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This study considers the lives of five professionally successful Pakistani women and the route they have taken to achieve their status within a culture that is often not hospitable to ambitious women. The five subjects, who represent a cross-section of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, and who come from both rural and urban regions of the country, reflect in their successes the range of barriers and opportunities available to contemporary women in Pakistan. The goal of our research is to describe the lives of these women, drawing largely on their own spoken experience, and then to note points of overlap and difference, and to raise questions that resonate more widely across cultures where female empowerment has been thwarted: How important is the role of parents in igniting and supporting the ambition of daughters? How are childrearing and household responsibilities allocated in families where women hold positions of authority and where women´s salaries help sustain the family lifestyle? As case studies, these five portraits preclude generalization, but we contend that the themes that emerge from their stories are suggestive of larger issues and trends.

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Rosetta Marantz Cohen is Professor of Education and American Studies at Smith College and Director of the Lewis Global Studies Center. Julie E. Hooks is the former co-director of the Institute for Training and Development in Amherst, MA.

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