Nationalist Construction --- The role and and status of women are not isolated social phenomenon, and women's struggles do not take place in a vacuum. Both are enhanced or impeded, by social, political and economic development of a people's history. Pakistan's creation was based on the ideology that Muslims were a distinct group in India with a "heritage, culture, and tradition(s) different from those groups from which they wished to separate. This necessitated the creation and support of a homogenous identity and could stand in opposition to colonialism and the Hindu majority in India.Islam was at the center of this male-dominated nationalist construction and has continued to be used by "those in power and those out of it ... for consolidating support or legitimizing force.

Source author: Emmanuel Henry Pierre manniepierre@hotmail.com