Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The conventional perception of gender roles in a socio-cultural setup cast men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive beings thereby casting women as emotional, irrational, weak, nurturing, and submissive. Therefore, women are expected to fit themselves in this frame, where in every sense they are inferior to men and lose their personal identity. Thus, women remain as mere object or property to men. Taslima Nasrin as well as Qaisra Shahraz on account of their personal experience with the deteriorating status of women in Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively, contribute considerably to the feminist thought. In most of their writings, Nasrin and Shahraz give evidence of their feminist leanings as both of them delineates situations pertaining to subjugation and marginalization of women by men who have patriarchal mind set. The female characters in their books are all compelled to behave as per the patriarchal norms, wherein the writers aim at highlighting the situations of the women who are eager to break-through the cage of patriarchy. Taslima Nasrin and Qaisra Shahraz exemplify the women who breaches the patriarchal code, and are thus maltreated. Nasrin and Shahraz deal with several feminist issues explored in this study. In fact, Nasrin demonstrates the ways how patriarchal mind set challenges individuality and self-respect of women. Both of the female diasporic writers state that whatever they have written is for the oppressed women of Pakistan and Bangladesh.