Feudal system blamed for women’s plight | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Feudal system blamed for women’s plight

By A Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Poet Shabnam Shakeel on Monday blamed the feudal system for cruelties the woman faces, saying social enlightenment among women intellectuals has given rise to resistance literature.
Giving her presidential address at a Mushaira she said unless the feudal system was abolished the woman would continue to suffer physical as well as psychological violence.
The Mushaira was organized by Pakistan Academy of Letters in connection with the International Women Day. The theme of the seminar was “The Role of Women in Pakistan Resistance Literature”.
Sarwat Mohyuddin was the chief guest. Parveen Tahir and Abida Taqi also expressed their views. The proceedings of the function were conducted by Dur-e-Shahwar.
In their interviews numerous intellectuals laid the responsibility of this cruelty on the fendal system. Now, the women raise their voices against injustice through their pen. The women writers have written a lot in this regard which brings forth their feelings.
Sarwat Mohyuddin said that women literature was in fact resistance literature in which she had depicted her sufferings and conveyed her feelings to men.
Basically, their writings are against men’s behavior as the feelings of men and women are different from each other. Their views came forth when they started to express their feelings and this viewpoint is termed as resistance literature.
The women throughout the world have expressed their feelings through their writings which were termed as resistance literature and therefore they were considered worthy of Nobel Prize.
Parveen Tahir said that not only raising of voice against dictatorship and tyrant rulers, patriotisms, nationalism and anti-imperialism is resistance literature but to protest against every sort of social, psychological, injustice is resistance literature. The number of women writers writing in prose is not only greater but their role in resistance literature is more potent and powerful that those writing poetry.
Aabida Taqi said that the women creative writers in Pakistan can be classified through two ways with regard to resistance–those who have made indirect treatment of resistance and those who have made direct treatment of resistance.
The latter group consists of those whose ideology is clear, expression is bold, tone is protesting and they expressed their views in every poetic genre incisively. This is their individual identity and the introduction of their creative personality. “With reference to resistance literature we may find numerous such examples which can be regarded as resistant voices partially if not completely. The writings of women in Pakistan have been forcefully representing resistance in every respect.”
In Mushaira Shabnam Shakeel, Sarwat Mohyuddin, Naureen Talat Arooba, Parveen Tahir, Abida Taqi, Tabassum Ikhlaq, Dr. Naheed Qamar, Dr.Asma, Farah Deeba, Rizwana Syed Ali, Riffat Waheed, Talat Farooq and Nusrat Masood pronounced their poetic creations.
Source: Dawn
Date:3/10/2009