Pakistan’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feminisms

Transgressing Boundaries, an art installation by Karachi-based artist Nisha Pinjani, depicts several women in various positions all tied together by their hair. A thick black braid grows out of each woman's head and proceeds to get in every woman's way. In binding them together, the braid also creates divisions; it curls itself around their feet, chains their ankles, weighs down on their backs and prevents them from getting too close to one another. Each woman stops mid-action for the fear of crossing over the boundaries the braid has created. The braid mediates them. It keeps them in place.

It is impossible not to stop and think about these boundaries, and how they sum up the state of feminism in Pakistan, a term that presumably liberates but in practice can also serve to bind – and limit – Pakistani women. In a country where 'feminist' has historically been used as a slur and where few women in the public eye identified as feminists at all, several celebrities today openly identify as feminists. Negative connotations around 'feminism' have somewhat dissipated, but there still exists a general anxiety about the word in Pakistan and a desire, even amongst those who embrace the term, to qualify their use of the word 'feminist.'