area will be likely to have a much easier life. The same can be true of rural areas as well: patches of fertile and infertile land can exist in close proximity to each other. Environmental degradation and global climate change is making this situation worse in that land that was capable of providing a decent living has become very quickly marginal or even incapable of supporting such a living.

Gender, class and race can also make a big difference because of the presence of discrimination. In many countries, women face discrimination and even violence based on their gender. Internationally, women are paid significantly less than men for doing the same kind of work, while the work deemed suitable for women usually attracts lower salaries than work suitable for men and all of the domestic labour that women are mostly required to conduct in their ‘spare time’ does not attract any salary at all. People of different colour are regularly discriminated against in almost every country, including the most developed, and are more likely to be paid less and to face poverty. Other forms of discrimination are also rife.

There are also, of course, political reasons for poverty. Some of those are contemporary and some are historic. When the British imperialists first arrived in India, the standard of living in India was higher than it was in Britain. Imperialism led to the impoverishment of millions upon millions of Indian people while their money and resources helped to make Britain the member of the leading economies that it is today. The same is true of the Netherlands and Indonesia, France and Indochina, America and Spain and the Philippines and so forth. Today, unaccountable tyrants across the Middle East are facing revolution and expulsion because their policies of extracting resources from the people, making and keeping them poor and powerless for the benefit of small morally repugnant elites, have finally provoked large-scale demonstrations.

 Man and women created on this earth do many tasks but their tasks cannot reach extremities because of their inherent physical differences, i.e. that some tasks which are done by man cannot be done, or done only with difficulty by women and vice versa. Though they are physically different, there are some minor exceptions where women are able to do man’s task which usually cannot be done by them.

The first impression any person gets when he hears the word ‘man’ is his robustness and strength. Men are able to do much physical work than women in areas like mechanics. Mechanics requires mental alertness and equally much physical work and obviously man is the only person capable of doing these jobs. During the engineering college counseling in India, we find more boys getting enrolled in mechanical and civil engineering departments than women, this proves clearly my interpretation.

In sports, man is known to be more charged with energy than women .i.e. they have more stamina than women. In tennis we see women players are given three sets and men are given five sets. But women are breaking these barriers; a good example is Malleshwari, the only Indian to get an Olympic medal for India. Nowadays women are trying to break these barriers in other sports like tennis, hockey etc…The best example is Sania Mirza of India who is excelling in Tennis like men.

Women are good in intelligence and quick thinking that men and hence are suitable for tasks which require less physical work like software development, electronics, chess etc like men. Women are usually selected in industries and management sectors for tasks which require negotiations because of their beautiful voice and complexions and hence they get the job done easily according to the desires of their boss. These tasks are usually not easily accomplished by men.

Even though many tasks done by men cannot be done by women and some task which are did by women cannot be done by men, there is something called will-power which can make a person irrelevant of sex to perform tasks which an ordinary person feels very difficult or impossible to do.

Walmart was started by Sam Walton in 1962 and as of today has many outlets in different countries operating under different names. According to Forbes report, as of 2010, it was the “largest public corporation by revenue”.

Walmart features in the news for many reasons, both good and bad. It is discussed in social medias gaining foes and supporters alike. Some support it for making the common person afford things that would otherwise be outside their domain while critics argue that the low prices have depressed domestic wages and exported manufacturing jobs to foreign countries which in the process has hurt Americans more than help them.

Complaints have been leveled against it for undercutting its business competitors by offering very low prices to the same products as its competitors. By so doing, Walmart was in effect pushing smaller business entities out of business.

Walmart is known to have grown stronger during the recession due to its low prices on grocery and other products. “The financial turmoil that strangled discretionary spending at many stores sent struggling consumers straight into the arms of Wal-Mart”. However as the economy picked up, the sales are said to have “flattened up”.

The areas that the company has however featured more is on its labor relations. Walmart has been accused many times of exploiting its factory workers particularly those from developing countries. It is suggested that the only reason it is able to offer such cheap prices for its products is because of exploiting cheap labor in countries like China.

WalMart has also been accused of being racist against people of color and it has really been working hard to wipe out this image. More and more their commercials have employees who are of color which is of course aimed at showing diversity of its employees. This accusation emanated from a time when someone used a Walmart public address system and said “Attention Wal-Mart customers: All black people leave the store now.”

Recently a gender discrimination class action was filed against Walmart on the basis that Walmart has had policies that discriminated against women in wage earnings and advancement in the company. The women also alleged that they were treated like “second class” employees and spoken down by their male bosses.

The court is yet to determine whether the law suit originally filed by six California women but later joined by other women in different parts of the USA is to be allowed as a class action. If this is allowed, it will be the “largest employment discrimination class action in history”. If the action succeeded it would mean a back payment for a million plus female workers.

But this writer has a different complaint with Walmart and that has to do with its customer service. Perhaps because of underpaying its employees, Walmart seems to get unmotivated stuff or it just does not train its employees on customer relations.

The other day this writer went to Walmart seeking to buy ink cartridge for her printer and a few other things. The black ink cartridge was on the counter but the tri -color one that accompanies the black ink for the particular printer was missing. The writer saw an employee designated to the area and proceeded to ask whether they had that ink.

This writer could not remember the exact number for the ink (they come in numbers). She tried to explain the model of the printer but before she could explain herself the Walmart employee said, “this is not a butchery that you tell the butcher what cut of meat you wanted”. This writer was tongue tied and asked the employee why he was so rude. He actually wanted to argue because he could not see how his comment was inappropriate.

Before then, in the same store the writer had another experience with a female stuff.  The writer was looking for a particular stitching needle and saw two ladies who looked like stuff. Out of courtesy the writer asked them whether they worked there and they sounded irritated as they said yes. Most well run places would actually have asked first whether the writer needed help.

Anyway, the writer proceeded to ask them where she could get the needles she was looking for. One pointed towards a particular direction and at first this writer could not see the needles and then she heard one of the women say under her breath “You are not serious”. The writer laughed it of and moved on.

The second encounter was therefore déjà vu for this writer who decided the two encounters were enough for the day and it was time to walk out of the place before it got to her. So as Walmart tries to fix its other problems can it also focus on customer service because this writer would rather shop at Target 100% than at Walmart with that kind of attitude.

The quotation by Mahatma Gandhi clearly illustrates the impact that poverty could bring. There are many reasons that cause poverty, but to summarize them, here are 3 causes of poverty:

1)      1. The lack of a good capitalist system. Although capitalism is well accepted as the most moralistic system, as exemplified by the mere fact that it is the system that is practiced worldwide, there must be some balancing exercises inherent in the system. For example, a good capitalist system should have some degree of socialism to act as a balance for the people who lack opportunities. Income tax is one socialist ways to help contribute to the poor. A higher income tax would mean that the rich will have to contribute a sum of their earnings which can be used for the welfare of the poor. An example of a bad capitalist system is one that is practiced in India. In India, the rich are filthy rich, while the poor are in extreme poverty. Another example of a good capitalist system is where they implement the imposition of reasonable minimum wages to avoid workers earning wages below the poverty line.

2)     2. The lack of education. Many people are now aware of the importance of education. Education can help a person be lifted off from poverty. If we are well educated, chances are we will get a well paid job that could sustain us financially. However, not many countries place enough emphasis on the importance of education. There are many areas in India where children do not even have a school to attend to. There are countries where, even if schools are available, the education system might be flawed. This applies to many Asian countries where children are mostly taught on empirical knowledge, with no emphasis whatsoever to epistemological knowledge and reasoning skills. They are taught to just memorize and regurgitate facts in exams. Consequently, there are many who could not earn a decent living even after receiving education in a flawed education system.

3)     3. The lack of opportunities. While education is important, a person with good opportunities can be equally, if not, more successful, depending on how he utilizes his circumstantial advantages. Bill Gates is one good example. Yet, there are many factors which contribute to the lack of opportunities. One example is the pressing issue of discrimination. Even if one is well educated, he might not be given the opportunity to utilize his knowledge at all because of his race. Hence, first world countries that are aware of this issue that causes poverty implements the practice of affirmative action to help the minority. Other factors that cause lack of opportunities include gender and class discrimination.

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Aaah! Gentle men and ladies are nude here, not even a centimeter of cloth on the body! Naah! I can not do. Can any body do it publicly? Certainly not, if done so they will be considered either mad or manic. But surprisingly it is. Although not on mass level but in a small place called office (more surprisingly it’s an office) where both male and female employees are working nude without any shyness, hesitation or gender problem. The news is real and the place is an office of a company of Design and Marketing that is situated in New Castle. The company is doing excellent business and employees are happy to do so. But what inspired them to do so? Infect the step was taken to counter the slow down in economy that has taken place worldwide. The company also got affected by this crisis and in turn had to drop its six employees to cut off the expenditure. Later the company appointed a business psychologist David Taylor to get help to counter the economic crisis and to grow the production of the company. And as par his advice the employees finally decided to drop all their cloths and sit completely nude in office while working. In the beginning gentle men and ladies did so only on Friday, but later they began to drop their garments all the working days of the week. According to the Boss of the company it did work and the graph of production saw a new height after this experiment.

According to a 23 years old employee Sam Jackson, they feel freer, relax and energize now. Irrespective of any gender discrimination and hesitation they are giving their best performance and company is growing. Their workability has got a new boost and they are now not afraid of being dropped by the company. Jackson said that they felt little nervous in the beginning but everything became normal and more better soon. Not only this, the company has also appointed nude models to advertise their product. According to officials, it is their own wish to do so and have no pressure from any body. It is on their own wish to do so and have no pressure from anybody. In case, one has the feeling of privacy bleach, he/she can work in dress or only in under garment. One of the higher authority of the company Mike Oven states,” Either we are brave to do so or we are going mad.” He advised his fellow employees to not do so till they felt they were doing the right thing.  

“We both see gender as a construction; and we think of the multiple meanings gender has taken on or been given over the centuries.”

(Maxine Greene and Morwenna Griffiths, Feminism, Philosophy and Education: Imagining Public Spheres, pg. 75)

Gender discrimination is prevalent in Pakistan. In his article in The News on July 27, 2002, Rasul Baksh Rais said this about the questions of gender discrimination,

“These questions have been a subject of many theories, conjecturing and sociological explanations in different countries. Many of the factors that work against equality of women in both developed and developing countries are more deeply ingrained in Pakistani society. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, has attempted to explain low participation of women in politics with reference to four hypothetical constraints — physiological constraints; cultural constraints; role constraints; and male conspiracy”
( Rasul Baksh Rais, Gendered Discrimination)

Tragically discrimination based on gender also takes place in the field of education. In the article by Waqar Gillani published in the Daily Times where he interviews Dr Rubina Saigol the following analysis is presented,

“She said as long as Pakistan’s ideology is religious nationalism, democracy cannot flourish. “How can democracy be possible when half the population is not considered equal to the other half, legally, economically and socially? Is democracy possible given the kind of nationalism that dictates the primacy of religion, which is interpreted as having institutionalized gender inequality?” She said education is meant to be a progressive force, but in Pakistan curricula and textbooks had to be rid of gender discrimination before this could be possible.
(Waqar Gillani, Daily Times, Gender Discrimination in Curriculum Must Go)

It was important to look at gender discrimination in the nation of Pakistan before conducting the exhaustive analysis of the textbook. While doing so it is important to note that the textbook in of itself does not blatantly discriminate on the basis of gender significantly. However, what is more important to note is the fact that the text book substantiates the notion of gender prevalent in society to the new generation. Education is the primary way to form the consciousness of the generation and with such perpetuation of certain ideologies about gender through these textbooks is a dangerous tool. It cannot be argued whether the authors of the textbook have made a conscious decision to promote such notions or it is simply a result of their own internalization of gender identities by society.

As we live in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan it is no surprise that the first lesson is on Hazrat Muhammad (SAW), who is referred to as the great reformer. My assertion that there is no blatant effort to discriminate is shown here as part of the passage states,

“Before the advent of Islam, women were treated in a very inhumane manner. Most of the girls were burnt or buried alive in their childhood. Islam emphasized the equality of rights of men and women.”
 (English Punjab textbook, pg. 1)

We can see that equality of the sexes is promoted by the text book, relying on the authority of Islam. However, soon enough gender differences are emphasized as well in the text book. On Page 6 it clearly states that “The Masculine gender is used for males. The feminine gender is used for females.” (English Punjab textbook, pg. 6).Although this appears to be something obvious to most people, the fact that gender differences are emphasized so early on to make the child know that males and females are different. What is not considered here is the fact that the terms “masculine” and “feminine” are actually social constructions and the possibility of males being feminine or females being masculine is not even considered as a possibility. For example the Chuckchee of Siberia recognize 4 genders namely that of gender male who is sexed male, gendered female who is sexed female, gendered female who is sexed male and gendered male who is sexed female. The differences between sex and gender are conveniently ignored by the text book. Sex is the biological differences whereas gender is the set of associations and expectations by society based on the sex. Even during the exercises the male version is always mentioned first, for example the lion before the lioness and the king before the queen. The exercise of differentiating these words is also a way to show the differences in gender.

In the first line of Lesson No. 3 it is written that “God is love and the best prayer to God is the love of His creation.”(English Punjab textbook, pg. Even though God has no sex or gender, the masculine term is used for God, which means masculinity is given more power. People working in the field of Feminist Theology like Ester Mcintosh and John Macmurray have rejected the notion of God having a male gender. They also object to the extension of this concept whereas God is given “masculine” attributes like authoritarianism and disciplinarians. They refute this with the “maternal” attributes of God like nurturing and creativity. Mark Silk says that,

“The main line of feminist criticism holds that, in the distant past, humanity worshiped earth goddesses (or The Goddess) as the source of all being, and women played a central, if not leading role in the religious life of their tribal communities. As civilization evolved, deities of both genders multiplied; sexual pluralism obtained in religion. Then, however, the Israelites made Jahweh the object of a monotheistic cult, and the image of a jealous and authoritarian male god was loosed upon the world.”

(Mark Silk,  Is God a Feminish?)

Lesson No. 4 is a poem with no mention of gender. Lesson No. 5 provides the first fictional story and ironically all the characters in the story are males. The story is about a boy Hamid who goes to visit his uncle and cousins Nadir and Haris. Hamid goes from the village to the city to visit them. We can relate this to the notion that generally in our society boys have a lot of freedom than girls to do things hence the story talks about a boy. Maybe the story would not have been so widely accepted and taught if it talked about sending a girl to the city all alone. Although, that experience would have been emancipating for the girl and such emancipation should be promoted by our curriculum. Lesson No. 6 reiterates a Chinese folk tale called ‘The Chinese Wisdom’. The story talks about the prince Tai succeeding his father as king, again it is assumed to be normal that the boy will succeed his father as the king. Even later on when the story talks about the necessary disciplines to be a good ruler, the pronoun used for the ruler is “He” which means the possibility of a female ruler is not even considered.

Lesson No. 7 comes as a seemingly breath of fresh air for women. The article talks about the participation of women in nation building and their emancipation. However, there is gender discrimination in this article too. Amongst the hardships faced by working women, her number of children and other family members is considered which clearly means that in society women are responsible to take of the family. In the case of a working man this would never be a consideration. Later on the author outlines the major fields and areas where women are working; this shows that there is a predominance of women in certain fields only. The list evidently starts with the field of education followed by the medical field. Lesson No. 8 is another poem.

Lesson No. 9 is titled the Chinese New Year. In the middle of the article it states that before the New Year day, “The female family members make many kinds of cakes and other sweet dishes.” (English Punjab textbook, pg. 23)Once again housework is depicted as the realm of a woman. There is seemingly a separation of the public and the private spheres here. The problem with this separation is tackled in Feminism, Philosophy and Education as follows,

“A further problem with the notion of “the public” springs from its conceptual opposition to “the private”. This opposition has sexist effects because the ideas of “public” and “private” are themselves gender-inflected for Westerners. In an early piece of feminist philosophical analysis, Public Man and Private Women, Jaen Elshtain(1981) traces the effects of that gender inflection through the history of Western Philosophy.”

((Maxine Greene and Morwenna Griffiths, Feminism, Philosophy and Education: Imagining Public Spheres, pg. 84)
 
The fact that it happens in China also shows that there is a certain idea of universality of these gender roles hence they should be considered completely natural. These are the subconscious messages which the students internalize from these lessons. The article also states that “man came into the world on the seventh day, so this is a birthday for everybody.” (English Punjab textbook, pg. 24) The masculine term i.e. “man” is used to encompass everybody, including women; giving the masculine term more power.

Lesson No. 10 is not discriminatory in itself but shows the discrimination in society as it talks about Rawalpindi’s only exclusive park for women which is known as Ladies Park popularly but it’s proper name is “Fatima Park”. However, the park has not been looked after and all the facilities provided have been discontinued hence the park is in shambles now.

The Eleventh Lesson is about Sports and Games and provides the only really blatant discrimination based on gender in the text book. It says that “Young boys play basketball and voley-ball. Girls play netball which is played on the school courts.” (English Punjab textbook, pg. 28) Clearly, they are promoting different sports for different sexes. Additionally, it suggests that girls only play on the school courts whereas there is a possibility for the boys to go out and play. This article is in reference to the Greeks so it once again tries to promote the idea that gender discrimination has occurred for ages hence it is not something that should be disregarded. It almost comes naturally to the people teaching these lessons. Lesson no 12-18 show no obvious signs of discrimination. Gender is not even mentioned in them. However, in Lesson No. 19 it is written that “Man is the central figure of the universe.” (English Punjab textbook, pg. 46) It can be assumed that the masculine term is used to describe all human kind but the fact that it is used means that the male version is given more power than the female equivalent. Man is used to describe all human kind hence the term “man” is more powerful than the term “woman”, which is seen as merely a derivation of the term man.

Lesson No. 20 is called “Doctor’s advice”. The purpose of the article is show the virtue of cleanliness. However, the article is based on the notions of gender prevalent in society because it tells the story of a girl Hina who wanted to eat fruit chat but her brother did not let her because it was not clean. Later on she asked her brother to get her golgappy but he refused again. However, she proceeded to have them anyways and subsequently she got sick. First of all, it shows the subjugation of the female gender by the male gender. There is no mention of the respective ages of the children hence age cannot be a viable criteria to maintain authority.

The only criterion evident therefore is gender and the lesson shows that the male gender is more powerful than the female gender as the brother has more authority. Additionally, the brother is also more rational of the two as he forbids her sister to eat unhygienic stuff. The girl is projected as being unintelligent as she really did get sick after eating the golgappay. There is an idea of inequality of the sexes in this article, however, another interesting take on this is found in the article Feminism, Philosophy and Education, which states,

“WE concur that a just society is one in which we all contribute( or could contribute) and benefit. Influenced by Arendt, we use ideas of coconstruction, of the in-between….Freedom is to be found in action with others. It is not simply the negative freedom of interference from others, nor again is it simply the freedom to make individual choices (Arendt, [1961], 1993, p. 151). There is an equality of recognition of the presence of the other as who as well as what she is.”

(Maxine Greene and Morwenna Griffiths, Feminism, Philosophy and Education: Imagining Public Spheres, pg. 83)

The last two lessons show no signs of gender discrimination. In conclusion, we can see that gender roles are substantiated by these textbooks. Even though they do not promote active discrimination, just the fact that the preexisting gender roles are not challenged and the minds of a new generation are not opened up to possibilities means that the notions about gender existing in society will continue to exist and perpetuate themselves. Although I have only managed to analyze one textbook, this seems to be the general trend in the curriculum set forth by the education boards of Pakistan. This point was also made by Dr Rubina Saigol in her interview to the daily times. The need of the hour is a complete revision of the education curriculum to develop new ideas to truly inculcate new ideas into the minds of the next generation so that they can take those ideas forward and form a new society rather than simply indoctrinating existing ideas prevalent in society. The society in the world is transforming and there are continual efforts to reduce discrimination based on natural variables, Pakistan should also follow the world example and reform their education system. Both at the elementary and the secondary levels discrimination based on natural differences should by systematically taken out of the curriculum so that the students do not subconsciously internalize these ideas and hence follow in the steps of the past generations. Discrimination has a tendency of growing stronger and living in a highly patriarchal society like Pakistan with religious overtones, it is incumbent on the government of Pakistan to teach tolerance to the new generation rather than discrimination.

The society as a whole can benefit by this reform. Conclusively we can see that there is gender discrimination in the educational curriculum of Pakistan and there is a need to transform the curriculum to do away with gender discrimination so that these notions of gender are not internalized and consequently perpetuated by the next generations.