Liberal Feminism in Pakistan: An Analysis of the Impact on the Conventional Image of Pakistani Women

Abstract

How and in what ways has liberal feminism affected the conventional image of Pakistani women? To answer the question – keeping in view the historical dimension of liberal feminism in Pakistan and a reluctant image of its positive side – we studied the previous literature on liberal feminism in the context of Pakistan. We established our theoretical framework based on critical work written in the domain of sociology and chose Saba Mehmood and Foucault’s theoretical foundations. We used content analysis as our research methodology. After setting a geographical lens, we collected 150 articles and extracted 75 based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria. The inclusion criteria were set on geographical boundaries, relevance to the liberal feminism framework, and an affirmative critique of liberal feminism within the limits of Pakistan. After extracting the relevant material, we scrutinized and read the literature carefully. We performed coding on the appropriate material, and by using the thematic analysis technique, we extracted four themes. The four themes were then put into the tube of our theoretical framework to evaluate liberal feminism’s impact on Pakistani women critically. The themes were: Society and question problem, infamous patriarchy, political and legal-language problems, and media and the language problem. Liberal feminism, though, has established roots in Pakistani society, but its claim to alter the whole course of the cultural and social capital of Pakistani society seems problematic. The previous literature did not focus on the critical element of liberal feminism and structure-agency relations within the context of Pakistani society. However, liberal feminism has positively altered the mechanism of daily interaction in Pakistani society, and it has also impacted the conventional image of Pakistani society and gender relations.