Islamabad, May 5:: They are articulate, forthright and fiery and it's not easy to miss them inside or outside Parliament, dangling their chunky earrings or frequently adjusting their hair.

But can the smart and savvy women's brigade in parliament mean good news for Pakistani women this time round?

Information and Broadcasting Minister Sherry Rehman, who is doing her second stint in Parliament on a reserved seat, could do little to improve the lot of women during her first stint.

The bills Rehman moved in the last House for empowering women met with little success as women members themselves opposed them.

Rehman, a former journalist and close aide of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, in fact, wrote about the dilemma of being a woman parliamentarian in an article "women parliamentarians have not been able to deliver on any of the promises that they make to themselves and others when they got sworn in as public representatives".

She also articulated her angst in an interview to a news magazine in 2005.

"But what is most heart breaking is to see educated women on the treasury benches twisting and turning with the political wind, using women's rights language to get ahead in the world, but abandoning their cause in the pursuit of ministries and even a lot less.

"It is for this reason that we were never able to form a caucus that actually addressed issues head-on." So can Rehman, who believes women have a long way to go before they measure their success as politicians by what they have been able to achieve for other women, hope to change the lot of women now? Sociologist Afiya Shehrbano calls women lawmakers the "B-team" and believes Pakistan's patriarchal politics cannot accommodate women leaders.

"These surrogate leaders represent the role of women in contemporary politics, where they increasingly seem to be playing as the 'B' team for male political leaders," Shehrbano wrote.

Rehman isn't the only one who felt she was in a disadvantaged position in the National Assembly. PML-Q's prominent woman leader Kashmala Tariq, who is also back in the lower house of parliament on a reserved seat, thinks men are not "pro-women".

"They (men) talk about us behind our backs. They will try to pull you down at every opportunity they get," she said in an interview during her last stint in parliament when she was an occupant of the treasury benches.

"They don't like people like me who come from the middle class and who have been empowered to raise our voices.

How can they accept you and me sitting in the assembly and talking about our rights? The faces have changed but the mentality is the same as it was some two decades ago," she said.

Tariq, who recently ran afoul of the big wigs in the PML-Q for challenging the party's policies and forming a dissident group of lawmakers, said, "We don't have democracy even within our parties, whether it's the PPP or the PML, because men do not listen to you, they don't give you any weightage.

"They make you feel they have done you a favour by giving you a reserved seat and bringing you into parliament.

This is the mentality of every male member in parliament." Tariq, who worked on a report on the Hudood Ordinance, the controversial law used in rape cases, and honour killings in her last term, said: "Women who are vocal, who raise their voice for their rightsthey only want to use them for their own benefit.

"Women who say 'yes' to them are acceptable, but those who tend to disagree or raise some critical issues, are not." With conservative elements from hardline religious parties falling by the wayside in the country's last general election, lipstick and eye-shadow wearing women lawmakers meant good news for forward-looking Pakistanis.

But the changes in women's appearance seem just cosmetic. The number of burqa-wearing women lawmakers has dwindled from the previous parliament's six to zero and those who show up in chadors sport rather flashy ones.

According to a report by the NGO The Researchers, 70 per cent of women who have made it to parliament in the Feb 18 polls belong to political houses and are replacements for male family members who could not contest for some reason.

Those who made it on a reserved seat too are women from prominent political or non-political families.

Of the 342 members in Parliament, 75 are women, though only 15 got in on a general ticket. The remaining 60 came in on reserved seats. Since the women lawmakers are usually "replacements", it is no surprise that 80 per cent of those who do make it to parliament never speak a word.

The women also usually do not have an opinion on issues, including those concerning women such as the Hudood Ordinance, "karokari" or honour killing.

Shehrbano blames the women for their lot. "It is also about the inability of women to emerge out of their autonomous but limited roles in 'women's wings' and become mainstream competing politicians. In both cases, the beneficiaries are male leaders, who reap political capital from lower cadre and women's activism in their parties."