November 4, 2004

Women @ Work exhibition, conceived as a tribute to the Pakistani women, is now set to travel overseas. Rumana Husain writes about how it came into being

Discrimination and crimes against women have no sanction in religion. Since antiquity, there are numerous instances where one discovers women in important spheres in the Arab world as well as in ancient India.

If we wish to stick to our own roots and heritage and look at our own land, we must not be misled into believing that dowry, honour killings and hermit-like disadvantaged lives are ancient customs that have been ordained for us and that it is our fate as women to be doomed.

True, there was discrimination in pre-Vedic times, but it was against men. For instance, men were required to retire as hermits at the age of 60, while women were free from such conditions. There are examples of women who became hermits in ancient times, but that was usually voluntary as they wanted to ‘listen to their inner voice’.

Islam as well as Hinduism are the two dominant religions of this region, both based on principles safeguarding human rights, protecting creatures domesticated and wild and preserving the natural environment. It is, therefore, difficult to believe that these faiths would sanction or tolerate discrimination against women, who consist half of humanity.

For a number of years now the various movements for womens’ rights in different countries of the world have been raising their voices against discrimination, sometimes successfully and sometimes not so successfully to achieve their goals.

Women artists have nearly utilized everything from painting on canvas to body art, and from embroidery to baking flour, lashing out at all kinds of extremism, even vociferous feminism, as both feminism and religious fanaticism have their parallel problems.

Being a Pakistani woman is no easy task, as this male-dominated society presents some formidable barriers such as religious constraints, traditional societal norms, patriarchal educational systems, isolation from contemporary cultural centres, disapproval by family members (also female members who have been conditioned), and even lack of awareness of basic rights.

Even in such a scenario, there are women who have either made a mark by rising to high ranks or opting for ‘unusual’ professions not generally pursued by females. And there are those who may not be well-known but who have certainly contributed towards the well-being of this society.

In March 2002, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day (IWD), an important collaboration was formed between the British Council, Karachi, and a non-profit organization working in the education sector in the country for the last nine years – the Human Rights Education Programme – known widely amongst school children and teachers in the country as HREP. This collaboration was created for a poster exhibition called Women @ Work.

The exhibition was held at the British Council (on Bleak House Road), which closed down later that year in the aftermath of 9/11. The display continued to attract a large number of people, mostly from schools, for six weeks.

A year later, the partnership was further consolidated when the HREP developed and printed a bilingual teacher’s manual in time to go with the re-launching of the exhibition in December 2003. This time, the V. M. Gallery at Rangoonwala Centre was the venue for a three-week long exhibition.

This was a new beginning, as it was decided that the 72 Women @ Work should get out of closed gallery spaces and visit schools, colleges and other institutions themselves.

Since January this year, the travelling exhibition has created ripples, as students and teachers have looked at the bilingual posters in wonderment. The exhibition provides a good opportunity to raise important issues around women’s rights and their roles in society. The Pakistani woman has not been represented justly in the media either at home or abroad, and the exhibition helps to dispel some of the myths surrounding her.

Students as well as teachers are inspired by the images of the poets, pilots, painters, hawkers, dancers, development workers, bankers, teachers, lawyers, writers, activists, doctors, architects, actors, politicians, or home-makers they see in these posters. These women seem quite different from the Pakistani women stereotypes projected by local advertising agencies or the international media. Furthermore, the lesson plans in the teacher’s manual provide interesting background material and exciting ideas for classroom activities.

Not satisfied with travelling locally, the Women @ Work exhibit, conceived as a tribute to the Pakistani women, is now gearing up to travel overseas early next year. Their first stop will be Nottingham, UK, where a local cultural organization, Apna Arts, will be hosting the show on the occasion of IWD. For this purpose, HREP is redesigning the posters, so that the original 26 posters prepared by the British Council and the 46 earlier developed by HREP would follow the same format.

Nobody can claim that the selection of the personalities featured in this exhibition is perfect. Perhaps such perfection can never be achieved, as there aren’t just 72 Pakistani women going places but millions more, and no exhibition space, however large, can be big enough to accommodate them all.

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)