They want her to finish up a degree, while away time between cooking lessons from granny and attending never ending family gatherings until a suitable match is made for her by her parents preferably in maternal or paternal relations. But woman in Pakistan is busy now discovering the irrefutable benefit and growth, which she might undergo once she steps outside and face the world as a career woman and is no longer ready to take up the theory of life being all about graduation to marriage and to motherhood.

But when a woman makes career her first priority, odds are stacked against her. A career woman’s has been a tough and a nerve-testing journey all the way, with jobs being divided among prestigious and non-prestigious ones where, to intellect’s amuse, teaching and medicine only would fall into the former category. Even if she manages to enter the ‘non prestigious’ careers on account of her professional degree, she has to fight a long way to carve a niche in a male-dominated environment and shirking off the assistant label. When it comes to issues like overtimes and transfers, the woman worker is the one to suffer, for keeping late hours at work and traveling and living all by herself is not unproblematic for her at all.

Then the idea of stepping out, commuting to work and pushing the boundaries, on a woman’s part is considered unislamic by majority of the conservative population.

Every working woman feels she is contributing to society and, at the same time, adding to her sense of self but is discontent with the environment and has to deal with the raised eyebrows and questioning looks about the kind of job she has taken and why she can’t just settle down.

A woman who is opinionated enough as to choose her educational degree and profession for herself is surely matured enough to choose a marriage for herself and is often not ready to play marriage as a gamble affair designed by her parents for her. When she goes for finding her match for herself, she is confronted with a stark reality i.e. where it’s ok for a man to wear a tag ‘looking to settle down’ or ‘in search of a bride’, it is considered very unbecoming of a woman to be expressive of her such intensions.

It is not that the career woman has made the idea of arranged marriage into the family unthinkable for her, but she wants some one compatible while she herself hikes up the career ladder successfully. This is however mistaken as her haughtiness and a wishful wanting of a ‘Mr. Right’. For her, it has to be someone who understands her nature, her ambitions and aspirations, and the demands her work puts on her. After all, that time she can’t be shut up in a box and be subservient to someone who tells her what to do after a certain age in one’s life. She becomes a whole lot more independent and not everyone can appreciate that. Very rarely you find a partner who is not very controlling. And it takes a very confident and really secure man who is not intimidated by the fact that his partner might be getting more attention than him.

As a result, career women usually stay single in their late twenties and thirties, and even in their forties. Absolutely single as there is no room for life in relations either!

Things become depressing and harder when they find themselves alienated with their more ‘homely’ sisters, cousins and friends who, in their early twenties, get married to a mandatory husband, have two or three juniors in a tow and agonize about what to cook in the dinner and fixing baby colic. Marriage becomes a weekly debate at homes with them that concludes with labeling them as stubborn.

And another common tight spot comes, in some cases, where parents start relying upon their earning daughter when their male wards have their own families to take care of. In these cases, parents stop pushing their girls on marriage and, in fact, the woman has to remind them to realize about getting her settled down.

On the other hand, a married career woman confronts the immense pressure of challenge that she will be accepted in the society as long as she strikes a balance between home and office. She suffers a split of focus as she is made to juggle so many balls in the air at the same time, the burden of compromise always falling in her share. Those not ready to be manipulated thus opt to remain single again. Thus, the number of single, working women is mounting each day.

Our woman is learning to shed her ‘burqa’ (traditionally worn veil) and step into a fighter pilot’s uniform. But the shift in society’s attitude is not keeping the same pace as of her transition. In a patriarchal society, like ours, we need to evaluate if we are making a career woman even restricted instead of empowering her.