Saida Waheed Gender Initiative (SWGI) is a centre at LUMS, which advances gender as a critical lens for understanding society, culture, and politics. It works on the premise that neither an account of our world nor a politics for the future is possible without reckoning with gender.
Saida Waheed Gender Initiative
🞉 Releasing Soon: Fall 2026 Calendar of Events
About SWGI
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People
The Saida Waheed Gender Initiative is governed by a Steering Committee of LUMS faculty, which meets at least once per month to review activities and envision the Initiative's direction and growth. Both the Steering Committee and the Advisory Committee are chaired by the Faculty Director.
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Saida Waheed
The Saida Waheed Gender Initiative is named in honour of a female pioneer of the Pakistan movement. Born in Gujranwala in 1917, Begum Saida Waheed assisted Begum Rana Liaquat Ali Khan in the formation of the All Pakistan Women’s Association in 1949.
Talks
Digital Abuse, Deep Fakes, and Gender-Based Violence in Pakistan
Period Poverty: Access, Equity, and the Law
Beyond Self-Sacrifice & Superheroism: Care and the Images and Imaginaries of the Mother
Unpacking the Nikahnama: Navigating the Clauses, Codes, and Consequences
SWGI at 10: Feminist Legacies and Futures
Reflections on a Livestreamed Genocide: Digital Ethnography & Decolonial Feminisms
Putting Prostitution in its Place: Gender, Space, and Power in Late-Colonial India
Post at Your Peril: Identity, Politics, and Backlash on Social Media
Shifting Terrain: Unpacking Potential and Pitfalls of New Pro-Women Legislation in 2025
From Body to Territory: A Workshop on Solidarity in Women’s Fiction in Nigeria, Chile, and Pakistan
Gender Violence, Law, and Consent in New Bollywood Courtroom Dramas
The Maze of Repression and Possibilities: Feminist Politics in Pakistan
Voices of Resistance: Pashtun Women Mobilizing for Change
Creating Safety for Survivors of Domestic Violence
Vulnerability, Resilience, and Unequal Impacts: The Gendered Experience of Climate Change and Health in Pakistan
Women's Labour Force Participation in South Asia
Innovating Health: Sehat Kahani & the Era of Global Digital Healthcare
How dance is important for the feminist movement?
Archives of Dissent: Caste, Sexuality, Protest
Representation: A Study of Gender Quotas in the National Assembly of Pakistan
From Women's Action Forum to Aurat March: The Personal and The Political
Navigating Online Harms and Gendered Disinformation in Pakistan
Slaying the Hydra: Tackling Honour Killings in Pakistan
Productive vs Reproductive Work: Rethinking the Relationship
Spousal Cooperation and Marriage Norms
Desi Futurisms: New and Old Directions in Identity, Indigeneity, and Feminism
Climate Injustice and Land Grab: A Look at Gendered Impacts of Oppression
Navigating through Double Discriminations at Workplaces: Experiences of Minority Women in Pakistan.
Rebuilding Community: Displaced Women and the Making of a Shia Ismaili Muslim Sociality (Book Talk)
Collecting Earth
Designing Technologies for Economic and Social Empowerment
Dagh Dagh Ujala (A Stained Dawn) – Film Screening & Discussion
Violence and Power in Academic Work
Do Inheritance Reforms Increase Women’s Access and Control over Land? Evidence from Punjab (Pakistan)
Civic Engagement and Enterprise Development through Women Community Organizations: A Case Study of TRDP Socio-economic Development Program
Contextualising Digital Colonialism
Encouraging Female Graduates to Enter the Labor Force: Evidence from a Role Model Intervention in Pakistan
The Transgender Truth: Dispelling Myths, Centering Empathy
Beyond Bondage: Hari Women’s Communities of Struggle
Visible Outside, Invisible Inside: The Power of Patriarchy on Female Protest Leaders in Conflict and Violence-Affected Settings
Negotiating Adulthood: Women’s Education, Work and Family Formation in Rural Pakistan
How Women and Men Search for Partners: Evidence from Newspaper Advertisements
Exploring the Intersections of Gender, Energy and Space Use
The Net of Kinship: Mothers, Daughters, and the Webs Caste Weaves in Pakistan
Promoting Gender Justice on Global Garment Supply Chains
Censorship, Progressive Literature, and Secular Nationalism in Late Colonial India and Pakistan
Care in Feminist Spaces: Myths and Monoliths
Gendering Technology
Intersections of Hostility at the Workplace
Salt and Sponge: Eugenics, Women's Welfare, and the Genesis of Family Planning Programs in Pakistan
Auntologies: Queer Aesthetics and South Asian Aunties
Forging Gendered Subjects: The Cultural Politics of Education in Pakistan
Gender and the Politics of Data Work in Frontline Health
Conditional Cash Transfers and Maternal Health: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Pakistan
Impact of COVID-19 on Women in Informal Work across South Asia
Patriarchal Violence and the Policy Landscape
Income Inequality under Covid-19
Exploring Feminism and Fun through Film
SWGI – MHRC – Kashf Conference: Gender, Inequality and Microfinance
Pakistan’s Health Sector: Gaps and Innovations
Intersection of Caste, Gender, Religion and Work: A Case of Christian Female Sweepers in Lahore
Abolishing Archaic Processes: Rape Investigations in Pakistan
The Economic Role of Women in Pakistan: Vulnerabilities and Hurdles
Writing & its Discontent: Sabyn Javeri on Hijabistan
Women in Public Service in Pakistan
Indian Sex Life - Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought
Gendered Design of Technologies
Mobilising Women Voters: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan
Anatomy of a Rumour
Undervaluing Women's Voice in Pakistan and the UK
Pakistani Women in Medicine: Myths and Realities
Engendering Piety and the Making of an Islamic Home in an Islamic Revival Movement in Pakistan
Feminist Journeys in Academia: Theorising State Power, Development and Social Justice in Pakistan's Northern Frontier
Can Feminism Be Fun? Gender, Space and Mobility in Lyari, Karachi
Performing Religious Authority as a Woman: Resources, Constraints, and Cultural Entrepreneurship 
Negotiating Multiple Identities: Pakistani Women and Media Representations
No Wealth for Women: Natural Resources and Gender Inequality in Africa
Institutional Reform and De Facto Women’s Rights: Evidence from Marriage Registrars in Punjab, Pakistan 
Book Talk: Women, Healthcare and Violence 
Postcolonial Echoes of Hir: The Feminist Poetics and the Vernacular Imagination 
You Need to Know a Little Yes/No’: Crossing Gender and Linguistic Boundaries in Pakistani Cinema 
Book Talk: The Women's Movement in Pakistan: Activism, Islam and Democracy
Climbing Out of Poverty: An assessment of the impact of BISP on women's outcomes
Feminist Exegesis and Muslim Women's Agency
Scherezade in the West: Representations of Muslim Women in Leila Aboulela's Work
Arts-Informed Cooperative Inquiry: Possibilities and Potential for Decolonising Methodology
Feminist Voices in Pakistani Urdu Literature: Sara Shagufta, Fahmida Riaz and Kishwer Naheed
Gendered Infrastructures: Women and Urban Politics in Lahore
Neither. Nor. Trans*: Dispensable Masculinities and the Uneasy Promise of Trans* in Pakistan
Narrating Muslim Girlhood in the Pakistani Cityscape of Graphic Narratives
Attachment, Articulation and Agency: Women Digest Writers in Pakistan
Mushk: Meet and Greet with Sania Saeed and Nimra Bucha
Islamophobia and Securitization: Religion, Ethnicity and the Female Voice
Being Good Women: Embodiment and Virtue in Religious and Secular Imaginaries
Of Mothers and Widows: Militarism's Intractable Subjects
Nation, Memory, Humanity in South Asia
Honour Unmasked
The Strut of Peacocks: The Gendered Politics of Nationalism at the Wagah Border
Security or Surveillance? Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of the Internet
Gender Bi-Annual
Research
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Research opportunities 2018
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Research opportunities 2019
Saida Waheed Gender Initiative
Address
Saida Waheed Gender Initiative
LUMS DHA, Lahore Cantt. 54792,
Lahore, Pakistan
Tel: +92 42 3560 8000 Ext. 2234
Contact Information
gender@lums.edu.pk
Tel: +92 42 3560 8000 Ext. 2234
