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Throughout various religious and moral teachings, the women’s role for a society has been given importance and there are severe consequences in case of ignoring such matter.
Frankly speaking, there does exist many disparities between males and females in our society. According to a major school of thought, not only restricted to the rural areas, women are only considered suitable for home management tasks. Undoubtedly, too much freedom is not permitted by our socio-cultural norms and traditional teachings.
However, the increasing females’ population and unemployment scene throughout the country demands their inclusion into other sectors as well, particularly those targeting the improvement of country’s economic condition. Any sort of entrepreneurship is not encouraged for women. When it comes to equal opportunities in the job market, cultural norms are not favorable for women.
Although in bigger cities, the discrimination is comparatively lower, as a general perception, the only jobs that are considered friendly for females are those relating to health and teaching sectors.
There are many reasons behind such discrimination particularly the patriarchal nature of the society, unsuitability of office environment for females and lack of childcare facilities etc. Except among members of so-called broad-minded families, the jobs involving field work and administration are not considered friendly for women as some of them may involve travelling to far-flung rural areas.
In such context, the usage of latest Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools allow women to work while at the comfort of their homes. ICT has made many jobs possible which were once restricted to offices. Also, outsourcing provides many freelancing opportunities and the only thing needed is proper availability of internet and computer system.
Generally, the working environment for IT jobs is not that tough or mechanical and is attractive for females. Some of the jobs only need a computer system which eliminate the need of an internet connection and hence, can be performed in offline mode as well.
Besides being friendly and promoting the usage of international standards, some of the popular international outsourcing companies pay in international currency, thus expanding transfer of foreign currency to Pakistan.
Some of the major fields of engineering are restricted for females because of extensive field work and manual labor. However, if properly trained, an employee can still earn and contribute for a company by making use of specialized technical software programs for design and analysis purposes. Moreover, for lower-class jobs, IT training is comparatively easier than the medical one. This makes IT tasks ideal for females.
To encourage use of ICT for female and help solve the country’s unemployment ratio, there is a need to prioritize the induction of women into ICT. This can not only improve female literacy rate but also encourage the concept of online-based distance learning.
