Consequently, women need to work and contribute to the household income to afford a better lifestyle. A number of non-profit organisations are working for the empowerment of women. These organisations have facilitated women with the skills they need to progress, such as literacy and vocational skills.
Women For Women, an international organisation has empowered women around the world, particularly in Asia and Africa through education, medical aid and development. These women are encouraged to become community leaders, and they encourage other women of their community to raise their voice against wrong. NGOs are playing vital role in educating women and producing a number of great leaders in our global society nowadays.
And although women may feel empowered but their wages are low in comparison to their male counterpart. Just a small number of women work in stores, factories, companies, rest work in the informal sector which is very important for women. There is an estimate that around 90 percent of working women are involved in informal sector. These jobs are unskilled and low paid but still they feel empowered.
Globalisation offers women abundant opportunities but new and unique challenges as well. Organisations have been founded and created to protect the rights of women all over the world. With the rise of NGOs in the 21st century, the role of women in the globalisation process in Pakistan has changed.
Gender inequality arises from many causes and is of different kinds. It is particularly difficult to determine which types of inequality are being eradicated by impacts of globalisation and which are intensified. Gender inequality has more costs in an incorporated world. Women have to work much harder to get equal status in the society. And it appears globalisation seems to have a negative impact on women.
In several cases women are playing a dual role, they are not just caretakers but also a bread winner and economic contributor for their families - but society does not want to accept this truth. In Pakistani culture, most people think that if a woman chooses to be a working woman, it will badly affect their family and children. But it’s not true in all cases. In reality, globalisation is giving a free rein to competition between women and men.
Women play a dual role as they move to work places but their household duties have not been reduced. They are not paid for household tasks. Even though some women like the freedom brought on by delays in marriage, this independence lead to a huge problem of not finding a husband in an older age as compared to early ages.
Professionally, women suffer too. Long working hours as bread winners along with attending household tasks like cooking, baby care which become obstacles in their performance and in the way of success. Women further suffer as they receive lower wages as compared to men. Due to sexual harassment at work place, many women resist to work.
Surely, globalisation has paved many paths for women to progress and endorsed equality between the genders but it has created negative effects for women specifically. Gender differences in endowments, access to productive inputs and agency have muted positive impacts and added to inequalities between men and women and within women too.
The urban-rural divide further fragments role of women in professional areas. For example, due to low literacy rate and less awareness women in rural areas are more exploited as compared to women in urban areas.
Low literacy rate has limited women’s access to new employment opportunities. In agricultural field, higher educational rate have a positive impact on productivity, it improves farmer’s ability to adopt new techniques for improving production. But because of low literacy rate, female agrarians experience more limitations in gaining access to international markets as compared to males. If no family member supports them or take on their burden, it can prevent women from seizing new opportunities in the commercial sector.
Women deprived of property rights and their inadequate access to productive involvements also limits any benefits from trade opportunity. Gender norms for freedom of movement and women role in trade and industrial sphere can have an excessive emotional impact on women’s access to technology. At home, men mostly regulate television remotes, radios, and mobile phones. At work, men think that women cannot learn to operate electronic equipment. Gender inequalities increases because women are paid less and in some cases they have to give all her earnings to their family.
In agricultural fields, the gender impact on trade fluctuates according to the variety of agriculture and region. For example in Asia and Latin America, women practically do not have any rights in the agricultural infrastructure. The farmer’s chance to move in the export sector leads to conflicts in case of gender because the profits are constantly biased against women.
Export opportunities are not open for women all over the world. In some countries, women can move into the international market like men, but it is observed that in some countries women adjust slower than men to the export opportunities.
Women have not only found their space in work places but also need it in governance. The voice of women is increasingly heard in parliament and courts. Women in the west fought for over a century to get particular basic rights, like the right to vote, but the constitution of Pakistan gave women equal rights with men from the start. Unluckily, women in this country are mostly not aware of their rights because of low literacy rate and the oppressive traditions. Media has also played an incredible role in advancement of women’s standard of living.