Female Entrepreneurship and the Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry: Economic Emancipation and Clout for Pakistani Women

Abstract

Socio-economics, culture, religious entrepreneurism and taboos have a massive impact on the societies in South Asia. Pakistan is a Muslim society that has lived side by side with the culture driven religion of the Indian society. There are numerous cultural overlaps though Muslim characteristic is an identity and practical way of life. In defining the entrepreneurial portrait of a Muslim female entrepreneur in Pakistan it has to be borne in mind that culture plays the dominant role as the hurdle. There is so much of complexity in the culture of South Asia that Amartiya Sen raises the question “How much of this can a foreigner with no more them a cursory knowledge of the factors involved – feel and respond to? --- and consequently warp the judgment”. And furthermore Roomi (2005) contends women face deep rooted discriminating cultural and social factors that hamper their growth. Yet the empowerment of women in Pakistan has come about following the example of Prophet Muhammad’s (SAW) wife Khadija (RA). This contradiction in terms and this evolution among Muslim women is a subject of interest to researcher what inhibits the growth of female entrepreneurs in a Muslim society like Pakistan.
The objective of this paper is to bring out for the benefit of the global community the nature of the environment and the impact of customs, traditions and culture and deterring factors of religious entrepreneurism. Existing literature on female entrepreneurship has been reviewed and especially the role of the Diana Project. But the constraint was owing to limited literature on female entrepreneurs of the Muslim of South Asia and Pakistan in particular qualitative methodology, in-depth interviews and case studies were adopted. The surveys recorded and transcribed the responses. The findings indicate that under the garb of religion, false philosophy is practiced. Women have discovered clout comes from having platform and hence the long down struggle to setup the Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
Conducting the paper has identified that there is not enough literature on this subject. Yet it is still surviving on the theoretical aspect of papers written on Western society by the Western researchers. Research must now look beyond the current limited and scope go for studying the various culturally linked factors and how to change the future growth of female entrepreneurship.