Bhutto thought that she experienced a lot of gender discrimination as the first Muslim woman Prime Minister. She felt that, many of the Muslim religious leaders believed she had taken a man's place. This criticism based on her gender was something she found very difficult to deal with.

"I found that a whole series of people opposed me simply on the grounds that I was a woman. The clerics took to the mosque saying that Pakistan had thrown itself outside the Muslim world and the Muslim umar by voting for a woman, that a woman had usurped a man's place in the Islamic society. I found that my opponents reduced themselves to verbal abuse rather than discuss issues, the very mere fact that I was a woman seemed to drive them into a frenzy. So that was the biggest challenge. I don't know how to deal with that, I can deal with political differences, but how do you deal with it when someone says I don't like you because you're a woman and you've taken a man's place."