Pakistani Women A Socioeconomic & Demographic Profile

What are the role, the status and the place of a woman in a society made up of both men and women? Rousseau�s famous declamation about mankind, �Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains�, is a more accurate description of the status of women since time immemo- rial, even though the great advocate of equality between men, somewhat ungratefully to the woman who educated him, never thought much of equality between sexes. Most of the intellectual seraphim � philoso- phers, social reformers, the high priests of religion and the laity � in all ages and in all climes and cultures have indulged in epigrammatic humbug when it comes to recognizing woman as a normal human being. It appears that while a part of these great men, who stand high on their austere marble pedestals, has striven for more light of knowledge, the other part has asked for more darkness of ignorance. This is at least one indisputable case where, contrary to Rudyard Kipling�s prophecy, the East and the West have more often than not met in a warm embrace in an atmosphere heavy with prejudice and superstition � only to prove, with the help of the flimsiest arguments, unsupported by any solid empirical evidence, that a woman is innately inferior to man in terms of physical strength, emotional stability and intellectual prowess, and that she suffers from some mysterious heirloom paralytic infirmity that cannot be cured by any cultural, educational or civilizational shocks.