The New Heroine? Gender Representations in Contemporary Pakistani Dramas

Virginie Dutoya (1)

1 CED - Centre Émile Durkheim

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.

Mots clés: Women; Heroine; Gender representation; Pakistani Dramas

Domaines: Science politique; Etudes sur le genre

Virginie Dutoya. The New Heroine? Gender Representations in Contemporary Pakistani Dramas. Nazia Hussein (ed.). Rethinking New Womanhood : Practices of Gender, Class, Culture and Religion in South Asia, Palgrave Macmillan; Springer International Publishing, pp.71-93, 2018, 978-3-319-67900-6. ⟨10.1007/978-3-319-67900-6_4⟩. ⟨halshs-01763867⟩