Socio-cultural Obstacles in the Way of Women Participation in Politics: A Case Study of District Charsadda, Pakistan

Abstract

Political participation is one of the important factors of empowerment and creates awareness among females about their rights in a society. Equal distribution of power, authority, rights, needs and participation etc. are the need of an hour. In male dominant society women are not allow to participate in politics, caste vote and contest in the politics as a member. In Pakhtun society specifically in district Swat females are confronted much more miseries and dilemmas to take part in active politics. The primary facts were collected through simple random sampling technique where the total population, was 196 in the target area of the study. After the collection of the primary data then the researcher analyzed the empirical data through SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences). The data were analyzed in two phases in the first phase of the analysis the frequency and percentages have come out through descriptive statistics in univariate and the bivariate data were analyzed by applying Chi-square test to see the association level between independent variable (social and cultural values) and dependent variables (women participation in active politics) in inferential statistics. Through the political participation of women, it can easily encourage and award women to address their issues and solve them according to their own wishes and desire. The study recommended that although women had liberty, however religious misinterpretation were in prevalence. Also this is recommended that women participation in social and cultural values improve the women part in active politics.