Not Easily Put-Downabale: Magazine Representations and Muslim Women's Identities in Southern Punjab,...

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Feminist Formations, Volume 22, Issue 3, Fall 2010, pp. 176-195 (Article)

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©2010 Feminist Formations, Vol. 22 No. 3 (Fall) pp. 176–195

“Not Easily Put-Downable”: Magazine Representations and Muslim Women’s Identities in Southern Punjab, Pakistan

Shirin Zubair

This research is an attempt to provide useful insights regarding Muslim women’s identities through a study conducted on the readership and reception processes of popular women’s magazines in Southern Punjab, Pakistan. One of the objectives of this research is to challenge the oriental “othering” of Muslim women as a mono-lith. The research showcases diversity across the board within a Muslim country like Pakistan by highlighting the cultural conflicts and ambivalence inherent in the ideologies discursively constructed through the genre of women’s magazines. The research draws upon Lazar’s (2005) model of Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) theory of social semiotic to highlight the ambivalence inherent within the juxtaposition of images of women’s bodies and accompanying religious codes. Read in conjunction, they articulate a certain ideology regarding the construction of Pakistani women’s socioreligious identity(ies) that serve the interests of patriarchy and the Muslim clergy. More importantly, the research presents a detailed analytical study of the relationship between magazine representations and how these affect women’s multiple and complex identities. The findings suggest that the magazine representations are a powerful resource Muslim women draw upon in constructing their identities, as women read these magazines not only as a source of pleasure, but also in quest of their identity(ies).

Keywords: discourses / identities / magazines / media / Muslim / representations

Women’s magazines are a part of the daily life of almost 80 percent of women in Pakistan, irrespective of their age or social background. Although these

Shirin Zubair · 177

magazines are immensely popular, there is little research on this genre in the Pakistani context. There are a number of weekly and monthly Urdu magazines that are published regularly and are read widely throughout the country. These include Khwateen Digest, Shuaa, Pakeeza, Suspense, Kiran, Family Magazine, Akhbar-e-Jehan. In recent publications on women’s literacy practices carried out in rural and urban Multan, reading of women’s magazines among teenage girls and young women was reported as a significant finding. These magazines were read not only as a source of pleasure, but also for a sense of identity. Whereas young women in rural Multan reported reading popular romances and women’s magazines like She, Mag Woman’s Own, Pakeezah, and Shuaa, older women reported reading religious texts (Zubair 2002, 2003, 2004). However, the popularity and ubiquity of the genre of women’s magazines has not been investigated in this region.

Contemporary feminist scholars argue that since “women” is a very broad category, it is therefore misleading to lump together women belonging to differ-ent races, religions, cultures, ethnicities, and sexual orientations (Baxter 1999; Mohanty, Russo, and Torres 1991). It has been pointed out very convincingly that the category is not monolithic, and that it intersects with other variables like race, religion, class, and education; therefore, instead of taking “woman” as a binary of “man,” research must account for the multiple and diverse sub-jectivities and identities of women across the globe (Curti 1998). Moreover, the feminism of the West is a far cry from women’s feminist movements in Eastern and Middle Eastern Muslim cultures (Fernea 1998; Haeri 2002; Mernissi 1987). The category “Muslim women” is also misleading, because of the diversity found in various Muslim cultures throughout the world today. Taking these arguments as my starting point, I argue that even within a patriarchal Muslim society like Pakistan, there are subcategories of age, social class, education, and occupation that shape women’s identities and reading practices.

Magazines as Semiotic and Linguistic Constructs

Linguists argue that representations are a resource that individuals draw on in constructing their own identities and ways of doing things. Conversely, these representations draw on, though often selectively, people’s lived experiences and their everyday talk about it (Cameron and Kulick 2003). Fairclough (1989, 2005) observes that media is not simply representational, but also can be viewed as sites for the discursive construction of knowledge, beliefs, values, social rela-tions, and social identities. Feminist writers have argued that the way women are represented in literature and the media has an impact upon the way they define themselves as subjects in their own lives (Millet 1970; Weedon 1987; Woolf [1966]1998). According to Lacanian theory, as a child learns to identify with its own image in a mirror, it also acquires the language, the subjectivity “I,” at the same time. Hence, studying popular romances has been regarded by

178 · Feminist Formations 22.3

feminist writers as offering a possible point of entry for understanding important aspects of the feminine psyche (McRobbie 2000).

More recently, Lazar (2005) and Litosseliti (2006) have also talked about the representation of women in magazines as only sex objects, whether in pas-sive or supportive roles, and as victims. Writing about the practices of reading women’s magazines, Hermes (1995) observes that everyday practices, far from being meaningless, are highly significant in that they can be a form of resis-tance to mainstream cultural practices. The reasons Hermes’s readers gave for reading women’s magazines was that they could be “easily put down.” Hermes emphasizes the double meaning of this phrase: Namely, that while women use it to refer to an activity that does not require concentration and can be done simultaneously with other household work, the reading of women’s magazines is not regarded as serious reading by highbrow critics. In fact, such reading is considered lowbrow. Hermes emphasizes the “pleasure” these magazines offer to women, since even after thirty years of feminist writing they remain popular—hence “not easily put-downable.”

A Critique of Semiotic (and Linguistic) Theory(ies)

Although it has been an influential theory since its inception during the 1970s, in recent years, cultural studies has separated from semiotic theory by arguing that academic readers are not representative of typical readers of these women’s magazines. The danger of semiotic theory is that it does not encompass everyday readership and consumption and so tends to be textual rather than audience-driven. How far are Fairclough (1989, 2005), Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), or McRobbie (2000) representative of the readership of these magazines? Whose real-ity are they describing? The analysts are not readers. Similarly, I am not a reader of these popular women’s magazines, which have a particular kind of readership. Hence, the crucial issue in my research is not only to deconstruct the semiotic structure of the magazines, but also to be able to link it to reception and consump-tion; to be able to show, like Hermes (1995), that these magazines liberate rather than constrain their respective readers. Although begun with textual analysis (Haider [née Zubair] 2009), the present research goes far beyond it, as I do not intend to over-privilege linguistic analysis over discourse and sociological analysis.

Usually, feminists analyze women’s magazines by looking down on them; though, as the title of this article suggests, the magazines are “not easily put-downable” because they are still popular despite thirty years of feminist research against them. Since we construct our identities in relation to societal norms and media images, this will help us to understand women readers’ aspirations and responses to them, as opposed to researchers’ analyses of media texts, which neglect such aspirations and responses.

In this paper, I am interested in more than language: Namely, the discourse mediation of magazines as texts, and how these texts are received, read, and


interpreted by women. What is the context of reception? What do women do with these representations? What effect do they have? What is their impact upon readers? The promotions of the magazines are successful, but how and why? There is no obvious relationship between promotion and consumption; the idea of consumption is not related to individual psychology, but to social interaction. It is a mediated process because women generally shop in groups, while men generally shop alone. In order to understand the process of reception and consumption of magazine texts, qualitative investigation of what readers do with these magazines was required. Therefore most of the questions in the questionnaire (presented in the appendix to this article) are open-ended.

Research Methods

The objective of the present project is to extend the research in this field from a feminist poststructuralist perspective in order to look at both sides of the picture—that is, semiotic and linguistic analyses of women’s magazines, as well as survey data involving women’s own aspirations and their reception of this popular genre. Hence, the principal research question was: How do women belonging to various age groups and social classes receive these magazine representations? The value of such a focus is that it moves away from research-ers’ biases and perceptions and toward readers’ receptions of the magazines. Additional questions addressed here were: Do women buy these identities? If so, which women do (young or old; upper, middle, or working class)? How far do women relate to the images and identities offered?

The pilot study and questionnaire survey were carried out in the city of Multan in Southern Punjab, Pakistan during 2006–2007. The grant for this project came from the faculty research funds of Baha-ud-Din Zakariya University in Multan. This is an area of Pakistan with very low literacy rates for women and, post–9/11, is reported to be a hotbed of religious extremism. As opposed to mainstream and Westernized urban centers like Lahore and Islamabad where women read English magazines, Southern Punjab is a relatively underdeveloped area in terms of women’s education and development.

In the initial stage, the questionnaire was randomly distributed among women readers. I delegated this task to my research assistant because I am not a reader of these popular magazines and thus, generally, do not come across women who read them or popular fiction. My research assistant, a female student, age 22, was herself an avid reader of these magazines and knew many women of various age groups who also were. The sample data for piloting the questionnaire consisted of women between the ages of 22–30. Apart from the age variable, the sampling was based on convenience. The assistant distributed fifteen question-naires in June 2006 and six weeks later she returned seven questionnaires to me. In light of the responses received, I changed and reformulated some of the questions. For example, one reader’s response to question 28 led me to add the


attribute “caring” to the list of characteristics that readers admire in a male hero’s character in romance fiction. Another significant change incorporated into the questionnaire was that readers differentiated between “scarf” and “dupatta,” whereas I had used the former for both long and short headscarves. I modified the questionnaire and included both words after reading the response of one particular reader to this question. I also decided to include a range of readers’ ages, since one of the readers in the initial sample mentioned that her mother was an avid reader and a regular buyer of these magazines.

Initially, I did not preset the variables for collecting data, but the responses to the pilot questionnaire helped me shape my research and thus gave a new direction to the research process. One of the respondents, whose monthly income exceeded that of the others, could afford to spend more on these magazines. Also, this same respondent valued the intelligence and indepen-dence of female heroes over the attribute of virginity. Therefore, in the light of the results of the pilot data, I decided to have a wider sample of readers from the upper and middle classes to account for variables of social class and age, because these would expose the linkages between them and women’s ideologi-cal positions. Hence, a revised and open-ended questionnaire was distributed among women of all age groups and social classes in Multan. Women were asked to reflect on the possible influence of these magazines on perceptions of their femininities and identities in relation to societal expectations and/or magazine representations, which can also be linked to other media representa-tions like film and television. Women may contest, question, or identify with these representations.

Haider (2009), focusing on the linguistic and semiotic analyses of maga-zines in a feminist perspective, analyzed the images in terms of the use of imperatives, lexical features, idioms, modals, metaphors, and connotations that accompany linguistic code. The particular themes that Haider’s research highlighted in the genre were the images and representations of women’s bodies, food and eating, clothing and fashion, sexuality within the subgenres of romance narratives, advertisements, regular features such as magazine articles, horoscopes, editorials, pictures, photoshoots of models, interviews of celebrities, and so on. The data have been analyzed using quantification methods: Namely, tables and figures showing percentages, followed by a quali-tative analysis of these statistics. Figures 1 and 2 indicate the percentages of content in the magazines Khwateen Digest and Shuaa, which were found to be the most widely read and thus the most popular Urdu women’s magazines in Southern Punjab; tables 1 and 2 provide the range of semiotic images in these magazines. For a fuller analysis of the role of semiotics in the construction of Pakistani women’s identities, see Haider’s “Semiotics Ideology and Femininity in Popular Pakistani Women’s Magazines.”


Table 1. Categories of Semiotic Images in Khwateen Digest (November 2006–January 2007)Issue Female

imagesMale

imagesImages of children

Food images

Images of beauty products

Nov. 2006 61 23 3 7 24Dec. 2006 64 20 5 11 25Jan. 2007 78 21 4 20 19

Table 2. Categories of Semiotic Images in Shuaa (November 2006–January 2007)Issue Female

imagesMale

imagesImages of children

Food images

Images of beauty products

Nov. 2006 73 23 1 9 27Dec. 2006 56 21 7 9 15Jan. 2007 70 17 3 20 36

Summary of Research Findings and Discussion: Background Information

Tables 3 and 4 provide background data about the informants. Two samples of women were drawn, one consisting of women ages 30 and above (table 3), and the other of women below age 30 (table 4). For ease of analysis, these samples are called “older women” and “younger women,” respectively. A total of fifty questionnaires were collected, which were equally divided (twenty-five each) between older women and younger women.

Determinants of Reading Women’s Magazines

Women’s ages and social roles seemed to determine how much money and time they spent buying and reading magazines. The ages of the informants ranged between the ages of 14–52 years, and their monthly incomes varied from between 9,000 to 80,000 Pak rupees, which indicate that women from the lower and middle classes read these magazines. Seventy-eight percent of the women started reading for pleasure at ages 12–19, while 58 percent specifically reported reading these magazines at these ages. Irrespective of their age group, women tend to start reading for pleasure (including reading women’s magazines) between the ages of 12–19. After magazine reading, fiction and religious books are rated as the next most popular leisure-reading subject matters by both age groups: 70 percent of women read fiction, and 26 percent read religious litera-ture. Sixty-six percent of the women reported that, on average, they spent one to five hours per week reading magazines, while 46 percent spend six hours or less watching television.


Table 3. Older Women’s Background InformationNo. of informant

Age Education Occupation Monthly income

(Pak rupees)

Marital status

Religion

1 30 matriculated housewife 20,000 married Islam2 30 FA teacher 9,000 married Islam3 30 BA, PTC teacher 25,000 married Islam4 31 BA, BEd housewife none married Islam5 31 MA student 20,000 single Islam6 31 BA student 10,000 single Islam7 31 MSc, BEd teacher 22,000 married Islam8 31 BA none — single Islam9 32 BA none — single Islam

10 32 BPharm housewife 25,000 married Islam11 32 BA housewife 25,000 married Islam12 34 MA student 20,000 single Islam13 35 MSc housewife 12,000 married Islam14 35 MA lecturer 30,000 married Islam15 36 primary school domestic worker 7,000 married Islam16 38 matriculated housewife none married Islam17 40 matriculated housewife — married Islam18 40 MA housewife 30,000 married Islam19 40 FA teacher 10,500 married Islam20 45 MA — 35,000 married Islam21 45 FA housewife 25,000 married Islam22 45 MA, MEd teacher 13,000 married Islam23 46 BA housewife 30,000 married Islam24 48 BA teacher (retired) 40,000 married Islam25 52 matriculated housewife 30,000 married Islam

While 72 percent of older women can buy the magazines, 60 percent of younger women borrow them; 52 percent of older, married women read maga-zines at bedtime, as opposed to 72 percent of younger, single women who are able to read them during the morning hours. Similar findings were reported in an earlier study in rural Punjab in which reading newspapers was a bedtime leisure activity for women, while men read them during the morning (Zubair 2003). Although older, married women can afford to purchase these magazines, they do not have the luxury of reading for pleasure during the day, owing to the responsibilities of household work and being mothers, whereas single women may devote their morning hours to leisure reading. The time and space allocated to reading magazines in women’s daily lives relates to the gendered division of labor: Married women’s days are primarily occupied by domestic chores.


Table 4. Younger Women’s Background InformationNo. of informant

Age Education Occupation Monthly income

(Pak rupees)

Marital status

Religion

1 14 middle school student none single Islam2 20 FSc student none single Islam3 21 BA teacher 2,500 single Islam4 21 BA, BEd student 50,000 single Islam5 21 MA teacher — single Islam6 21 BA student none single Islam7 21 BA student 12,000 single Islam8 21 BA, BEd student 30,000 single Islam9 21 BA student none single Islam

10 22 BA student none single Islam11 22 FA student 50,000 single Islam12 22 MA student 40,000 single Islam13 22 BA student none single Islam14 22 master’s degree student 20,000 single Islam15 22 MBBS student 15,000 single Islam16 22 MA student 30,000 single Islam17 22 BA student 50,000 single Islam18 22 MA student 15,000 single Islam19 22 MA student 80,000 single Islam20 22 master’s degree student none single Islam21 22 MBBS student 30,000 single Islam22 23 BA student none single Islam23 23 MSc student none single Islam24 24 MA student 30,000 single Islam25 24 MSc librarian 15,000 single Islam

Emulating Images in Women’s Magazines

With regard to women’s emulating the images of glamorous models and celebri-ties with “hourglass” figures and designer outfits and accessories in magazines, there is ambivalence, regardless of age or social class. Although 54 percent of the women said that they do not wish to look like the images in the magazines, ironically and simultaneously, they also expressed the desire to have similar hairstyles (8 percent), dresses (22 percent), makeup (8 percent), accessories (18 percent), and models’ figures (10 percent), so many would like to emulate in some form the images of models in the magazines. The women’s hesitancy in acknowledging this desire is evident from the statistic that 50 percent of them resort to dieting, fasting, exercising, or shopping in boutiques and overspending


after viewing these images in magazines. Another interesting pattern in the statistics reveals that older women are more conscious of their figures: 56 percent of them said that they wished to look like the women in the images, with 12 percent saying that they had dieted and/or fasted and 28 percent saying that they shopped in boutiques and designer shops. (Only 4 percent of the younger women stated that they dieted or fasted or went to designer shops to emulate these images of magazine models.) Fifty-two percent of the older women believed that the images of women in magazines were “somewhat similar” to what women looked like in real life, with 32 percent believing that they were “very similar,” and only 6 percent saying that the images were not similar at all. In reality, the fact that the images of magazine models were considered somewhat similar and very similar to readers indicates that these women do wish to look like and try to emulate them, since what appears as “real life” is generally perceived to be an attainable goal and within reach.

It could be argued that young, educated women in the data were reluctant and self-conscious in acknowledging this fact, whereas older, married women are far less self-conscious, having shed some of their inhibitions with regard to their bodies and self-images, as it takes confidence to admit resorting to dieting/fasting, exercising, and overspending—in short, to have invested time, energy, and money in developing and maintaining a model’s “ideal” figure. Haider (2009), in a study of semiotic construction of femininities in these magazines, highlights the reductive femininities these images offer to their readers, and goes on to argue that such images can have a psychologically detrimental impact on women’s self-esteem in terms of their body images, because average readers may be overweight teenagers and obese housewives who are most likely to be dissatisfied with their bodies after viewing these images. The images play up women’s sexuality at the cost of other positive attributes, thus reducing them to body parts and saleable commodities. Hence, older women’s efforts to emulate the images of models indicate that they tend to internalize these images as role models in the construction of their own identities.

Although these ideals of attractiveness are presented as liberating, Zubair and Shiekh (2004) have shown that these unrealistic ideals restrict and con-strain women in their bodies. Moreover, the images of beautiful women used in fashion and beauty advertisements who are wearing the latest styles in clothing also imply that women are idle, vain, and primarily concerned with their appearances. Also, a particular type of perfection in beauty is preferred: Models are slender, tall, and fair-skinned, which collaterally implies that dark-skinned, short, medium-sized, plump, or buxom women are neither attractive nor desirable. This has several serious implications: Namely, women may unduly torment themselves through excessive dieting and exercise and may develop lower self-esteem and poor self-images if their bodies and physical attributes do not conform to these images that are so pervasive and powerful in the world of advertising. Through subtle ideological formations, these advertisements in


Pakistani women’s magazines present certain distortions regarding women’s bodies and their social roles, which women as a group need to contest.

The Symbolism of the Veil

The patterns that emerge from a close reading of the questionnaire responses suggest that religion, religious rituals, and practices are crucial to women readers’ sense of identity. Interestingly, based on the data cited above, in terms of dress codes, far more younger women in Southern Punjab wear the veil or cover their heads in public (24 percent), as compared to older women (4 percent). In the overall population, 96 percent of younger women cover their heads, wearing a chador or burka as a form of observing purdah.1 As discussed above, not only are younger women more self-conscious of their bodies and physical appearances, but also they are pressured to conform to societal and familial expectations, particularly if they are unmarried. The age-old assumptions that women above age 45 lose their desirability and attractiveness may be the reason that certain rules of purdah are relaxed for them.

Mernissi (1987) has argued that woman’s sexuality is strictly controlled in the Muslim social order because of the fear of chaos (fitna) or havoc that a woman’s sexuality may wreak on the smooth functioning of the social order. However, when a woman is past her reproductive years, the strict rules of purdah are generally relaxed, which may be the reason that older women do not gener-ally cover themselves with the veil or headscarf. An interesting example is that of Benazir Bhutto—twice elected prime minister of Pakistan—who, in spite of her Western upbringing and education, needed to resort to wearing the chador to win public support and approval. Additionally, she consented to a hastily arranged marriage prior to contesting the general elections in Pakistan in 1988 in order to project the image of a respectable married woman.

Contrary to the Western construct of veiled women as domesticated, oppressed, and backward, these women are making a political statement about their distinct Muslim identity through adhering by choice to a dress code in which they take pride; wearing the veil by choice is a symbolic assertion of their Muslim identities. In a previous study at a Southern Punjab university, young women studying for the master’s degree in English literature reported resorting to reading Islamic literature as an alternative and counter to English literature and its influence and to wearing headscarves and veils for two reasons: First, to project a distinct religious identity, and second, to discourage unwanted male attention (Zubair 2006).

Conversely, women who wore Western clothes like jeans were frowned upon and viewed by other women as too liberal and Westernized, and regarded as morally lax by men. In a similar vein, Mernissi (1987) has observed that “[t]he fundamentalist wave is a statement about identity. And that is why their call for the veil for women has to be looked at in the light of the painful but necessary


and prodigious reshuffling of identity that Muslims are going through in these often confusing but always fascinating times. Islam is definitely one of the modern political forces competing for power around the globe” (33). Hence, it may be surmised that religious fervor seems to be on the rise among younger Muslim women: 90 percent of women fast during Ramadan irrespective of their age or social class, whereas 8 percent also fast during other times; an average of 66 percent of women in the questionnaire data regularly prayed five times a day (64 percent of older women and 68 percent of younger women).

Interestingly, the front covers of the women’s magazines invariably feature images of glamorous young models who are unveiled; similarly, the photos of celebrities inside the magazines are also of unveiled women. There can be several reasons for these unveiled women on magazine covers: First, the publishers use them as marketing gimmicks, since these magazines are displayed in bookshops in local markets and consequently images of attractive women on the covers are likely to increase sales; second, older women readers find these images to be liberating and they attempt to emulate them, though younger women resist by resorting to wearing headscarves, veils, and burkas; and third, the flashy and colorful cover images are meant for the male gaze and to promote male voyeur-ism (Zubair and Shiekh 2004). Men look at the pictures of attractive women in these magazines, but do not read the contents, as earlier studies showed that men read facts, whereas women read fiction in popular magazines (Zubair 2003).

I discuss in the final sections of this paper how these women’s magazines as patriarchal constructs are geared toward a particular femininity to maintain the hegemony of patriarchal family values and control of women’s sexuality and their reproductive roles. It is in the interests of patriarchy to perpetuate these discourses of attractiveness and thus restrict women’s participation in the public domain by offering these reductive images.

Reading the Romance

The reading of romantic fiction was identified by a vast majority of women as their favorite pastime. All the readers in the survey reported reading romantic fiction regularly; 68 percent reported re-reading magazines they liked, with 42 percent re-reading romantic fiction and 34 percent re-reading poetry. The most widely read and re-read sections in the magazines are romances. No less significant is the fact that romance fiction takes up 72 percent of the space in the popular magazines, as is indicated in figures 1 and 2. According to Radway (1987), romance reading creates a fantasy world and utopian state for women, not out of contentment certainly, but because of longing and dissatisfaction and as an escape from and protest against their traditional roles (215). Other research studies (Ang 1985; Morley 1986; Stacey 1994; Zubair 2004) also showed that women prefer fiction because it enables them to escape. Radway (1987) indicated that the reading of romances was a declaration of independence, a kind of minor


Figure 1. Contents classification of the popular women’s magazine Khwateen Digest (December 2006 issue)

Figure 2. Contents classification of the popular women’s magazine Shuaa (January 2007 issue)


rebellion against the position accorded by the dominant patriarchal discourse: That of the caring housewife and mother.

A similar interpretation can be applied to the reading of these popular magazines by women who attempt to resist the dominant cultural practices by creating a world of their own and an alternative, oppositional set of values through romance reading. For example, the concept of dating and courtship or the practice of marrying for love is taboo and nonexistent among the popula-tions who read these magazines. Those who decide to marry for love against the wishes of their parents and family have to forgo all familial support and patronage, and they find themselves socially excluded and even ostracized at times. Romantic fiction in these magazines fills a void in these young women’s lives, who read not for escape or fulfillment, but out of longing for that utopian world of romances these magazines offer. The construction of romance itself is far from being gender-neutral or symmetrical. As Lazar (2002) pointed out in her analysis of romance in advertisements, it is biased in targeting mainly women and in presenting a framework that justifies and naturalizes asymmetrical, conservative gender relations.

This might also imply, however, that women read romantic fiction for personal fulfillment; thus, the significance they attach to personal relationships is realized through the vicarious pleasure derived from watching television, as well as by reading romances. Radway (1987) reported that readers described romances as a special gift; they were viewed as time reclaimed from the demands of family and domestic chores that otherwise they willingly performed. Thus, she suggests that romance reading is a relaxing release from tensions produced by daily problems and responsibilities; it creates a time and space within which a woman can be entirely on her own and be preoccupied with her personal needs, desires, and pleasures. Similarly in my present research, older women read fiction at bedtime (52 percent) or in the late afternoon (36 percent) after finishing the housework. Younger women were mostly single and therefore, having more leisure time on their hands, read magazines during the day: 72 percent in the mornings, and 5 percent in the afternoons.

Hence, it seems logical to conclude that these women engage in romance reading and watching soap operas on television, because the experiences offer them a welcome break from their mundane, day-to-day existences. The time and space that older and younger women can allocate to reading women’s magazines and watching television illustrate that these leisure practices are not only tied into their social and familial roles and identities, but also they are deeply entrenched in the patriarchal institutions of contemporary Pakistani society. The fact that older women read these magazines at bedtime speaks volumes about their significance in their lives and that they are “not easily put-downable.”


Discourses on Religion and Sexuality

The female heroes in magazine fiction, like most of the readers of these maga-zines, are chaste and religious, in that they strictly abide by the five basic tenets and rituals of the Muslim faith (the Five Pillars of Islam) and do not date men or have romance or sex outside of marriage. While 76 percent said that they found characters in fiction to be similar to people in real life, 68 percent opined that events similar to those in fiction occurred in real life. A vast majority, 92 percent, said that they read magazines for relaxation, while 30 percent reported that reading was a way to escape from daily problems; 78 percent opined that reading was better than other forms of escape. A total of 56 percent of women said that they identified with the female heroes of romantic fiction in these magazines. Out of these, 22 percent said that they identified with female heroes who were religious; 14 percent with beautiful and chaste heroines; and another 14 percent with beautiful and independent female heroes. The most desirable qualities in female heroes were virginity and intelligence—38 percent opting for virginity, and 34 percent for intelligence. It is interesting to note, however, that older women preferred intelligence over virginity. Also, independence, assertiveness, and aggressiveness were rated as the least desirable qualities, all at 2 percent respectively. Conversely, and ironically, the most desirable quali-ties in female heroes are rated as the least desirable in male heroes. Loyalty, honesty, chastity, and being loving and religious were rated as the least desir-able attributes in a male hero, whereas caring, intelligence, and protectiveness were rated as the first, second, and third most desirable qualities, respectively.

Summary and Conclusion

Religion and sexuality pervade the discourse of these magazines in terms of femininities. The women identify themselves as religious and practicing Mus-lims and identify with similar fictional characters. However, the glorification of female bodies and faces in the images suggests otherwise. There appears to be emphasis on physical attractiveness and yet conspicuous by its absence, as reported by Haider (2009), is any mention or hint of sexuality or sexual desire. Heterosexual, patriarchal marriage is the ideal construct in the magazines, and women’s abstinence from desire otherwise is idealized. The major difference between the West and East that emerged from this study is that both construct separate discourses on women’s sexuality: While the Western media cast women exclusively as sex objects, the Eastern media emphasize an asexual femininity—in spite of their numerous advertisements of skin creams, cosmetics, and bust developers. The absence of religious identity(ies) within Western magazines is yet another pronounced difference: Religion is conspicuously absent in West-ern women’s magazines, just as sexuality is in Eastern magazines. Commenting on the popular Western celebrity magazines Hello and OK, McRobbie (2006)


argues that although these magazines promote glamorous careers, sexual free-dom, and independent incomes as desirable goals for young women, female celebrities become the focus of condemnation if they transgress conventional norms and values.

The hegemonic discourses of romantic love leading to patriarchal marriage pervade the discursive constructions of femininities in these Pakistani women’s magazines. The fact that women regarded virginity and religiosity in fictional heroines as the most desirable qualities, thus identifying themselves with the heroines, and that these same qualities were considered the least desirable in males, are overt reenactments and internalizations of patriarchal values—and yet, these women readers’ simultaneous desires for romance and love makes them read and read again the magazines’ romance fiction.

This ambivalence in their religious leanings and romantic aspirations sug-gests a dichotomous strand in identity formation. In an earlier study (Zubair 2006), women at a Southern Punjab university reported controlling their romantic and sexual desires to adhere to societal expectations and norms of chastity and virginity. Conspicuous by their absence are images of Pakistani women in politics, sports, or the workforce—hardly surprising, since the read-ers in the data are mostly housewives. Thus, the genre of women’s magazines caters to the emotional needs of their readers and perpetuates these false social constructs instead of challenging them and paving the way for new identities in a postmodern world. The invisibility and absence of serious women’s issues such as domestic violence, prostitution, sexual harassment, rape, divorce, and women’s legal and civil rights are significant pointers suggesting that the genre that can be such a powerful tool in transforming women’s roles and identities and, moreover, their lives is instead reinforcing patriarchal ideologies in regard to women’s femininities and sexualities.

Shirin Zubair is a professor of English at Baha-ud-Din Zakariya University in Multan, Pakistan. She earned her MA and PhD degrees in linguistics from Cardiff University (UK), and also holds an MA in English literature from Multan Univer-sity. Her teaching and research interests are wide-ranging and diverse: Literacies in multilingual communities; gender and power in contemporary discourses; and feminist critique of language and literature. She has published over thirty research papers and book chapters on these themes. Her recent publications have appeared in Journal of South Asian Development (2006), Discourse Studies (2007), and Hawwa: Journal of Women in the Middle East and the Islamic World (2009). Zubair has twice been the recipient of Fulbright fellowships to teach and research at U.S. institutions in addition to receiving several other postdoctoral research awards, including the Ford Foundation award (Oxford) and the Charles Wallace Fellowship (Swansea, Wales). A women’s rights activist, Zubair co-produced and acted in a documentary on women’s issues in higher education in Pakistan. She can be reached at [email protected].


Note

1. Purdah is the practice among women in certain Muslim and Hindu societies of living in a separate room or behind a curtain, or dressing in all-enveloping clothes, in order to stay out of the sight of men or strangers.

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Appendix: Questionnaire

Section 1: Background Information 1. Name (optional) 2. Age 3. Religion 4. Marital status 5. Education 6. Occupation 7. Monthly income

Section 2: Information about Reading Women’s Magazines 8. Do you read women’s magazines? 9. How do you access the magazines?10. At what age did you begin reading for pleasure?11. At what age did you begin reading these magazines regularly?12. What kind of books do you read besides magazines?13. About how much time do you spend on these magazines each week?14. When do you do most of your leisure reading?15. Which magazines do you like to read regularly?16. Which is your favorite magazine?17. How many hours per week do you watch television?18. When you go out, do you: a. wear a dupatta over your shoulders? b. wear a scarf over your head? c. wear a veil? d. wear a chador, but do not cover your face? e. wear a burka? f. other (specify)?19. How often do you offer namaz (prayers)? a. during Ramadan b. regularly c. occasionally d. never e. other (specify)20. How often do you fast? a. during Ramadan b. never c. other (specify)21. Which sections of the magazines do you read most often? a. fashion pages b. fiction c. interviews/features on celebrities


d. articles on politics e. horoscopes f. cooking recipes g. articles and/or surveys on gender issues h. poetry i. religious section j. other (specify)22. Do you ever re-read the magazines? If yes, which sections?23. How far do the images of women in these magazines resemble women in

real life?24. Do you want to look like some of the images in the magazines? If yes, would

you like to have similar: a. hairstyle? b. dress? c. makeup? d. accessories (shoes, handbags, jewelry)? e. figure?25. Do these images ever lead you to: a. diet or fast? b. exercise? c. go to the gym? d. go to boutiques/designer shops? e. overspend? f. other (specify)? g. none of the above?

Section 3: Information on Reading Romantic Fiction26. Do you identify yourself with the female characters in the fiction? If yes,

with whom?27. What qualities do you like to see in a heroine? Please select three from the

below list and rank them by placing a “1” next to most desirable quality, a “2” next to second most desirable quality, and so on:

a. intelligence b. independence c. beauty d. assertiveness e. femininity f. aggressiveness g. virginity h. other (specify)


28. What qualities do you like to see in a male hero? Please select three from the below list and rank them by placing a “1” next to most desirable quality, a “2” next to second most desirable quality, and so on:

a. intelligence b. caring c. attractiveness d. protectiveness e. a good body f. aggressiveness g. bravery h. strength i. other (specify)29. How closely do you think the characters in the magazines resemble people

in real life? a. they are not at all similar b. they are somewhat similar c. they are very similar d. they are almost identical30. How closely do you think events depicted in the magazines resemble those

occurring in real life?31. How closely do you think the heroine’s reactions and feelings toward people

and events resemble your own?32. Which of the below reasons best describe why you read the magazines? Please

pick the three reasons that are closest to your own and rank them from the most important (“1”) to the third most important (“3”):

a. to escape my daily problems b. to learn about faraway places c. for relaxation d. because I wish I had a romance like the heroine’s e. because I like to read about strong, virile heroes f. because reading is better than other forms of escape g. because romantic fiction is never sad or depressing

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