If women are not protected socially, can legal actions protect them?
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Introduction
Social security despite legal actions is inevitable to safeguard women’s rights. A school of thought, nonetheless, believes that legal actions are enough to protect women, which lacks convictions.
- Understanding social and legal protection
- Legal actions are inefficient in absolving the social plights of women
- Feminization of poverty cannot be resolved by legislative measures.
- Conventions will not heal the wounds of women, urges the need for health security.
- Physical and psychological traumas of women due to wars and conflicts demand social protection not restriction.
- Laws and decrees are not the means of employment for women.
- Legal optimists believe that legal actions will protect women in society.
- Acceptance of human equality, irrespective of gender.
- Women’s right to education is deemed as the basic fundamental right of a person.
- Ensures political participation of all without any discrimination.
- Conventions and laws are enacted to ensure the economic well-being of the females.
- The international community has declared gender-based violence a crime.
- Legal initiatives work by letter, not by spirit: women do not cherish all the impunities in real life
- Patriarchal minds hitherto refute gender equality: men and women can’t be equal.
- Rampant girls out of school, debunking the notion of the right to education for all.
- Gender disparity in politics, alienating females from the political system.
- Women are unpaid or less paid class of society, despite equal pay laws.
- Myriad cases of domestic violence on a daily basis, refute the practicality of laws against women-based violence.
- Conclusion
Essay
Since the inception of human civilization, women have been deemed as an inferior class, which reflects the words of Aristotle, one of the stalwarts of Greek philosophy: “Woman is an incomplete man”. Later societies also ensured the same notion, as a prominent Victorian poet, Tennyson says: “Man for the field and woman for the hearth: Man for the sword and the needle she: Man with the head and woman with the heart: Man to command and woman to obey;” However, owing to various social and intellectual uprises, modern society has accepted the universal equality of all mankind: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”, stipulates by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. The international community has protected their political, economic, and domestic rights by enacting various laws and conventions. These legal obligations, nonetheless, seem toothless, practically as women are not only vulnerable to poverty and social conflicts but also found at bay in the realm of politics, education, and other social domains. According to the Global Gender Gap Index-2023, issued by “The World Economic Forum,” the global gender parity scaled as 68%, anticipating more than a century to attain full parity, if the international community works with the same intent. Hence, social security despite legal actions is inevitable to safeguard women’s rights. A school of thought, nonetheless, believes that mere legal impurities are enough to protect women, which lacks convictions.
Social protection is a holistic term that means safeguarding a person from various social evils like poverty, war and conflict, health crises, and economic harrows. If an individual is fully protected, socially he will be able to cherish all the above rights, with impunities and vice versa. Legal rights, on the other hand, denote all those privileges and opportunities, an individual owns as per the laws and regulations. The government and other bodies are obliged to provide all the rights which are prescribed, according to the law. The role of society and institutions in the legal protection of individual rights inculcates social protection. A class socially protected enables the state and society to implement the laws and rules regarding the rights of people. On the contrary, if a society is socially vulnerable, legal rights will never be enacted, by letter and spirit, as the society is not mature enough to fulfill the due obligations.
Legal impunities to protect women are not lucid enough owing to myriad social agonies. Firstly, poverty haunts women from pillar to post. Though, poverty is a global problem, and every individual suffers due to the lack of the necessities of life. However, based on the research and ground realities, women as a class suffer more, whenever society is hit by hunger and starvation. Millions of pregnant women are not getting proper food, putting their own lives as well as the babies in their wombs in trouble. According to the United Nations report, released in 2022, almost two third of the highly famished people are women. The hardship of women against poverty is not only limited to the third world nations, in fact, the developed world is also adding their shares in it. Hence, the sole women-centric laws are not lucid enough to subdue the plights of women, which they encounter due to extreme poverty.
Secondly, being the most vulnerable part of society, women remain a victims of wars and conflicts. Adversaries always punish them physically, sexually, and psychologically to absolve their rancors and frustrations. Women, as immigrants or displaced person due to war also exacerbate their troubles. According to the Amnesty International and The B’Tselem report (a Jewish human rights watchdog), thousands of women have been killed or even raped in the ongoing Hamas-Israel war. These statistics make the notion skeptical that women can be protected by legal initiatives without focusing on social traumas.
Moreover, women within the society are also found at the bay, because of the lack of health care units. Due to the various complexities of their anatomy and physiology, women need health facilities. Nevertheless, states are unable to provide this essential need to them, more importantly in developing nations as the government lacks capital. Millions of women have not visited any hospital throughout their lives, resulting in pre and post-pregnancy deaths. Another dilemma is akin to traditional societies, women are not allowed to visit male doctors and in multiple cases, female patients have kicked the bucket, owing to the unavailability of female doctors. The question whether legal impurities can resolve these concerns, which a woman faces daily. The answer looks quite bleak. Therefore, women can’t be protected by legal actions without sorting out social upcoming.
The fragile economic situation puts women in a weak zone. The subdued rate of females in family income makes them a liability rather than an asset. They are mostly dependents on their male counterparts: husband, father, brother, or son to accomplish their financial needs, which ultimately never allow women to make their own decisions. In one of its reports, the United Nations Development Program highlights the grim reality that women earn only a fifth of the global income. Most of the early feminists urged women to empower themselves economically if they wanted to get equal status in society. Betty Friedan, one of the pioneers of feminism embarked that she failed to understand, why educated women opt for a marriage ring by giving up their professional careers. Hence the insecurities of women are deeply entrenched within the society, which cannot be unleashed by enacting mere laws.
A group of people, nevertheless, are quite exuberant that modern society has protected women by enacting various laws. First and foremost, the acceptance of the dignity of women, declaring them equal to men. All the existing states and international organizations like the United Nations, have unequivocally acclaimed that all humans are equal, regardless of their gender. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 addressed in its first article that human beings are born free and equal. Moreover, article 25 of the constitution of Pakistan, 1973 also acknowledges the equality of the gender. So, the concern of the world in the previous society; that man is superior has been denounced completely, by inculcating various laws regarding gender parity.
Secondly, women’s rights to education have also been protected by legal means. The United Nations and other concerned authorities force all the existing states to declare women’s education as a fundamental right. Governments are obliged to produce a conducive environment so that girls can acquire quality education easily and peacefully. Almost all the states from America to Australia have made women education as part of their constitution. According to Article 25A of the constitution of Pakistan, 1973, it is the responsibility of the state to provide free and quality education to all its citizens up to age 16. The legislation and conventions stressing women’s right to education enshrine that their educational rights have been protected legally.
Apart from education, women reserved the legal right to participate in practical politics. They can contest elections, right to vote, or have the legitimate right to make their political party. Even in the contemporary world, women have been given reserved seats in the parliament to overdue their contributions in the political arena. They can assume any portfolio in the government, Benazir Bhutto has become the first female head of the state of the Muslim world, proving the opinion on its own. Moreover, the 19th Amendment in the US Constitution in 1920 gave women voting rights. Later the laws and conventions carried out by the states and international organizations made the political institutions more inclusive for women and can cherish all the political rights similar to men.
The disparity in incomes or wages has been refuted by the enactment of laws ensuring equal salaries and privileges irrespective of gender. Employers will consider the talent and competence of the employees rather than their sexual identities. The gender equality convention put forwound by the International Labor Organization (ILO) coerces those women and men treated equally in terms of their ways and working hours. The Equal Pay Act, initiated by the US Congress in 1960 also ensured the salary rights of vulnerable classes including women. So, the concern of the women in history of discrimination in salaries and duty timings has been addressed by enacting various laws, deeming them equal to men.
Last but not least, domestic or women-based violence, the pressing issue of every woman has been tackled by legal protections. Ancient societies considered females as an inferior creature and their counter-partners had the right to beat them physically. This notion predominates in an archaic proverb. “Women, dogs, and walnuts are similar; the more you beat, the better they are.” However modern societies have usurped such minds by declaring violence against women as a crime. “The convention on the elimination of violence against women stressed every civilized nation to stop the use of force against women.” Therefore, authorities tried to iron out the agonies of women by encapsulating legislative measures and obliging state institutions to protect them.
All the laws and regulations tailored to protect women seem ineffective if one tries to unfold the social conditions of women in practical life. Starting with the claim, that women are accepted as equal to men sounds abstruse. Though on paper the dignity of females is recognized, however, realistically, society, believes in the traditional concept of gender: men and women are biologically different so they will never become socially equal. Men are more powerful while women are deemed as emotional and weak creatures. Their activities, needs, and social engagements are quite different. A case reported on media in 2023 that the local community of Swabi did not allow girls to play a cricket match declaring it as unethical. This episode reflects that people have not accepted the idea of human equality, which makes all the legal efforts for the attainment of an egalitarian society, a futile act.
Secondly, women have been given the right to education, constitutionally, but practically their share in illiteracy is maximum. Either the parents do not allow their daughters to enroll in the schools or colleges or the state has failed to provide enough opportunities to uplift female education. In both cases women must bear the brunt: alienating them from their inalienable right to education. Article 25A gives both men and women equal rights to education, however, according to the economic survey of Pakistan, 2023-24 literacy rates of boys and girls are 69% and 56% respectively. So, despite the legal protection, disparity in the literacy rates of different genders reveals the impracticality of legal protections, regarding women’s education.
Women are by large at bay in the political arena. They have the right to participate in the political system, nevertheless, the patriarchy has yet perturbed their roles. The whole system both at the state level and globally is profoundly occupied by men and the women neither have the courage nor the resources to challenge the set patterns. Because of these resources political roles of women are subdued which elucidates from the annual heads of the state conference of the United Nations 2023 only eleven heads of state were female out of 193 state representatives. Moreover, the United States of America, the beacon of liberal feminism is yet waiting for its first-ever female president. Hence women’s participation in politics seems to be a far cry owing to inundating social constraints and the legal obligations that have failed to unleash them.
The legislation enforcing equal pay rights sounds mere daydream as the majority of the women are paid less or even unpaid in daily affairs. Various surveys and documents of the states illustrate that most of the women are involved in domestic and household work. Modern feminists consider them unpaid workers because they work hours in the house without any wage. Apart from domestic and household responsibilities, the bulk of females are also involved in agriculture which is a less-paid field, while most men work in industries and the corporate world, the huge paying sectors. The UNDP report states that women perform two-thirds of the total work but only get one-tenth of the earnings and own only one hundred of the total wealth. Therefore, the problem of women is not the lack of participation, it is the overlooking of their roles that marginalize them in society and the legal protection fails to provide their economic rights.
Lastly, women are still bearing the brunt of domestic and gender-based violence, even after the legal protections. The beating of females in the hands of their husbands, fathers, and brothers along with honor killing is rampant. Victims, either are unaware of their rights or consider it as a social reality, resulting in the reduction of complaints. Moreover, the whole judicial and police system is predominated by patriarchal minds that abate women to avail their due rights. According to the UN reports, two out of three women face domestic violence from their immediate male relatives at least once in their lives. So the laws and rules formulated by the states and other international organizations fail to protect women from the anger of men illustrating the inefficiency of legal protections without social security.
In conclusion, although significant legal frameworks have been carried out, globally to safeguard women’s rights, they alone fall short of achieving gender equality. Socioeconomic challenges, such as poverty, conflicts, inadequate healthcare, political exclusion, wage disparities, and domestic violence, continue to marginalize women. Social protections that address these challenges are essential to making these legal rights effective. A comprehensive approach that combines legal measures with active social reforms is necessary to ensure women’s genuine empowerment and security. Only by transforming societal attitudes, eliminating structural inequalities, and enhancing social support can the rights of women be fully realized, thereby creating an environment where laws become truly effective in bridging the gender gap.
The writer is the English Editor of The Spine Times.
