From the day Benazir Bhutto, the Muslim world's first female leader, came to power nearly two decades ago, many in the West eagerly cast her as an icon for Muslim women, a role she never shied away from playing.
And now her slaying in a suicide attack last week is being mourned as a blow to women's rights in Muslim societies.
"Young Muslim women around the world should not let this murder dissuade them from speaking out and claiming their rightful place as equals in society," declared the American Islamic Congress shortly after her death.
While many Pakistani women laud that sentiment, they say it is based on an overly simplistic view of Bhutto, the scion of a powerful political dynasty, and the country she governed.
Bhutto's tenure as prime minister certainly helped open doors in Pakistan's male-dominated society, they say. But it was also sullied by the allegations of corruption, dirty politics and unfulfilled promises that have dogged the rule of every Pakistani leader, male or female.
"Yes, of course there was some symbolism in having a woman as prime minister," said Aysha Iqbal, a 23-year-old business student in Lahore.
But "she was prime minister because her father was prime minister," Iqbal continued.
Family politics
To understand Bhutto's rise, it must be seen within the prism of South Asia, a region that has had more women leaders than any other part of the world.
There's been Indira Gandhi in India; Sirimavo Bandaranaike and her daughter, Chandrika Kumaratanga, in Sri Lanka; Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia in Bangladesh, and, of course, Bhutto, who twice served as Pakistan's prime minister, from 1988 to 1990 and 1993 to 1996.
Every one of them rose to prominence after the death of a male relative - no coincidence in a corner of the world where family often dictates one's occupation, be it as a street sweeper or a prime minister.
In Bhutto's case, she took the leadership of the populist Pakistan People's Party founded by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in 1979 following a military coup. She then led the party to election victory.
Bhutto was young and glamorous, a graduate of Harvard and Oxford who could campaign through Karachi slums as confidently as she had graced the salons of London and New York.
And, early in her administration, there were advances for women in Pakistan.
"On the radio, she had given instructions that many of the women's programs should be aired; on television, there were documentaries on women's rights," said Asma Jehangir, chairwoman of the non-government Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
"She gave women more access to at least lobby with decision-makers," she said. "The only time I have been to the prime minister's house or the presidency was when she was in power."
But Bhutto also picked up all the baggage that came with running Pakistan, a largely impoverished land that was - and still is - in many parts near-feudal.
"I think Western feminists want to view Bhutto and the other women leaders as pioneers," said Muneeza Rashed, 38-year-old woman in Lahore.
"But they're not. They're more like throwbacks to the men who came before them. They practice the same kind of old-boy politics. Helping women is secondary for them," she said.
Under Bhutto, most Pakistani women still lived the impoverished, home-bound lives they had lived before. Girls still went uneducated while their brothers were sent off to school. And those women who endured the tragedy of being raped still found themselves contending with laws that discriminated against the victims of sex crimes - laws that would only be changed years later by President Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in a 1999 military coup.
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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