This website is part of an ongoing project that seeks to understand women’s experiences of working as public servants in Pakistan. It draws on an oral history archive of life history interviews with women public servants, housed at the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore, Pakistan, to understand how these women perceive their role and how they are perceived by those around them. The project seeks to understand how women public servants exert public authority in a deeply patriarchal society.

Women have played a significant role in public life since before partition, serving as doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, politicians, journalists, public servants, and much more. They have contributed enormously to their fields throughout Pakistan’s history. Women public servants in Pakistan serve as frontline staff on immunization teams, negotiate trade deals with the WTO, represent the country at the UN, manage districts, departments, and projects, and fight for their rights in unions, courts, and tribunals.

Nonetheless, a UNDP-UN Women report (2018) found that “gender stereotyping and social norms come into play at the time of postings for the civil servants”, restricting women to lower tier positions. Equally, educated women in Pakistan have been regarded as the “desirable citizen-subject” (Khoja-Moolji 2018), providing what Skocpol (1992) referred to in the US context as "municipal housekeeping" and "public motherhood”. As such, women in public service in Pakistan often continue to be seen as nurturers, homemakers, patriots, and the preserve of national and familial honour. As a consequence, many women public servants experience a considerable degree of stress and anxiety in doing their jobs, shaping their ability to advance in their chosen careers.

This website uses visual outputs based on oral history interviews to provide an account of some of the anxieties and struggles women public servants face. This website is meant to initiate discussion not only amongst women public servants, but also amongst those aspiring to join the service or seeking to understand its internal dynamics. The website is freely accessible. We request that you link to the website if you use it in your work and provide credit for any images used.

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