Re: Working women of Pakistan
the women in my family, atleast my mum's side, have always been independent. my mum tells me that my nani wanted all her daughters to be independent (and this was a woman who was born and raised, and raised her own 11 children in the village, mashAllah). she did not want her daughters to be dependent on anyone, at any point of her life. and my nana said that he can afford to pay for his kid's education, until BSc (and at that time, BSc was big). so, as a consquence, the women of my family are very independent.
My own mum worked as a banker (no, not as a teller) for atleast 18 years, before and after her marriage. my other khalas opted to stay at home. one of the daughters of my mamoon is a doctor, with her own practice (i think she did her PhD as well, and teaches...it was a long time ago, and i was very tiny) the other daughter is a teacher at a VERY expensive school in Lahore. another of my cousin's is a doctor in the army (mashallah), her other sister also a teacher at another rich school. their other sister taught at the same school before she got married. and so on and so forth.
so the idea of being a working woman from the beginning was not a novel idea. infact, we tell the girls of our family to go out and work, as it teaches them to deal with people. so my (lenghty point is) that the idea of working woman is not a new thing. i shall just repeat what babakhan said.