Modern democratic age is based on the philosophy of |ONE-MAN ONEVOTE". Women constitute more than 50% of the world population. Pakistan's Constitution of 1973 has guaranteed women's political rights, equally with men. The general elections of 2002 and 2008 witnessed greater women political participations compared to the elections of 20th Century. The 9/11 incident and un-natural death of Benazir Bhutto left society plagued with extremism, fundamentalism and terrorism. In many instances, the war on terror crossed 'Durand-Line' and affected Pakistan, especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, where every second family faced causality. Vested interests and international media focused on the region and sketched it from darkness to table of discussion. The reports of FAFEN, IDEA, PILDAT, European Union Observation Mission and Election Commission of Pakistan also acknowledged the truth that political participation of women has accelerated in Pakistan tremendously by means of casting votes, launching elections campaigns and contesting elections on general seats.

There are various perspectives and interpretations regarding an interaction of religion and women's parliamentary Representation. In Pakistan,the religious debate started since its inception in 1947. The religious debates translated into objectives resolution and were adopted by the constituent assembly in 1949. Women parliamentary Representation remained a complex phenomenon due to the religiously dominated cultural sphere. However, the initiatives towards women's Representation started in the 1920spassed through different challenges and opportunities. The constitutions of Pakistan from 1956 to 1973 have also incorporated relevant sections regarding women's Representation. A significant issue merged in the 1990s in Pakistan when the constitutional mechanism regarding women's Representation lapsed. The global initiatives on women's political Representation were the major milestone that influenced Pakistan politics in 2000. During this period, gender-equal participation in the decision-making process was brought at the center of political debate. During the Musharraf regime, women parliamentary share increased up to 20percent on reserved seats. This paper is anattempt to explore women's Representation in Islamic perspectivesand their contributions to women. The result of this qualitativeresearch shows that women parliamentarians are primarilyrepresenting their own political parties and class in decision-making bodies

This paper overviews socio-economic factors as determinants of working women earnings in education department of district Peshawar Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. For this purpose, a primary data was collected through a structured questionnaire from 126 working females in September, 2017. Multinomial logistic regression technique has been used for the estimation of results. The main findings of the study are that education, experience, family income, and locality of job area showed positive relationship with working women earnings. However, marital status remained insignificant. Based on the findings of this study the researchers recommended that females are significantly contributing in family expenditures. Therefore, government should invest more in female’s education and prioritize it.

Climate change, the greatest environmental challenge of current era, affects human health badly. Natural hazards such as storms, droughts, excessive rains, floods, droughts and increasing temperature always threaten human health. South Asian rural women bear more household responsibilities than men in terms of fetching water and burning biomass fuel for cooking and heating. To obtain these resources women have to go out and are more exposed to outdoor environment and the increased exposure make them more amenable to the effects of changing climatic and weather patterns. The objective of this study is to document women health impacts under climate change in District Rawalpindi, Pakistan. We find that climate change increases the incidence of diseases which affect physical health. In developing countries, extreme weather patterns disproportionally affect vulnerable population like women, children and others bear burden of illness. Pakistan also faces heat waves fluctuation during summer and extreme rainfall pattern which have severe effect on overall health of individuals. We conclude that climatic changes (increasing heat intensity, dry spells, unusual rains and others) affect women health badly. The state has to improve our climate by offering effective policies. This may include reforestation, plantation in and outside homes and environmental friendly policies like renewable energy that is a shift from coal and oil investing energy projects. Increase of green areas within urban localities is also needed.

Omen empowerment is perceived biggest policy challenge in Pakistan due to being a patriarchal society. Women are underpowered and usually hold a lower position in every sphere of society. Though the government had passed several policy papers for women empowerment, these remained confined to office shelves. This paper explores gender discrimination as one of the leading indicators that hinder women development and promotes inequality exists in the family, at work, also in the political sphere, education, and health care. This paper has used a feminist framework to investigate how to reduce gender inequalities and provide equal opportunities for women and men. Finally, this paper concludes that feminist theory has identified the policy gaps in the distribution of power and raise awareness of power inequalities. This paper recommends concrete policy measures with implementations commitment that can only eliminate these barriers and promote gender equality towards empowering women in Pakistan.

The present study, grounded in the qualitative research paradigm, is an interpretive and explanatory analysis of Toni Morrison's fiction from the critical perspective of post structuralist feminist literary theory and fiction. In my reading of Toni Morrison's fiction as the manifestation/materialization of the knowledge in terms of discursive (re)configuration of women and to analyze their works from "feminine sentence" perspective, I have used Feminist poststructuralist theories in the discourse-theoretical/methodological background. As part of the methodology, this project draws extensively upon feminist theories, particularly those propounded by French Feminists Helene Cixous and Julia Kristeva, which I have used in the backdrop of discourse analysis methods proposed by Michel Foucault. This fusion of Feminist theories as a theoretical framework and discourse analysis as a methodology has illuminated systematically the process of the discursive formation, dissemination, and institutionalization of the knowledge about women. For my analysis of the discourse spectrum of the texts-to-be-analyzed, I have used extensively Foucault's notions about discourse and knowledge as discussed comprehensively in his books, articles, and interviews.

his research explores the dynamics of women entrepreneurs in the context of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. Underpinning on contemporary literature on drivers and barriers of women entrepreneurs, this research argues that literature and empirical evidences on negotiations is scarce and underdeveloped. Therefore, capitalizing on an interpretive qualitative assumption, this research collected date through semi-structured interviews and analyzed through thematic analysis. Conceptually, this research provides a fresh and novel perspective by providing interesting inside from empirical evidences. This research concludes that women entrepreneurs in Peshawar, Pakistan cultural and social constraints. However, personal motivation and family support helped them to negotiate with these constraints.

Image of white women occur frequently in postcolonial writings. This paper attempts to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the white womens portrayals in the selected Pakistani postcolonial fiction to determine the comparative discrepancy between the assumptions and reality about the role of white women in the colonies. The white women being the part of civilizing mission of the white man, are seen with a particular light by the indigenous people because in comparison to the white man, white womes role has been that of a benevolent mother. This problematizes the situation and hence calls for the investigation into the portrayals and the roles of the white women as projected by the indigenous writers. The study delimits to Forster, Sidhwa, and Hamid and analyses the selected chunks of the text under the lens of theoretical frame work proposed by Jayawardena within the postcolonial context.

The augmented usage of digital technology, predominantly mobile ownership, has significantly altered the ways of doing the thing. The digital era with the internet-connected world is creating new venues for social and economic development, with efficiency in digital literacy for participation. The present article explores the digital literacy skills of women that enables them to be active members of the digital world. It also investigates the challenges, self-learning, and financial constraints among other few, which women face while acquiring these skills. The qualitative research is conducted in Islamabad and Rawalpindi using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The study indicated that 83% of women have learnt digital skills informally and yet these help them in strengthening their social networks, managing daily affairs regarding their personal life and most significantly being engaged in entrepreneurship from digital forums. This successful use of digital technology has contributed to their social and economic empowerment.

Womens social, economic and political status is differently defined by the advocates of Modern Civil Society (MCS) and Traditional Civil Society (TCS). It is generally assumed that TCS gives little or no status at all to their female group of the society. This issue is still very critical in poor and developing countries including Pakistan. The current study has been conducted to statistically testing the assumptions of positive relations between MCS and women status (WS) and negative connections between TCS and WS. Notably, both positive and negative relations have been significantly proved by first-hand data from a sample of 205 (n=241; return-rate=85%) subjects. The findings support the higher level of WS as per the values of the MCS.