Thanks for your incredible insight, esp. for those of us who may not know the inner workings of the Air Force! I’m so glad they decided to turn it into a permanent feature.

My father was the Air Officer Commanding of the PAF Risalpur Academy when the first batch of female fighter pilots was taken in. He mentions that they went through extremely heated debates when the decision was first made to induct women into the flying branch of the PAF (they’ve had women in other branches such as engineering, air traffic control, admin, education and medicine for numerous years). So the initial decision was to take a few women in for three years as a pilot project and then re-evaluate. However, after the amazing performance of these women, they decided to make it a permanent feature.

In 2006, the Sword of Honour (for best flying and academic performance) was awarded to Saira Amin who was from the second batch of graduating female pilots. My dad had flown with her during her training and tests and even though he is usually very reserved in his praise, he mentioned that she was one of the best pilots he had ever flown with– extremely calm and composed during pressure.

Even though I have my reservations about sending women into sensitive combat operations, I really do believe that those women who want to serve their country should be given the opportunity to do so. Especially if they prove themselves to be not just as good as the men, but in fact the very best of the lot.

Case in point, in college I interned with a women’s NGO that worked with women in prison. Back in 2001, many of the women who were in prison were victims of the Hudood Ordinance – either they had been raped and were thrown in jail for adultery or their husbands wanted to divorce them and had them thrown in for the same charge. Recently, I went back to the jails and due to the Women’s Protection Act in 2006, the entire demographics had changes (i.e. adultery was a bailable offense – so women could be bailed out, etc.). Is it a perfect situation now? of course not. But it is an example how grassroots change must be coupled with legal or legislative reform at the top in order to achieve small steps towards progress.

However, while on the surface this could be seen as a stupid publicity stunt (I mean, it did garner quite a bit of media attention) – this entire program started six years ago in Pakistan. When I did further research, I actually found that two years ago, Nadia Gul, who won an award while in training, was the same person Reza Sayah spoke to in this week’s CNN report. If it was a publicity stunt, most of these women wouldn’t still be there six years later.

And I think it’s hard to judge them not flying into combat as a litmus stick for real progress, since most women in modern militaries around the world still can’t do that.

None of this in my opinion means that we’ve achieved one giant leap for womenkind in Pakistan – but small efforts like these are breaking some kind of barriers, regardless of whether it means real progress. And I know other efforts like these are continuing with women in other realms, the problem is that they haven’t been realized as anything other than grassroots micro-level efforts.

Personally, I’d be a lot happier hearing about an increase in the number of female PhDs in the country or hearing about women being given equal opportunities as men to contribute to the growth of Pakistan.

This is just a stupid publicity stunt.

So there is a history that women have serving in important roles in Pakistan. Glad you highlighted this.

But painfully, women are relegated to a very inferior role in our society and the government nor the religious clergy are doing anything about it.