It is a man's world". Being a woman, writing this phrase really hurts. One does not want to believe it, nor does one want to accept it. But when you look around, both in society and in the professional world, you grudgingly concede that despite genuine efforts at some levels to restore this imbalance, many things may never change. The most change resistant being the gender inequality issue. This is sad because the secondary role of woman in our society has more to do with our own indifferent behavior and tolerance of injustice to the issue than being a Muslim or being a Pakistani.

The role of woman in society is largely influenced by the role of woman prescribed in the religious tenets. The interpretation of the religion is unfortunately in the hands of the so called religious representatives like mullahs. The average mullah neither has the education nor the mental capacity to interpret the teachings and tenets of the Quran in an open and unbiased manner. The role of the religious institutions in our society have dominated the perception of the ordinary public on defining the respective gender roles. Concepts like "Chaadar and chardivari" have been enforced as decrees by these mullahs. Such decrees have been questioned by many woman activists but by and large the perception of the ordinary public is still colored by what they hear repeatedly at Friday prayer sermons delivered by mullahs who denounce every form of female independence and prominence. It is unfortunate that this misrepresentation of the religion by the Mullahs in Islamic countries and the recently removed Taliban regime has given the western powers a huge opportunity to justify their aggression against the Muslim countries. Their media has got enough material on religious based gender suppression to make countless documentaries on the abject misery of Muslim women. Most of these allegations against woman suppression are not unfounded. The degradation of the female in the rural areas is definitely outrageous, but the fault does not lie in religion, instead with the power given by society to men to allow them to distort religious facts to suit their own purpose. Rationally and factually speaking women have played a very important role in Islamic history. The Prophet (peace be upon him) married the top most businesswoman of his time, Hazrat Khadeejah, who helped him in learning the business of trade. She was years older than him and asked for his hand in marriage. Similarly the prophet did not have a male issue and had one daughter Hazrat Fatima who took the burden of carrying forward the message of Islam. Women fought battles alongside men and played the roles of nurse, advisors and supporters on the battlefield. The mullah will only rant and shriek about the right of men to marry innumerable times without elucidating the reasons behind it. They will never highlight the progressive roles women have played in Islam.

Role of Women in society is definitely attributable to the beliefs, norms, and values of the society. These beliefs may be formed on the basis of historical religious beliefs or perceived on future economic needs. In the underdeveloped countries where the historical role of women is confined to the four walls of the parents or husband's house, the female member is perceived as an economic burden. Lack of education and lack of earning power makes these societies wish for male off spring since they can share the economic burden of the family. Parents believe that the female job opportunities are limited and once they are married they will stop supporting them. This perception is colored by religious beliefs and by the pressure of social norms. Realistically, however, female employment is much higher in the lower class than in the middle and upper classes. The lower class female works in the fields in villages, while in the cities they mostly work as housemaids and servants. In many cases the male members i.e fathers and husbands sit at home, while the females slave away day and night to support their husband and the rest of the family.

In the middle and upper class female education is quite common, but female employment is rare. The society has allowed certain "respectable" professions for them which they are designated to follow, like teaching and medicine. Remaining professions are persued by those few females who dare risk the gossip and slandering of the society. Thus the females persue education not with the objective of specific careers in mind but as an eligibility criteria to catch the most eligible bachelors in their social strata.

The social and religious beliefs also affect the workplace environment. Women who do manage to defy the traditional role set by the society face an almost skeptical and disbelieving environment in the workplace. In a male dominated professional world, women are in minority and are only considered competent for certain routine lower management positions. When it comes to the top management ranks there will be little incidence of female dominance. Thus often women have to prove to their questioning male counterparts that they have risen to these positions not on the basis of their "femme fatale" attractions, but genuine brilliance and competence. This is especially true when women working in the marketing field are perceived as trying to sell themselves to sell the product. The minute designations like "Public Relations" and "Client Executives" are attached to women the sly and suggestive look on men's face tells the story about how the male mind works. This exploitation is not only present in the underdeveloped, but the developed countries. The proliferation of the media has revealed that companies use the female form to attract attention and action from the potential buyers. Regardless of the product or service, the addition of an "attractive" female is sure to increase product recall and product interest. Thus image of the professional female has been stereotyping this belief in nearly all managerial ranks - i.e that women may be good for routine work, but to lead and manage organizations, you need men. Such discriminatory and biased opinions will of course be more prevalent in the under-developed societies, as laws on equal opportunity and sexual discrimination are considered more of a laughing matter than serious legal violations.

As previously mentioned, the only two respectable and socially acceptable female careers in our society are that of teaching and medicine. Unfortunately here the bias against women has continued unabated and has reached an almost abominable stage.

Fatima Jinnah Medical College, Lahore is the oldest and most prestigious female medical institute in Pakistan. It came into existence soon after the birth of Pakistan in 1948 and was created with the mission of providing high quality medical education to the aspiring female doctors of the country. The idea was to have an all female teaching and managerial faculty and administration, catering not only to developing a cadre of top class female doctors, but also to train female doctors to handle the management and administrative side of a large growing institute. In the early period of FJMC, due to the unavailability of the required number of trained female doctors, male doctors were hired to fulfill the capacity requirements. However these inductions were supposed to be stop gap arrangements to be phased out as soon as trained female doctors were available. At its inception FJMC was an autonomous institution partially funded by the provincial and federal government. There were two permanent female board members (Begum G.A.Khan and Begum Shah Nawaz). The Chairman of the B.O.G was the Governor of Punjab.

The institution quickly became a beacon of light for female doctors and produced some of the most renowned names involved in many specialty areas like gynaecology, obstetrics, etc. Being an exclusive female college it gave an opportunity to thousands of aspiring females to earn degrees which may not have been possible given the co-education system in the other medical colleges.

In 1980 the institution was brought under the aegis of the Government of Punjab. However the FGMC setup was retained with assurances that the present structure will not be disturbed. The government particularly promised that the female culture will be retained and promoted and the male induction will only be considered in case of unavailability of female candidates.

Initially the lack of female candidates forced the administration to resort to male Principals. However in the early 70s Professor Bilquis Fatima became the first female Principal. Thereafter renowned female doctors like Dr. Basharat Yousaf, Dr. Fakharunisa etc managed this position with great ease and expertise.

The discrimination story starts in 1994 when Dr. Zafar Aziz Khan became the Principal of FJMC despite the availability of better female candidates. Prof. Shabnam Niazi had the courage to challenge this decision in the Service Tribunal and won her case in 1997. The tribunal also passed the judgment that all male teachers should be transferred to other institutions. On the retirement of Professor Shabnam Niazi, she was replaced by Dr Khalida Usmani. In 1999 the institution was declared autonomous again and it was decided that a male C.E.O with a female Principal will run FJMC ;but worst was yet to come.A male principal was selected after the retirement of Dr Khalida Usmani.

The current situation is a clear-cut case of male dominance, chauvinism and discrimination. To give total power to the male principal the ranks of C.E.O and Principal have been merged and a new rank P.E.O (Principal Executive Officer) has been created. The P.E.O will have total powers of running FJMC. This is in complete violation of the mission, objective.