Global listings have their own merits, but inherent in them is the global context in which they tend to view and compare various aspects of human existence and social growth. This some time tends to eclipse the local view that is relevant to any particular nation. It is, indeed, up to the nations to take a holistic view in line with the ground reality. Those who fail to do that, suffer. It is as simple as that.

Take, for instance, the Global Gender Gap Report published by the World Economic Forum recently according to which Pakistan now occupies the last spot in the global gender gap index among the countries of Asia-Pacific region.

Pakistan lost the 133rd position due to a decline in perceived wage equality. Pakistan lags behind the global average on all the four sub-indexes — economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. It now occupies the last spot in the region.

Lest it be mistaken, let’s set the context at the very outset for the diehards (read ‘feminists’). Gender discrimination is something abominable. Period. There is no debate on this count. There can’t be. Can we move forward now … Please? Thanks.

In Pakistan, the educational attainment sub-index is suffering from a gender issue that has begun to take its toll on the social fabric. The girls are not at fault — not the sole culprits, at least. All professional institutions in the public sector have practically become all-girls entities. The open-merit admissions have ensured that girls will get to study whatever they wish to. The boys — easily distracted and flawlessly dumb as they are — fail to make the cut and move out to private institutions; fail the entrance test of the more reputable of the lot; and finally land in institutions of dubious credentials. Those who can’t afford to pay the exorbitant fee change the course of their career and move around like rudderless steamers in rough waters.

So far, so good. The girls and the boys both get what they deserve. There can be no dispute on that count. What happens from hereon, however, is an issue; a big issue.The way our society works, the period of higher education coincides with prime time matchmaking. The strength of the First Year classes in universities is invariably higher than that of the Final Year. The girls keep dropping out as soon as the parents find what we all apparently live for: a dream son-in-law.

Precious seats vacated by these girls remain unfilled and the money invested on such girls stand wasted. From social science to medical colleges and from business administration to engineering; nothing is immune to this phenomenon. Those who complete the degree requirement generally do not join the job market for reasons that are too obvious to be narrated in detail.

This ‘open merit’ is practically closing the door on many a carrier. The way our social structure stands, it expects the boys to be the wage-earners, and the girls to be the home-makers. It may be right, it may be wrong and those who want to change it may do whatever they want to their heart’s content, but things are not going to change in a hurry.

The girls applying for, say, Petroleum Engineering know for sure that they are never going to practise it as the oil fields are either in the deserts or off-shore. But they still apply and get their admissions because the admission policy is governed by ‘open merit’. Likewise, there are doctors in numbers that are more than what the country needs, but quite a few don’t practice; others opt for a limited number of specialties; and almost none of them is willing to work in urban areas. We may have opinions on the first two counts, but the reluctance to go to the interiors is perfectly justified.

Regardless of the reasons behind their decision, the result is lopsided distribution of state resources. The Pakistan Medical Association, a forward-looking body that has nothing to do with right-wing discriminatory tendencies, recently raised its voice on the issue.

“For a variety of reasons, female doctors opt out of an active professional life, leaving a massive gap in terms of human resource available to provide healthcare to the needy. In five years time, the lack of male doctors in public and private hospitals would worsen to such an extent that it would be downright impossible to make amends then. It is vital, therefore, to do something today to preempt a serious crisis in the years ahead,” said a spokesman.

He highlighted some options like reserving seats for male students in medical colleges and the establishment of ‘male medical colleges’ in all provinces to prevent what is an emerging national crisis. He also appealed to the Supreme Court to form a special commission to revisit its 1991 decision through which the court had abolished quota seats.

Besides the six female medical colleges, female students have been able to get almost 75 per cent seats on open merit offered by 124 public and private medical and dental education colleges in the country. Most male students who wanted to become doctors have been consistently outclassed by female students since 1991.

Clearly, it is time to revisit our uni-dimensional view of the gender bias. Anyone with a starting point in mind? You? … You? … Anyone?

humair.ishtiaq@gmail.com