Feminism and the Literary Scenario

Abstract

The scope of Urdu literature has always been wide in accepting modern critical and intellectual ideas. Feminism as a literary ideology is a western theory. In Urdu literature, it started on an individual level instead of a movement when in Urdu writings Rashid Al-Nisa, Mrs. Abbas Tayyab Ji, Akbari Begum and Abbasi Begum wrote on the marriage and education of women. Hijab Imtiaz's novel "Tirhi Lakir" was considered as the first authoritative voice of femininity in Urdu. Then there are Novel and short story writers Mumtaz Shirin, Salma Siddiqui, Zakia Mashhadi, Jilani Bano, Khadija Mastoor, Khaleda Hussain, Bano Qudsia and Bushra Rehman and Jamila Hashmi. Along with the prose creations, elements of femininity also began to permeate the genre of poetry when Ada Jafari says in one of her poems "Shehr Bano bhi mera naam raha Maryam bhi". After that, femininity in Urdu poetry looks like a movement. In the recent past and in the modern situation, feminism has emerged as a powerful phenomenon which has created a wave of change in all the past literary attitudes which has given a charming boost to the aesthetics of more or less all literary genres.