Varsities operating in Pakistan are running with enormous gender-based issues related to academics and career development. At the campus, females, both teachers and students, easily get privileges, priorities, justice and benefits everywhere and anytime on the campus. On the other hand, males, both teachers and students, are sidelined and discriminated and they are even deprived of their due rights and career opportunities at the campus. In Pakistani varsities, female-oriented gender-based favouritism is prevailing and females, both students and teachers, are entertained and preferred over males everywhere. Welcome to the campus life in Pakistan.
Varsities in Pakistan are the scintillating heavens for females for career development and a sizzling hell of deprivation for males in this regard. Doctrines of feminism and gender studies are the main advocates of gender equality in society. Here, I am much concerned with varsities operating in Pakistan. There is no gender equality in Pakistan varsities now and the female-oriented favouritism is a predominant emerging reality and practice. Because females are well-liked everywhere at campuses in Pakistan. For instance, females are preferred in admissions and degree awards of MPhil and PhD, appointments, promotions, allocation of varsity residence, scholarships, administrative posts at the campus, etc.
I am a fulltime faculty member at a public-sector university in Pakistan and fortunately or unfortunately, I am a male. Here, I will share my own experiences and observations of gender relations at the campus. When I go to any office of my varsity, nobody asks me to even sit on the chair and serving tea is out of the question, because I have a big moustache on my face and am also not good looking. But when females, both teachers and students, visit any office at the varsity, they are given full protocol of the chair, tea and attention and their issues are resolved immediately on the table.
May be females look attractive, due to their femininity and everybody, especially males, entertain them on campus happily. Every problem of females is addressed and solved as a priority.
There are many issues related to this female-oriented or female-focused environment at the campus.
Firstly, so far as academics are concerned, these gender relations at the campus are vital and obvious. In Pakistani varsities, most male faculty members are inclined to favour girls, which, according to Sigmund Freud, is quite natural.
PhD supervisors working in Pakistani varsities are notorious for their moral corruption.
So far as grades of students are concerned, sometimes girls manage to take good grades by pleasing their male teachers or spending time with them in offices or somewhere else. In most extreme cases of moral corruption and academic corruption, sometimes a male supervisor works on the dissertation of a female student having a good figure. Sometimes, PhD supervisors even marry female students.
Male students also complain about this female-inclined favouritism of male faculty members. Sometimes, male students of a class also use females students to get favours for themselves.
Male students also complain about this female-inclined favouritism
Secondly, in the context of career development, varsities in Pakistan are heaven for females as they are facilitated and entertained by varsity administration most of the time. Female faculty members also fully exploit their biological features as a “honey trap” and, they are preferred for the appointment, promotion, scholarships, varsity residence, foreign tours, foreign training and administrative post at the campus. A particular class of female faculty members working in varsities of Pakistan are also well-known for moral corruption and they are always ready to do anything for promotion and career development, I am sorry to say.
The third reality is extremely important and alarming for males. Actually, in Pakistani varsities, both males and females harass each other equally. Females, working at campus sometimes disgrace males by filing fake and false harassment applications. When a harassment application is filed by a female against a male at the campus, the university administration believes that this male is a sinner and criminal by birth. On the other hand, if a female harasses a male at the campus, it is de facto believed that females never harass males. But in all this process, only males will be dishonoured, labelled and may be punished.
In the context of careers and professional development, the rights of males are at acute risk in Pakistani varsities where female-oriented favouritism is evident as a crystal-clear reality. There is a dire need to safeguard the rights of males working at campus. Males are deprived and sidelined in Pakistani varsities and females are promoted, facilitated and crowned with professional success.
Presumptively, female-oriented favouritism in an organisation is a universal reality and popular practice and it is omnipresent in the world in general and in Pakistan in particular. Come on male professors and administrative staff working in Pakistani varsities, let’s say goodbye to “tharak” in varsities’ campuses and start treating both males and females equally and on merit everywhere at the campus. Let’s make our varsities a palpable example of gender equality in real.
The writer is a lecturer at the Department of Sociology, Government College University Faisalabad