And I wait. I wait for them to respond. There is this perplexed look on their face — an expression that evolves into silence, as if words are failing to deliver a response. Then comes the inevitable question: Why? Why are you choosing this?
I hear the unspoken subtext clearly: Why choose law as a woman in Pakistan?
Ever since I was accepted into law school, this scene has played out repeatedly. What follows the initial congratulations is always the same interrogation: What’s next? It feels as though I am required to justify my career choice before I have even begun to live it. Consequently, I became hesitant about sharing the news at all.
Yet there were people I had to tell, and sharing the news with them changed everything. The words came out during a casual phone call, almost as an afterthought. To my surprise, the two women on the other end were genuinely happy for me. Nobody had responded with such unreserved warmth before — no loaded questions, no hesitant silence.
As young women, law had fascinated them too. In their memories, I caught a glimpse of women who, years ago, had longed for the precise opportunity I now held. They had been unable to pursue legal careers because they were told that a woman simply could not practice law. One of their fathers — a lawyer himself — had insisted that male-dominated courtrooms were no place for a woman.
My own family boasts three generations of male lawyers, while the women across those same generations served as teachers. My generation is the very first to produce female legal professionals. Times are changing, certainly. But are we, as a society, genuinely accepting of these changes, or are we merely permitting them on a conditional basis?
Structural Barriers and Inherited Doubts
According to a report by the Women in Law Initiative Pakistan, only 4 per cent of candidates in the 2025–2030 Bar Council Elections across all five councils were women. During the preceding 2020–2025 term, a mere 2 per cent of actual bar council members were women. Eligibility criteria frequently shift prior to every election cycle, with no accompanying structural mechanisms to ensure female representation. Thus, even when women successfully bypass social hurdles, the legal profession’s internal infrastructure holds the door only halfway open.
Somewhere between reviewing these statistics and absorbing the personal histories of those two women, a sinking feeling took root within me — a quiet suspicion that I was an imposter incapable of pulling this off.
Yet, as I sat with that discomfort, I realised the underlying question was never truly about whether I could handle the workload, nor was it about my dedication to the legal discipline. It was about whether I was allowed to want it — whether the deeply entrenched patriarchy embroidered into the fabric of Pakistani society would condemn my choice before I had even made it.
That self-doubt was never mine to begin with. It was not my professional ambitions being questioned, but whether a woman belonged in the legal sphere at all. I recognise this insecurity now: it is an inherited weight, passed down from the same social prejudices that prevented those two women from standing where I stand today. The cultural message that “a woman does not belong here” does not instantly vanish simply because my generation is finally allowed through the door. Their fathers articulated it to them aloud once; now I catch myself repeating it quietly in my own mind.
Stepping Through the Unlocked Door
I am standing on the shoulders of women who were never granted the freedom to choose this path for themselves. I am standing on the shoulders of my giants. Reaching my current position has been made possible solely by the sacrifices of women who were denied the choices I now possess.
Why, then, do I still feel a sense of displacement in a field they worked tirelessly to make accessible? They spent years prying open a door they were forbidden to enter, yet I hesitate at the threshold.
I realised I was seeking external validation I never needed, failing to celebrate my own accomplishments because a part of me was still waiting for societal permission. It was an echo of what earlier generations of women were conditioned to accept.
I inherited the choice, but I also inherited the doubt. I cannot keep both. I must choose to retain my purpose and carry it forward.
I am still waiting — just as I was at the beginning. But I am no longer waiting for external approval or societal permission. I am waiting simply to see who I will become on the other side of the doors they opened — the doors they never got to walk through.