In a small hostel room, on a borrowed laptop, a young woman keeps refreshing the website of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), which is about to announce the result of the countrywide annual examination permitting successful candidates to join the Central Superior Services (CSS) of the country.

On her cell phone, the CSS WhatsApp group fills with screenshots and is punctuated with hurried prayers. Someone types, “Check again”. Someone else sends a voice note with an earnest dua (supplication). When her roll number suddenly appears on the list of successful candidates, she covers her face with gratitude and cries at the unthinkable. She is one of 86 women allocated to various professional groups in CSS 2025. There are also 84 men on the list. Out of a total of 12,792 candidates who sat the written exam, only 355 are finally declared successful. The pass rate is 2.67 percent.

In June last year, the World Economic Forum (WEF) placed Pakistan at the bottom of its global gender rankings. In April this year, the FPSC released the CSS result showing women edging past men in final allocations, 86 to 84, in one of the country’s toughest examinations. The two pronouncements are close enough in time to embody the same national moment, yet apart enough in meaning to expose a striking divide.

The result is not a quirk of fate, meant to be consigned to oblivion.........

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