WOMEN IN POLITICS IN ISLAMIC STATES: A CASE STUDY OF AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN (original) (raw)

The equal participation of men and women in governmental process and political affairs is essential for reaching to the free and fair society. Through findings of this thesis the success of democracy is directly dependent on the equality based on gender, ethnic, creed, religion and so on. The research context of this paper goes to Islamic states and particularly analyzing the status of women in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The traditional culture, patriarchy, misinterpretation of religion founded as the main obstacles of women deprivation of politics within all Islamic states and particularly in these two Islamic democratic states, that these factors causes for the emergence of gender based violence, discrimination, rape and idea of behaving with women as the second gender. This paper goes to analyze and find out the different interpretation of Islam and democracy perspectives regarding to women social and political activities. The level of women’s political participation had been raised after 2000 in both countries of my research context, reforms 2000 in Pakistan and coming of new democratic regime along with international support in Afghanistan caused for women to be more empowered and active in politics and persuaded women to get apart in political and social affairs of these two societies. Analyzing of historical circumstances of women in both countries, helped this research to be more serious in finding the actual position of women in two traditional societies, that are mostly influenced of patriarchal culture in case of women.