HINA Javed was 45 years old and had been married for nine months when she was found dead in the washroom of her home in Rawalpindi, her hands tied behind her back. According to the FIR filed by her brother, her husband, father-in-law and a domestic worker were accused of her murder. Her brother also alleged that Hina had been subjected to severe violence by her spouse.

Every time a case like this breaks, the same reflex follows: shock that the accused was “educated”, a professor no less, someone who had presumably spent years reading, teaching and working at one of the country’s top institutions. The implication is always the same: surely a man like this should have known better. Surely more schooling, more literacy and more exposure to modern ideas would have made him less likely to be violent.

It is time we retired that assumption. It is not just simplistic; it can distract us from the work that actually needs to be done.

A degree is not a character certificate.

A degree, on its own, does not teach a man to see a woman as his equal.

Pakistani research paints a more complicated picture than the comforting assumption that education protects women from violence. A recent analysis of the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey found that while both women’s and husbands’ education appeared associated with intimate partner violence at one stage of the analysis,........

© Dawn