Introduction:

Gender inequality means imbalanced behavior and point of view of people based
on their gender. Although this issue is, both for men and women but, mostly
women are deprived of their rights. As it is a common issue in most of the
countries nowadays, but this study is concerned with gender inequality in
Pakistan. Their emotions, feelings and happiness are not understood. Some
people considered that women are lower in status to men both physically and
mentally and their lives are totally supervised by men, birth of a son is considered
a blessing while the birth of a daughter is a problem. Wife beating is common.
The family honor is related with women and their actions. The people usually
assert that girls’ education does not bring in earnings but they are wrong.
Educating a woman is helpful for the whole generation; an educated woman can
bring up her children better and also contribute towards the family income if
necessary. Gender discrimination exists mostly in poor educational background.
Educated families support woman education because they know that educating a
woman actually means educating a generation. So, with the passage of time, the
opinion of people will change through education (Zarar et al., [1]). This paper
attempts to investigate the thoughts of men and women on gender inequality.
We conducted some interviews and asked questions like whether they agree that
women are not treated fairly & whether parents give more importance to their
sons as compared to their daughters and how gender inequality can be removed
from society.

Literature Review:

Bukhari et al., [2] examined that in Pakistan just like many Muslim countries,
female suffer perception as a result of socio-cultural standards. Financial
problems are a major concern for educating the women, but many girls face
harassment and criticism from people. Females mostly from rural areas are
incapable to convince their families for education and higher education,
transportation problems, lack of family support and the narrow mind-set of
families make it worse for women. The problem is of male controlling society in
Pakistan which leads to perception and yet women are not able to make choices
for their rights except for a few in urban areas. In his study he also tells that there
are total 342 members in the National Assembly of Pakistan, which includes 60
reserved seats for women. In “Pakistan Today” [3] it was mentioned that Pakistan
has been classified the second worst country in the world in the aspect of gender
inequality. In Pakistan, 98 percent top managers in banks and other economic
organizations and manufacturing units are male. This clearly shows that women
are not treated equally as applicants for top management positions. Males are
given importance over females in a country where females are more in number.
Fleming et al., [4] examined that men’s perpetration of violence against women is
personally related with gender norms and gender discriminations. Pakistani
women are more than half of the total population, but women are treated cold-
heartedly within their homes by their partners or leading males through different
ways like Domestic Violence, Sawara, Vani, Karo, Kari, killings based on honor,
acid throwing, forced marriages etc. Gender discrimination is also deeply fixed in
Pakistani society in education and employment areas. It was examined that
according to a survey which was conducted on 1000 women in Punjab, the 35% of
the women admitted in the Hospitals reported being beaten by their partners and
it also shows that at least two women are burned every day in domestic violence
occurrence. Pervaiz [6] claimed that women are behind men in almost every field
of life. Women have less access to education, physical well-being and work
chances. They enjoy very restricted ownership rights. This has controlled them in
playing an active role in economic and development events. The gender inequality
issue is of very complex nature. It is intensely imbedded in history, culture and
customs of a society.

Methodology:

In this research, the population of size 70 is considered taking BS students, FAST

CFD Faisalabad. There are two homogeneous groups one consisting of female
students and other consisting of male students. There are total 35 males and 35
females in this population. A survey was conducted on this population, a google
form with specific questions was released and the data was hence collected .
Results and Findings:

The questions on the google form allowed the respondents to be very open and
honest. About 82% respondents (amounting to 58 people out of 70), responded
that they feel like women are not treated fairly whereas the rest 18% thought
that women are treated fairly in households and in workplaces and even
educational systems. Out of these 58 respondents, females constituted for 32 and
males amounted to 26. This leads to the conclusion that 91% females feel that
women are not treated fairly whereas 74% males feel like women are not treated
fairly. The rest of the 9% females and 26% males do not agree and think equal and
fair opportunities have been provided to women in Pakistan.
Regarding the second focus point being whether there was a disparity and
inequality that women face from their parents in the household, around 60%
respondents felt like females and males were treated differently by their parents
(amounting to 42 people out of 70). Out of these 42 people, 24 were females and
18 were males. That means 68% females and 51% males thought that females are
treated differently in households.

Significance of the Study

The significance of the study is:
1) To examine gender inequality in Pakistan.
2) To examine thoughts of men and women about gender inequality.
3) To examine the discernment in parents’ behavior towards their son and
daughter.
4) To suggest different ways for removing gender inequality from society
Conclusion and Discussion:

Gender inequality is an important issue in Pakistan, keeping this in view, the main
concern of the study is to know the point of view of males and females about it.
The results demonstrate that, the point of view of mostly people is that, parents
give more importance to boys as compared to girls and also there is
discrimination in the field of education. Mostly backward area people have
controversial thoughts about women. More than half of the people in the study
experienced gender inequality. The value of correlation coefficient shows that,
the more opportunities are given to females for social work, the more they can
contribute in the economic growth of the country. It also shows that males and
females’ point of view about gender inequality are not same. As gender inequality
cannot be removed permanently but with the passage of time it can be
eliminated. If government provides opportunities to women for social work and
social activities and also encourages their participation so, they will be able to
work for the betterment of their society and country.

The research suggests that there are multiple ways to improve gender balance in
the country. It is clearly observed that 60% people agree that gender inequality
can be removed through collective efforts by government, action taken against
harasser and parents should give equal importance to their son and daughters
Similarly, for the development of country it is necessary that Government should:
1) Provide equal opportunity to both men and women.
2) Promote education and professional development for women.
3) Provide equal rights for women at work place.
4) Ensure health, protection and happiness for all women.
5) Defense against domestic violence and mistreatments.
6) A system should be in place to hold parents accountable in terms of giving
inheritance to females and to check whether they are being treated differently
References:

[1] Zarar, R., Bukhsh, M.M. and Khasheli, A.K. (2017) Causes and Consequences of Gender Discrimination
against Women in Quetta City. Arts and Social Sciences Journal, 8, 1-6.
 [2] Bukhari, A.H.S., Gaho, G.M. and Soomro, K.H. (2018) Gender Inequality Problems & Its Solutions in
Pakistan. Research Journal of Political Science, 7, 47-58.

[3] Bakhsh, N. (2017) Gender Inequality. Pakistan Today

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/02/24/gender-inequality-2/

[4] Fleming, P.J., McCleary-Sills, J., Morton, M., Levtov, R., Heilman, B. and Barker, G. (2015) Risk Factors
for Men’s Lifetime Perpetration of Physical Violence against Intimate Partners: Results from the
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118639

[5] Pervaiz, Z., Chani, M.I., Jan, S.A. and Chaudhary, A.R. (2011) Gender Inequality and Economic Growth:
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