SUBVERTING GENDERED NATIONALISM: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF WOMEN’S DEFIANCE IN SABA IMTIAZ’S KARACHI, YOU’RE KILLING ME!

Abstract

The paper aims to illustrate female characters’ efforts in subverting Pakistani nationalism that is gendered due to the patriarchal influences of religion and culture in Karachi, You’re Killing Me! (2014) by Saba Imtiaz. The article uses qualitative cum descriptive approach for the textual analysis of the selected text. The concept of Islamization introduced by President Zia ul-Haq confined women to domestic spaces and silenced them in the national narratives. Similarly, the cultural model introduced by Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias is quite applicable to the Pakistani context where women are reduced to the symbolic position of mothers of nation and cultural transmitters. The research is significant since it exposes how the cultural and religious influences contribute to the exclusion of women from the national narratives. However, the study contends that women resist the patriarchal notions of nationalism through technology in the novel Karachi, You’re Killing Me! (2014) by Saba Imtiaz. The protagonist of the novel, Ayesha and her friend Zara use digital technologies and social media to define new social, political, and cultural space for women which subvert the dominant modes of gendered nationalism. Thus, the article proves that if given opportunities, women prove themselves an equal gender unlike the national narratives built by the patriarchy mentioning women as second gender.