Gender & Education: Pakistan
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Constructed roles
Bernadette Louise Dean explains how gender is represented in textbooks.
A collection of research-based essays on gender issues in Pakistan’s education system.
Every society desires to transmit to its members its traditions and values. At the same time they are also being prepared to improve society. Education thus has a dualistic and paradoxical role of socialisation and transformation. In most education systems, the primary school curriculum is geared to accomplishing the socialisation role; and the secondary school curriculum, which provides opportunities to question the taken-for-granted, serves as an agent of social transformation.
The role of the textbook is important to the socialisation and transformation process. Textbooks deal with subjects. In order to facilitate the learning of a subject, textbook writers create a human world that learners can recognise and identify with. Textbook writers thus construct the subject and the world. Through these constructions they can either seek to create a new world or reproduce the existing one. Because the human world is inhabited by women, men, girls and boys, textbooks present a gendered picture of the world and encourage girls and boys to take up the positions constructed for them ...
A number of studies on gender roles in textbooks have been conducted in the last 35 years. In 2001, the Centre for English Language Education Commission, City University of Hong Kong, conducted a review of studies on gender roles in textbooks in Hong Kong as well as in various other countries in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America. The review shows that regardless of the country of origin of the textbooks, males are dominant; and the description of roles, relationships and personal characteristics are more favourable to males than to females.
The review found that males are more visible than females in textbooks. They generally appear more often in texts as main characters, in story titles, and in illustrations. For example, they cite a study conducted by Gisnet (1988) on Israeli English-language textbooks which found that males constitute about 67 per cent of all the characters and 89 per cent of all children in pictures are boys. They also found that the visibility of men increases due to the language used. ‘Men’ are used to portray ‘humankind’ and ‘he’ is used to refer to ‘all human beings’.
The review found that textbooks ascribed mutually exclusive characteristics to females, on the one hand, and to males on the other. In most English language textbooks, males of all ages are shown as having greater physical strength, mental perseverance and moral strength than females. They cite a more recent study of children’s literature by Turner-Bowker (1996), which found that females were portrayed as weak, passive and feminine, while males were strong, active and masculine.
In the description of occupational roles, researchers refer to both horizontal (range of occupations) and vertical (rank) dimensions. They also refer to the number of males and females shown in occupational roles. Their findings show that females are shown in fewer occupations than males and are generally at lower ranks or in low-paid jobs. They found that there were more working males than working females shown in most English-language textbooks. However, both males and females are shown in stereotypical occupations. For example, they cite the Hartman and Judd (1978) study of US English-language textbooks which showed females could only be students, bank employees, nurses, stewardesses, salesgirls and housewives. Females do appear as Congressswomen or lawyers but the researchers feel these are only token gestures.
In representing family roles, textbooks show more females at home and stereotype the domestic tasks for males and females. Females engage in domestic tasks such as cooking, baking, cleaning, polishing, mending, sewing and washing, while males do the gardening, repairing, etc. Mothers are shown as taking care of the children at home while fathers take the children for outdoor activities.
Most gender role studies in textbook research focus on the invisibility and misrepresentation of women and recommend that the invisible woman be made more visible and shown in varied occupational and family roles. In many countries, attempts have been made to correct gender bias by increasing female visibility and reducing stereotypes by showing women in non-traditional roles. However, men and women continue to remain opposites complementing each other.
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In Pakistan, studies that focused on identifying gender roles and the analysis of the construction of gender in textbooks have been published since the 1990s. These studies show that women are absent in history textbooks as most history is written by men and is about individuals, dynasties and war; not a single woman is included in the social studies series on important personalities (Shah, 1985), and in language textbooks, women are rendered invisible. They are confined to the four walls of the house and there too they are irrelevant (Mattu and Hussain, 2004).
Gender role studies generally show women in the role of a mother, cooking and taking care of her children. In very few cases are women shown working outside the house — usually as teachers. Men, on the other hand are shown working in professions such as doctors, engineers and managers. Girls are shown as helping their mothers with the housework while boys play outdoor games like hockey and cricket. Men and boys are never shown doing housework or looking after children. Furthermore, women and girls are characterised as vain, silly and stupid while men and boys are intelligent, brave and strong (Saigol, 2004; Shah, 1985).
The world constructed by the textbook is one of gender apartheid and is aimed at creating a patriarchal society. The world is divided into two spheres, the public sphere and the private sphere. The public sphere is the sphere of political, economic and social activity — the domain of men. The private sphere is limited to the home — the domain of women. Here the women’s chief role is that of a mother who cares for the children and the home. Men and women must function in these totally different but complementary spheres because it is ordained by nature. Women enter the public sphere only out of necessity but men are part of the private domain as providers for dependents.
The world of economics and commerce is constructed as masculine by (a) showing only men taking part in productive activities, and (b) limiting women to reproductive and domestic roles thereby placing restrictions on their mobility. The text shows only men engaging in productive activities at all levels — primary, secondary, and tertiary. They grow the cash crops on farms and catch fish, and they produce goods in factories and industries. They are also the service providers — teachers, managers, and salespeople. By engaging in such activities, men generate income to provide for their families. The woman’s role as mother is privileged. However, motherhood also requires the women to stay at home and care for their children. Their mobility is limited because leaving the home would result in neglecting the home and children. Furthermore, as all their needs are provided for by the men, they do not need to engage in any kind of productive work.
While all men engage in productive work, the class to which they belong determines the work they do. Since members of the ruling class are predominantly upper-class and male, it follows that upper-class males should be shown to naturally possess the qualities required for leadership and for positions at the higher rungs of the occupational ladder. The lower-class males are destined for lowly jobs. Thus, not only men but boys from the upper classes are offended when asked to do work that must be done by men of a lower class ...
The family is an important institution for the socialisation of children into their culture. In the need to construct gender apartheid, texts ensure that even in depicting family life, there is a complete separation of girls and boys, women and men. Girls and boys are shown as brothers and sisters, who do not interact with each other in any way, rather they live parallel lives. Similarly, women and men are never shown in the intimate relationship of wife and husband. The text’s denial of the sexuality of women and men indicates a fear of sexuality and suggests that the only reason women and men live together is for progeny. The woman, therefore, must take care of the children and in return the man will provide for her and his children.
The discourse in the textbook is that of ruling-class men, who construct a world in which there is gender apartheid in an effort to consolidate their power. It denies the emerging new reality and seeks to further strengthen the dominant existing reality based on patriarchy. For example, in constructing women’s lives as confined to the home and their role as mother, the textbooks rely solely on the patriarchal myths of femininity and ignore the reality of the diversity of women’s lives in society. The textbooks erase the active participation of women in the public sphere by overlooking the fact that an enormous number of rural women are engaged in agricultural work in Pakistan. It also fails to acknowledge the ever-growing number of urban women working in formal and informal economic sectors. It further denies the number of women, though small, who choose not to become mothers. The textbooks thus deny that women in addition to their reproductive roles also have productive roles, and those who have choices, may choose other than what is prescribed for them. Similarly, women have always participated in decision-making in society, albeit, in small numbers. Pakistan has also had a woman prime minister but the construction of theocracy, as portrayed in the textbook, clearly denies women of this role.
In the same way, the textbook’s construction of men also denies the existence of many men who play an active and participatory role in the home and in raising their children. It further denies the fact that many men find it difficult to bear all the responsibilities of caring for a family and choose to share them with women.
Excerpted with permission from Gender & Education in Pakistan Edited by Rashida Qureshi and Jane F.A. Rarieya Oxford University Press Plot # 38, Sector 15, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi Tel: 111-693-673 ouppak@theoffice.net www.oup.com.pk ISBN 0-19-547376-0 267pp. Rs495
