There has to be some obedience between individuals and between individuals and the state, otherwise marriage could not exist and neither could civil society. Obedience is also good for athletes or students, but it is often detrimental for Pakistani women to be obedient to the state or men. This is because Pakistani women live in such an oppressive and patriarchal society that their academic, professional and life opportunities are greatly stunted if they remain strictly obedient. This analysis will discuss why unconditional obedience can be harmful to women in Pakistan, including the feelings of one Pakistani woman I interviewed. A conclusion will address how Pakistani women might avoid unconditional obedience without undue recrimination.
The interview I conducted was with a Pakistani exchange student name "Durrah." Durrah told me her name means "Pearl." Durrah told me strict obedience in Pakistan can be harmful because it can make a girl very unhappy. Pearl explained to me that Pakistani girls have no say in any matter that American girls do. She told me her father had the right to permit her education or not and to even say "who I would marry." Durrah was able to get an education due to her mother's support, but she told me her mother was uneducated because she remained totally submissive to her father and her father before him. Her father did not believe in education for women.
Women in Pakistani society are also harmed by unconditional obedience because it greatly limits their chances in life. They are deprived the very rights that many individuals and women enjoy the world over, from education to career choice. Najam (2009) reports that because female children are not particularly desirable to chauvinistic Muslim society, female children face life as "a journey of subordination...with the whole society acting as an oppressor, browbeating her in to obedience" (p. 1). In this sense, it is...