Cultural Perceptions and the Productive Roles of Rural Pakistani Women (Demographic Analysis) (Report‪)‬

In most societies, women have been defined largely in terms of their maternal and caretaking roles and hence been stereotyped as "domestics". Epstein (1986); Ortner (1974); Reiter (1975); Rosaldo and Lamphere (1974); Rogers (1979) and Nelson (1974) argue that the roles that females take have been viewed as relatively of lesser significance in larger cultural pictures. Male as opposed to female activities have always been recognised as being more important and cultural systems have given authority to the roles of men and have portrayed them as being of greater value. Anthropology, in the past, has also followed in the same evaluations and greater attention has been given to the documentation of male activities which constitute the "public" life of the culture and are therefore more visible to the researchers. As a result the "private/domestic" spheres where women are involved have been downgraded. All this has led to impoverished ethnographic accounts, and to a number of misconceptions regarding female values, contributions and activities. Rogers (1979) states: In a similar vein, in Pakistan, a myth of female dependency clouds the perception of the active productive roles of women and male heads of the household are viewed in the larger cultural pictures as predominantly participating in the maintenance and economic survival of the family. It can be argued that the contributions and productive activities of rural Pakistani women who work in the subsistence sector of the economy are more invisible than their counterparts in urban areas who to some degree are acknowledged as part of the work force because they work for wages along side men. In addition, the features of purdah (1) and segregation of sexes prevailing with a relatively greater intensity in the rural areas of Pakistan have to a large extent, deterred both male and female researchers from conducting studies relating to women. Whereas owing to the lack of access of male researchers to female domains, they have concentrated little on issues that relate to women, studies undertaken by female researchers are few and far between. The resulting dearth of published anthropological/ethnographic studies regarding rural Pakistani women in general and what they supply in terms of goods and services in particular has further reinforced the traditional concept of women's roles being limited to the bearing and bringing up of children and that of men being the only productive members of the household. This in effect obscures the responsibilities women undertake for supporting the family and the enormous amounts of time they spend in activities that are essential for sustenance in terms of providing food and other items of necessity for the household. However, only a handful of studies have outlined female productive contributions as of vital importance. See Abbasi (1982); Malik (1977); Saeed (1966). A study by Anwar and Bilquees (1976) in a Pakistani village reveals that apart from playing an intensive role in farm management, rural women are also active in producing goods and services not only for their own consumption but also on a smaller scale for sale and exchange in the local market. Talking about rural women in a Pakistani village they state: