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The New Heroine? Gender Representations in Contemporary Pakistani Dramas

  • Virginie Dutoya
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Abstract

This chapter studies the representation of the ‘new Pakistani women’ in contemporary Urdu dramas. Specifically, it examines the heroines of four recent dramas that have been celebrated for their progressive outlook on women’s issues. I argue that the discourse on women’s rights has been reinterpreted to shape a normative role model for urban middle-class women. This new woman is set in opposition to the upper-class, ‘westernized’ women as well as to ‘backward’, lower-class women. She is expected to be educated, self-reliant, and aware of her rights but also family-oriented, respectable, pious, and above all, ready to compromise on her desires in order to avoid familial and social conflict. By doing so, she preserves the unity of the family and by extension of the nation.

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Videos

  1. “Mera Safar”, BBC Urdu, 10 March 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03m4zbw. Accessed 23 Feb 2016.
  2. “Naya zamaana. Nayi baatein” (New Age. New Conversations), QMobile Advertisement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ3X4CWStoM. Accessed 23 Feb 2016.

Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  • Virginie Dutoya
    • 1
  1. 1.Centre national de la recherche scientifiqueBordeauxFrance

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