For a change, I was very happy that day and complimenting myself on meeting nearly 90% of the deadlines and targets. I reassured myself repeatedly that all this was possible because of the hard work of our organization; its efforts at mainstreaming gender issues, finding ways of transforming change for women and creating an enabling environment.

While trying to quantify all these actions, I was interrupted by the office boy who brought a file. Since I am almost obsessed with clearing my desk as early as possible, I decided to go through the file immediately. To my extreme surprise (read shock) that with the exception of a few, it appeared that all our female employees had requested at least one-week holidays following the Eid break. The reasons given were more or less similar: they had to attend important weddings or other ceremonies in their SUSRAL; missing those marriages could have an adverse effect on their own marriages. It was obvious that all the applicants were married women. That implied that only unmarried, divorced and widowed did not ask for holidays.

My elated mood changed. I started feeling that all our gains would convert into losses at the end of the year, if I accepted their leave request, as our program would have suffered by their absence. On the other hand, if I rejected their requests these women would suffer. Recalling the emotional fragility of most of those women I gave up the idea of talking to them.

What is still not clear to me and I am struggling to find an answer to is why Pakistani women do not reject a subjugated image and position for themselves? When would they be able to use their education and employment as tools for empowerment and create an environment, which addresses their rights? For how long educated women in Pakistan have to hurt their careers due to family situations? For how long Pakistani husbands would tend to forget that women work in the offices in the same way as the men do and they too have to be responsible to their superiors in the office? And why working women are not considered equal partners in supporting the family instead of being treated as casual sidekicks whose jobs were not to be taken seriously, except their pay checks?