Identity Politics and Women: 'Fundamentalism' and Women in Pakistan

This chapter examines the religious Right in Pakistan and its evolution in the political process, as it is in the backdrop of the rise of the obscurantist forces that the religious women's groups can be best understood. It attempts to identify the "fundamentalist" women, their background, the needs and dynamics of their ideology, and the other less known mechanisms initiated to spread and consolidate the obscurantist right. The struggle for women's rights in Pakistan has been one of consistent opposition from the religious-orthodox quarters. The rise of the religious Right in Pakistan is closely linked with the peculiar nature of political development in the country. The social base of the Jamaat-e-Islami is the newly urbanized, upwardly mobile classes of Pakistan's expanding cities. Like men, women who believe in the ideology of the religious Right are first generation educated women who have for the first time entered universities and professional institutions and are working outside the home.