Women breaking weak tides of patriarchy

“Countries progress fast where women are educated and treated equally as men”.

In a society where women are strangled to death in the name of honour killing and victims of rape are blamed for their own deaths and have to face disgusting comments, women like Captain Maryam Masood, First Officer Shumaila Mazhar, karate player Nargis and senior aircraft maintenance technician, Eeman Faheem was sure to send shivers down patriarchy’s spine.

Other such inspirations are Faryal and Umama, first female crane operators at a local port company. In July, the company granted licenses to female management engineer trainees namely Faryal Anwar & Umama Saleem to control remote-controlled ship to shore (STS) gantry cranes.

It seems a tricky job but they seem to enjoy it. It is pertinent to mention Faryal can manoeuvre remote control as well as a manual crane.

Faryal has done her graduation in electronics engineer from the Dawood University of Engineering and Technology while Umama received her degree in electrical engineering from the NED University of Engineering and Technology.

Both, after completion of 100 hours as observers are now performing supervised operations under their mentor who they call “Ustad”.

“Our primary job is crane maintenance and operating cranes is an added skill,” says Faryal talking to a local Television channel. “Our first challenge after coming here and operating the cranes was gaining the trust of our colleagues,” she adds.

Umama cuts in then: “But the company trusted us with its high-tech equipment first. I have found that even though acceptance of women in such jobs is low it can be enhanced as we prove ourselves.”

At first, their job was a challenge to them. “They couldn’t see the bigger picture,” Umama adds. “But the company was offering us hands-on experience so why not? We accepted the offer to come here and start off as trainees looking after crane maintenance. Then we were also offered crane operation in the middle of it,” she smiles.

Faryal further appreciates the company’s accepting nature as they did not fall on the scale of gender-based discrimination and proudly accepted female graduates.

Patriarchy perpetuates the fake concept of men subjugating the society by suppressing women in every way possible. It feeds in the lies that women by nature are bound to nurture the men around them and satisfy their needs, that the cycle of woman life starts with taking care of her brother and father and end ups on the fallout of serving their husband and sons.

People are so deep vested in oppressive patriarchy that they get offended when told otherwise. However, more such firms are needed to appreciate talent without gender discrimination.

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