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This paper is based on a recent field research conducted in nine towns of Karachi which explored nine hundred home-based women workers’ experiences and perceptions and documented the typology of the work accomplished by them. Working under harsh circumstances, caught in the cobweb of poverty and patriarchal forces, the low-paid work of these women forms a link between the walled enclosures of their homes and the economic transactions in the markets outside. The data collected from the home-based women workers, selected randomly, through questionnaires and personal narratives reveal that they do work within the walled spaces of their homes but their lives are neither bounded by space nor they live in isolation. On the contrary, they are well aware of the world outside and understand how forces of corruption and exploitation working under the aegis of capitalist economy play havoc in their lives. Their resolve to confront poverty, to challenge exploitative forces, to toil hard for a better life for their children, and to act as role models for other women, make them as visible partners of efforts geared to have a self-sustained Pakistan. This paper by deconstructing the myth of Pakistani women’s existence as prisoners within their homes, presents a picture of women who through their visible economic contribution are making viable changes in the society. All this, thus transforms the home-based working women who have been consistently, though wrongly portrayed as ‘invisible’ into autonomous beings, visible to those who have an eye to see the reality. The paper also seeks to critically look at the norms of patriarchy, including the traditional codes of observing pardah in the context of women and gender in Pakistan. This paper also develops an argument showing how patriarchal traditions tend to hide all weaker segments of society- men and women, and makes them visible only when their services are required.
Muhammad Nademullah, Nasreen Aslam Shah. (2010) Visibility Of Invisible Home-Based Women Workers: A Recent Study Of Home-Based Women In Karachi, Pakistan Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 1.
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