Subversion of Pre-Defined Female Gender Roles in Pakistani Society: A Feminist Analysis of the Shadow of the Crescent Moon, Butterfly Season and Stained

Abstract

The present research aspires to represent the subversion of pre-defined gender roles in the novels; The Shadow of the Crescent Moon (2013) by Fatima Bhutto, Butterfly Season (2014) by Natasha Ahmed, and Stained (2016) by Abda Khan. The researchers had tried to depict the destabilization of gender-based stereotyped identity from the Pakistani perspective. The selected method of study was Feminist Analysis by Tyson (2006), which examined literature as a medium to represent feminist issues, whereas; the theoretical angle of “Matrix of Domination” from Collins’ (2004) Feminist/Gender theory was used as a principle to analyze and depict the subversion of pre-defined gender roles in the selected novels. Present study aimed to establish the notion of gender as a social construct that could be subverted through literary discourses that have the potential to challenge the power-based gender roles within a patriarchal society. In this regard, different critical works of prominent theorists and writers had been discussed briefly in the literature review to project the significance of the works by contemporary Pakistani women writers as a medium to subvert identities formed by their society. Gender was also a means of power, through which the dominant sought to control the subordinate. The objective of the research was to suggest that gender is socially constructed, therefore, it can be deconstructed through literature. The selected novels exemplify the current gender inclinations of today’s Pakistan with the pen of female writers. Stereotyped gender identity is a socially constructed vice that divides humans into segments, hence it is required of the contemporary discourses to decenter such power discourses that perpetuate hegemonic boundaries and restrict the women into social shackles of imposed identities.