Gender and Sexuality in Bapsi Sidhwa’s The Pakistani Bride: An Analytical Study

The female body has long been a target for commodification within myriad cultural settings. Various cultural and economic factors are involved in the suppression of women in Asia. This study deals with the issue of women oppression in Bapsi Sidhwa’s The Pakistani Bride. The author shows the three strata of women in the Pakistani society: first, there are women from city; second, women from tribes; and third is of American women. The cultural segregation of male and female has assigned certain roles and duties to women known as gendered roles. The wide range of perspectives in this society converge on a single point that females are considered as tool of sex and the source of reproduction; besides, the upkeep of in-laws and the next generation is their obligation. In The Pakistani Bride, Bapsi Sidhwa advocates the suffrage of females as regardless of the relation. She has no right to speak for her rights neither at home nor in society. The selected work was analyzed in the light of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Cultural Feminist approach in the qualitative mode to expose how women suffered from the pangs of being second rate citizens in a patriarchal society.