Pérdida de la racionalidad de la opinión

After considering the findings of my data collection tools, the following new theses emerged:

5.19.1. A complex and paradoxical role of men in the women’s lives

This study found a complex and paradoxical role of men in women’s’ lives, educated, broad-minded men (who support women in all fields of life) as well as un-educated, narrow- minded men (who do not support women’s education and work, even forcing them into their traditional roles in the family). These traditionalist men’s approach is highly influenced by the culture and society; they ignore the real teachings of Islam. The difference between these two opposite attitudes of men is due to their secular contemporary and religious education. Male support for women’s education, marriage and career was considered obligatory across all economic strata within the sample women’s lives. My sample women did not even imagine it for a little while, because men’s support means both moral and financial support for the women at both times of ease and times of difficulty. Men defend their rights and stand by them in all situations before and after marriage. Therefore, my sample women cannot make any independent decision about themselves. They were bound to their fathers, brothers and husbands, and in extended family uncles and cousins too.

My sample women have a passive role in the household, which they willingly accepted in the social milieu. They considered their family men as their well-wishers and protectors from all evils. They cannot put them into trouble, and all their social and economic measures are for safeguarding their family women. My sample women did not express any frustration or overbearing control in their personal and emotional lives. This might be because of the social taboo to criticise their family. But with the overall interaction with my sample women, I did not feel it at all that they were pretending about the positive aspects of their family men.

In other words, they feel honoured to go out in the company of their family men. Therefore, they avoid going out by themselves or with friends only. However, they were

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allowed to see their friends during the day. My sample women were born and brought up in the same culture, before them they saw their mother, aunties and other family women in the same pattern of life. So, the acceptance of such social and cultural values does not bother them. There was not an active (men’s) and passive (women’s) role clash. The sample women were happy in their allocated role. ‘I cannot talk to my father directly; whenever I need

anything I ask my mother, she always conveys my needs, feelings and emotions to my father’

(a sample woman). I concluded my data analysis with an extreme love and respect for the family men by my sample women.

5.19.2. The role of the extended family in women’s lives

The sample women’s male extended family members (uncles and cousins) and their real brothers were more influential than the fathers. The majority of my sample women live in their extended family system with their grandfather, uncles and cousins, who are considered as part of their family. Some families have different houses with the same courtyard, while some live in one roof in different rooms. This is an old family tradition that all men run their family business or agricultural land. They believe in the concept that sharing is caring.

They make a joint family decision regarding their women’s lives. Sometimes having older fathers encourages their sons to make decisions on the family matters, as after the father they will be the supporters of the entire family. It is also in the culture of the society that fathers give preference to their sons’ opinions instead of their daughters’. The data shows that the sample women’s brothers were reluctant for their sisters to enter higher education. Instead, they wanted to get them married as soon as the family received a suitable proposal for them. Secondly, public transport is not a safe method for college or university students to use for travel on their own. If the women do not attend college, then the brothers can avoid the responsibility of picking up and dropping off their sisters. The sample women further explained that brothers have to become responsible for the whole family when a father gets older; therefore, parents accepted their sons’ decisions rather than their daughters’. So, they were happy with their brothers and cousins learning from their father and uncles. It is a tradition of Pukhtun society that each woman should be known by her father’s, brothers’ or husband’s name. Men do not mention their daughters’, sisters’ or wives’ names in front of men from outside the family.

Therefore, women in the sample often rely on their family men for important decisions. There was no class variation in the value of men being responsible for all their women’s

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actions and decisions. The sample women confessed: ‘my family men always ask our opinion

but as we have no experience of making decisions and a fear of wrong decisions, we are reluctant’ (sample woman). Their limited exposure and interaction within the society further

limited their choices and likes and dislikes. However, this was not considered as a matter of oppression by my sample women.

5.19.3. Money is power: economic status impacts all aspects of women’s lives

The wealthy sample women were more confident about their continuation of higher education or how to live a prestigious life in society. Sometimes the upper and upper middle class women take some bold decisions, such as not observing fully the Islamic code of dress (purdah). Those women studied in private elite English medium schools that fully opened the doors of higher education in Pakistan and abroad. Because of their parents’ strong financial position, they can afford the high fees and other expenses of attending those schools. The working class sample women attended Urdu medium schools because their families could not afford the expenses of English medium private schools. As this study has shown, since they have not been educated in English, they may experience difficulties in accessing further and higher education (where most of the reference books are available in English only, although the higher education staff delivers their lectures in mixed of Urdu and English to make the concepts clear for native students). Women belonging to well-educated and financially secure families can make decisions regarding their higher education and marriage after family consultation. In these families, brothers have little influence over these decisions, as they are not considered to be responsible for their sisters. Affluent families, as mentioned earlier, usually have a car with a driver who can fetch and carry their daughters to and from school and college, or they can hire private transport for them. They can also afford for their daughters to stay in college hostels (which are the most expensive accommodation in the cities). Money is a source of power for them; they can hire tutors to teach the girls at home, so they can facilitate their daughters’ education by any means.

5.19.4. The language of instructions and its impact on women’s education

Their economic class further facilitated my upper class sample women with a strong command of the English language as well as confidence. I felt a clear difference between the working class and upper class sample women’s mode of interaction, apart from language, because I allowed my lower middle and working class sample women to choose a language (English and Pukhtu or Urdu) with which they felt confident. However, they were quiet,

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hesitant and did not display a smile or hope. They were constantly correcting and rephrasing their own sentences. They sounded very serious and mature in their attitude. By the way, it is hard for two Pukhtuns to speak in different languages, but my upper class sample women were using many English words and phrases with full confidence and were enjoying the interview process with me.

As the literature review of this study found, linguistic complexity is a tool of fostering and reproducing the class system in society, where one school system (English medium) produces high class executives and the other (Urdu medium) lower class employees. Therefore, attaining education was very dependent on the economic status of my sample women’s families. Pakistan has a very low literacy rate as compared to the other developing South Asian countries, because of the allocation of low GDP (2.2%) and rarely produces up- standard material for the government schools, which are Urdu medium only.

This study concluded that the chosen language of instruction has a great effect on women’s ability to access opportunities for higher education. The sample women from Urdu- medium were hardly coping with courses taught in English at their college and university level. Rehman’s (2006: 89) criticism suitably fits here: that this elite class had a better chance with the English language, which they adopted as a culture too, to differentiate them and make them superior over Urdu-medium or traditional (Dini-madaris) stake-holders. Above all, this is the kind of cultural capital which has snob value and constitutes a class identity marker (Rehman, 2006:90). Furthermore, this study holds up the Marxist feminists’ theory regarding education, because the education system in Pakistan is also cultivating and reproducing a class system in society by its dual language of instruction.

5.19.5. Social Taboos

My sample women criticised the state, the government and the education system, but none of them extended their critique to their own families, especially their family men. They were following women’s traditional role in Pukhtunkhwah, a role that is subservient to men. They criticised the state or government policies and the prevailing education system but not their family men, who are making this society and sit as politicians in the Ministry of Education and Curriculum. However, at the end of my data collection process, they explicitly admitted women’s own exposure and thinking towards higher education as the first and foremost problem that has to be addressed by the women of the society. They did not criticise individuals within their family who are reproducing the patriarchal nature of the family and