Fighting Odds in Domestic Sphere: Mothers’ Role to Alter Cultural Values Governing Daughters’ Rights in Pakistan

Abstract

Feminism begins at home. To test this question this article is based on findings of a survey and discussion with three generations of mothers, who had struggled for ensuring rights of their daughters in particular. They represent diverse ethnic groups of Pakistan. True, in an overall patriarchal environment, mothers are blamed for perpetuating son preference and socializing the daughters to a submissive role, but it is also true that mothers of somewhat different inclination have been continuously resisting the odds put in their daughters’ ways to enjoy and progress in life. Even in rural areas, illiterate mothers’ have been asserting for daughter’s education, mobility, cultural participation and choice in marriage. Mothers have been promoting daughters’ rights, a struggle which can be labeled as ‘activism in domestic space’, which is transmitted and reinforced down the generations of mothers. Thus the role of mothers in changing cultural values and gender stereotypes is essential to be studied. They have the agency for taking initiatives in a domain which instills feminism very successfully in an unnoticeable way. The study proves that even mothers can be corrosive for patriarchy. Selection of three generations of mothers from rural and urban areas and different ethnic groups provides a good cross-section and shows the trend in various sociological regions.