Patriarchy and violence against women | Political Economy | thenews.com.

pk 8/1/21, 11'18 AM

Patriarchy and violence against

women
Overhauling the justice system is the key to
reducing violence against women

The gruesome murder of Noor Muqaddam, the daughter of a former

ambassador for Pakistan, has left everyone crestfallen. No one would have
expected that a bright, smiling face would be prematurely snuffed out in
such extreme anguish and pain. Everyone is looking for answers.

Was this the result of widespread misogyny, a sense of entitlement that

comes with wealth and power, a criminal justice system widely seen as
favouring the rich and the powerful, or an instance of parenting gone terribly
wrong?

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Patriarchy and violence against women | Political Economy | thenews.com.pk 8/1/21, 11'18 AM

Many commentators in the mainstream and social media look at the murder
of Noor as the murder of a woman committed by a man. As a corollary they
attribute it to the patriarchal nature of the society. The patriarchy in Pakistan
has also come under the spotlight recently in other contexts. When the
supporters and detractors of the Aurat Marches were busy trading barbs, sly
innuendos and loud bickering confused the meaning of the patriarchal
system. It may be instructive to take a detour to understand what patriarchy
is and how it is conceived in Pakistan.

Patriarchy is a system of relationships, beliefs and values embedded in

political, social, and economic systems that structure gender inequality
between men and women. Attributes seen as feminine or pertaining to
women are undervalued, while attributes regarded as masculine or
pertaining to men are privileged. Patriarchal relations structure both the
private and public spheres, ensuring that men dominate both. Feminist
scholarship also theorises linkages between patriarchy and capitalism,
colonialism and nationalism,

In patriarchal societies, women are excluded from political, social, and

economic positions of power; women find themselves paid less for work of
equal value; and women are more likely to experience poverty, less access to
resources, goods and services. While individual women may experience
success in various spheres, women as a distinctive social group are
generally disadvantaged in these ways.

The Pakistani characterisation of the patriarchal system is more reductionist.

Pakistani scholarship sees patriarchy in its more obvious symptoms: when a
woman introduces herself as “Iʼm Mrs X”, it is considered a negation of both
her legal and physical identity. When a woman wears a hijab or a niqab
despite greater economic opportunities, it is considered as giving in to
patriarchal values.

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Patriarchy and violence against women | Political Economy | thenews.com.pk 8/1/21, 11'18 AM

Of course, Pakistani scholarship on the patriarchal system is not always

oversimplified. However, calls for greater female participation in the public
sphere and greater political participation as an antidote to patriarchy are
overshadowed by a realignment in the duties related to household chores.

The real problem lies in a widespread misunderstanding that a patriarchal

system is prevalent only in Pakistan, or by extension, in societies at the early
stages of economic development. It may be claimed without fear of
contradiction that patriarchy rules in almost all societies. An excerpt from
The Guardian says it all, “In Britain, with its equality legislation, two women
are killed each week by a male partner, and the violence begins in girlhood: it
was reported last month that one in 16 US girls was forced into their first
experience of sex. The best-paid jobs are mainly held by men; the unpaid
labour mainly falls to women. Globally, 82 percent of ministerial positions are
held by men. Whole fields of expertise are predominantly male. These
include physical sciences (and women garner less recognition for their
contributions – they have received just 2.77 percent of the Nobel prizes for
sciences.”

Granted that patriarchy is prevalent in most of the world, letʼs assume that
patriarchy shows a gradient and is found in its more virulent form in certain
countries, including Pakistan. Now, coming back to the fundamental
question of the link between the patriarchal system and the higher risk it
poses to womenʼs lives, the data paints a stunning picture in which the
patriarchal system appears to be better at protecting womenʼs lives.

When some sections of the media in Pakistan project Noorʼs murder as

emblematic of the typical Pakistani patriarchal male attitude, they miss an
essential point. According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) report, the share of female intentional homicide victims in Pakistan
is 23.3 percent. It means that three men lose their lives on average against

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Patriarchy and violence against women | Political Economy | thenews.com.pk 8/1/21, 11'18 AM

every single case of female homicide.

More women are killed in the Western democracies with a high level of
human and economic development and greater freedoms for women than
in the countries generally dubbed as patriarchal.

Western Europe is considered one of the most developed regions in terms of

womenʼs rights and with patriarchal values mostly subdued. Surprisingly, the
share of female intentional homicide victims in Western Europe is
significantly higher than in Pakistan. According to the UNODC report
referred to earlier, the share of a female intentional homicide victims is 35
percent in the Netherlands, 38 percent in France, 43 percent in Belgium, 47
percent in Germany and 50 percent in Switzerland. Ironically, these countries
are considered to be the safest places for women.

Conversely, the countries characterised as deeply patriarchal have

significantly lower female homicide rates. For example, the share of a female
intentional homicide victims is 12 percent in Egypt, 14 percent in Uganda, 15
percent in Sudan, and 16 percent in Congo.

Surprisingly, the countries which have the highest homicide rates have the
lowest rates of female homicide. For example, in Brazil, 30 persons per
100,000 were killed in 2020, but the female intentional homicide rate was 10
percent. In Colombia, 26 persons per 100,000 population were killed in
2020, but only 8 percent of the murdered peoplewere women. In Panama,
the homicide rate was ten persons per 100,000 population in 2020, but the
share of female homicide victims was only 5 percent.

Based on this data, an unmistakable picture emerges: in relative terms, more

women are killed in the Western democracies with a high level of human and
economic development and greater freedoms for women than in the
countries generally dubbed as patriarchal. This implies that holding
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patriarchy responsible for violence against women is factually incorrect and

detracts from the real causes of violence against women.

Contracry to the widespread view that honour killing is unique to Pakistan

and some developing countries, violence against women by a family member
is significantly higher than violence against men in many developed
countries. A study in the advanced economies found that in 60 percent of
cases of intentional homicide of women, the perpetrator was a relative of a
victim. These advanced economies include Canada, Finland, UK,
Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain.

It is not the least helpful to attribute the violence against women to wrong
causes because it leaves the real issues unaddressed. There is reason to
believe that patriarchy was not the real issue in the sad demise of Noor. For
starters, Noor did not face the limitations that are generally associated with
patriarchy. The reasons are not difficult to comprehend.

Family values in Pakistan show a wide diversity and are critically dependent
on the educational and socio-economic status of the household head. The
typical Pakistani woman faces several restrictions on her social interaction,
educational trajectory, career path, choice of marriage partner, reproductive
decisions after marriage, and her role in household-level decision-making.

Noor was an educated woman and had lived abroad thanks to her fatherʼs
job. Given the information gleaned from social media, she apparently
enjoyed enough freedom to participate in social gatherings. In a nutshell, she
was not the type of personality shaped by the typical patriarchal values of
Pakistan.

Similarly, if we look at the life circumstances of the perpetrator of the crime,

his parents belonged to notable business families. Since the perpetratorʼs
mother was also running a business, we should not expect that the
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Patriarchy and violence against women | Political Economy | thenews.com.pk 8/1/21, 11'18 AM

perpetratorʼs family espoused a typical Pakistani patriarchal mindset. So, we

have to move beyond a convenient characterisation of patriarchy as the
driver of violence against women.

The state of the rule of law and criminal justice system might have a clue to
massive violence in the society. Global data also points to a strong
association between the number of homicide cases and the criminal justice
systemʼs effectiveness. According to the World Justice Projectʼs Rule of Law
Index, El Salvador, Honduras, and Venezuela were some of the worst
countries in terms of the criminal justice systemʼs effectiveness. These three
countries ranked 116th, 123rd, and 128th in a sample of 128 countries,
respectively.

Not surprisingly, these are the countries with the highest homicide rates,
with El Salvador having 83 cases of intentional homicide, Honduras 57
cases, and Venezuela 56 cases per 100,000 population in 2020. Conversely,
Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Norway, and the Netherlands had some of the
most effective criminal justice systems. The homicide rate in all these
countries was less than 1 per 100,000.

The takeaway is that we should improve our criminal justice system.

Contrary to Pakistanʼ rebuttal of the American report on Pakistanʼs judicial
system, Pakistan ranked 120th, 118th and 98th in a sample of 128 countries in
terms of rule of law, civil justice, and criminal justice, respectively.
Overhauling the justice system is the key to reducing violence against
women, men and children.

The writer is an assistant professor at the Department of Economics at

COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus

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