The Journey of Subjugation to Liberation based on the Selected Novels of Taslima Nasrin & Qaisra Shahraz

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2021 in the subject Sociology - Relationships and Family, grade: A+, , language: English, abstract: The conventional perception of gender roles in a socio-cultural setup cast men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive beings thereby casting women as emotional, irrational, weak, nurturing, and submissive. Therefore, women are expected to fit themselves in this frame, where in every sense they are inferior to men and lose their personal identity. Thus, women remain as mere object or property to men. Taslima Nasrin as well as Qaisra Shahraz on account of their personal experience of the deteriorating status of women in Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively, contributes considerably to the feminist thought. In most of their writings, Nasrin & Shahraz give evidences of their feminist leanings as both of them delineates situations pertaining to subjugation and marginalization of women by men who have patriarchal mind set. The female characters in their books are all compelled to behave as per the patriarchal norms, wherein the writers aim at highlighting the situations of the women who are eager to break-through the cage of patriarchy. Taslima Nasrin is a well-known author from Bangladesh who has been surviving as a refugee since 1994. She started her career as a poet in the late 70s and gained a global attention in the initial 90s due to her novels and essays based on feminist views. She also highlighted criticism in her writing by portraying the misogynistic religion that is Islam. The writer in USA and Europe for decades shifted in India in 2005 and banished in 2008 from the country. "Lajja" is one of the famous works of Taslima which was written in Bengali. Here, the writer has highlighted the battle or riot between Muslims and a Hindu family. The publication of the book changed her career and life vividly. She also suffered from several physical attacks with the publication of this novel. She wrote about the Islamic philosophy which made the Muslims frantic and they asked for a ban on this novel.