Domesticated gender (in) equality: Women’s education & gender relations among rural communities in Pakistan

Abstract

Grounded in a gender equity perspective, this ethnography of educated women professionals from rural and low-income communities of Pakistan examines the impact of women’s education on gender relations in the domestic sphere. The analysis shows how education can produce contested practices of gender equality through providing educated women access to new roles in public spaces while further integrating them in the domestic sphere. It questions the current emphasis on gender parity among international educational policies and projects as the key to empowering women. Instead of approaching gender equality as the ability of educated women to participate in public institutions, this article emphasizes the need to examine how education can reproduce certain gender hierarchies while transforming others in the domestic sphere.