A Feminist Study Of Sexism In Shahraz’s Selected Short Stories

Abstract

Works by Pakistani women are of grave significance in this country's phallocentric culture, where it is normal for women to be humbled. Qaisra Shahraz’s “A Pair of Jeans” and “The Discovery” addresses women’s social and cultural representations, which, according to Helen Cixous, queered from a phallogocentric perspective. Textual analysis of Shahraz’s selected short stories embedded in the local and diasporic contexts reveals how women’s writings are not similar to phallocentric ones. The role and nature of female characters in the selected stories highlight[1] the ‘truths’ of women as human beings who are not ‘monsters outside the home’ or ‘angels inside the home’ as they are labeled in men’s writings. This affirmation of a woman’s identity can subvert phallogocentric sexism in the Pakistani context.