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Ecofeminism and Pakistani Anglophone Literature
Ecofeminism and Pakistani Anglophone Literature
Neelam Jabeen
To cite this article: Neelam Jabeen (2019) Ecofeminism and Pakistani Anglophone Literature,
Interventions, 21:3, 354-366, DOI: 10.1080/1369801X.2018.1558099
Article views: 48
Neelam Jabeen
Department of English, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan
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interventions, 2019
Vol. 21, No. 3, 354–366, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2018.1558099
Neelam Jabeen neely_jabeen@hotmail.com
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
E C O F E M I N I S M A N D PA K I S TA N I A N G L O P H O N E L I T E R AT U R E
Neelam Jabeen
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generally concerns itself with the ecofeminist debate – more specifically, how
Pakistani literature in English presents the women–nature connection and
resulting unique women–nature relationship that helps develop insight into
ecofeminism and the role Pakistani Anglophone literature is playing in this
regard.
Ecofeminist philosophy is primarily developed by western scholars. It
emerged out of a concern that there is a connection in how societies treat
women and the natural environment. Since its inception, ecofeminism has
been political. When French feminist Francois d’Eaubonne (1920–2005) in
her 1974 work Le Feminisme ou la mort (“Feminism or Death”) coined the
term “ecofeminism”, she suggested that women had a potential to bring
about ecological revolution (Warren and Erkal 1997, xvi–xvii). Karen
Warren (Warren and Erkal 1997), like many other ecofeminists, later declared
that environment is a feminist issue. Despite such claims on the part of
eminent ecofeminists, ecofeminism is criticized for disregarding the political
nature of environments, as well as gender divisions, as both are politically
constructed to privilege a certain group (James 1996; Agarwal 1992). Also,
ecofeminism is criticized for considering “women” as a unified category
(Agarwal 1992). It is because of such valid criticism that one may question
the relevance of ecofeminism, especially in postcolonial societies where the
material realities of women, particularly in relation to their environments,
are different from those of women in the West. A postcolonial ecofeminism
may be the solution to this problem.
The term “postcolonial ecofeminism” as a literary analytical tool is already
in use but lacks effectiveness, as it uses the mainstream western ecofeminist
lens to analyse a postcolonial text. Youngsuk Chae (2015) states: “The con-
vergence of postcolonialism with ecofeminism [is] what I call postcolonial eco-
feminism” (520). Such definitions of postcolonial ecofeminism disregard the
discrepancies that the non-western examples of the women–nature relation-
ship provide. A postcolonial ecofeminism should not only locate a woman–
nature connection and society’s treatment of both but should also critically
examine the women–nature relationship unique to postcolonial societies
owing to the double bind of postcolonial women. Not only gender, but also
class, race, religion, geography, and politics affect this relationship.
One of the basic tenets of ecofeminism is the assumption of women’s
relationship of care and compassion with nature either because of their
innate capacity, as cultural ecofeminists like Judith Plant (1989) and Starhawk
(1989) assert, or because of their socialization as caretakers, as constructivist
ecofeminists like Carolyn Merchant (1992) and Ariel Salleh (1997) believe.
Cultural ecofeminists (also referred to as “nature” or “spiritual ecofeminists”)
are labelled as essentialists for claiming that women are essentially more
caring and compassionate toward nature (Carlassare 2000). Constructivists,
on the other hand, assert that women and men are equally capable of
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in ter v enti ons – 2 1 :3 356
showing care and compassion for nature. It is just because women are socia-
lized to live as nurturers and caretakers that they are more responsive toward
the natural environment. Men are socialized to live differently. Despite the
differences among both schools of thought, there is one general assumption
that women do have a special concern for nature, as compared to men, and
if women fail to show care and compassion for nature it is because they
have internalized patriarchal/androcentric ideologies that sanction the
oppression of women and the environment (Shiva 1988; Plant 1989). It is
important to note that these assertions are made primarily by western scholars
and philosophers, or by those who are directly influenced by western ecofemi-
nist philosophy. Non-western examples, specifically those studied through
Pakistani literature, present some contradictory insights regarding the
women–nature relationship.
As already mentioned, since ecofeminist discourse is primarily developed by
western scholars, it does not always take into account the discrepancies that
non-western examples of human–nature and women–nature relationships
provide. The Pakistani Anglophone texts selected here abound in examples
that help develop an alternative ecofeminist analysis that considers and
explains these discrepancies. I term this alternative analysis “postcolonial eco-
feminism” which does not completely depart from mainstream ecofeminism.
Postcolonial ecofeminism still rests in the basic ecofeminist assumption that
there is a connection in how one treats women and the environment and all
feminized and naturalized entities. However, it contends that to explain the
women–nature relationship, especially in the South Asian, post/neocolonial
Pakistani context, it is important to consider the material realities of
women (and men) that are directly related to their status as members of
post/neocolonial societies. This relationship is neither an outcome of
women’s innate quality of care and compassion for nature and life in
general (as cultural ecofeminists would believe), nor because of women’s
socialization as nurturers and caretakers (as constructivist ecofeminists
would assert). Instead, the women–nature relationship is determined by
women’s material realities, which include the sociopolitical and religious con-
ditions of their societies.
For this study, I have chosen multiple novels, and short stories by Pakistani
authors to show how these representative texts provide examples of human–
nature and women–nature relationships that cannot always be explained
from a mainstream ecofeminist perspective as it neglects the material con-
ditions in which characters live. I use a postcolonial ecofeminist perspective
that helps understand the women–nature relationship in new light and also
highlights the interventions Pakistani Anglophone literature is making in
the mainstream ecofeminist paradigm. I use the terms “nature” and “environ-
ment” with their traditional definitions: nature to refer to the non-human (e.g.
animals, plants, water, land) and environment to refer to the more abstract
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Neelam Jabeen
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representation of the natural phenomena. Some work has already been done
on the environmental consciousness of Pakistani Anglophone authors
(Rahman 2011a; Yaqoob 2015). Rahman (2011b) presents an ecofeminist
study of a Pakistani film, but there is no substantial work on the ecofeminist
inclinations of fiction writers, more specifically on women–nature relation-
ships as presented in Pakistani fiction. Among several reasons for an underde-
veloped discourse on ecofeminism from Pakistan, one significant reason is the
minimal relevance of mainstream ecofeminist theory to the texts produced
here. In this essay, I use Pakistani Anglophone literature as a vantage point
to study the unique women–nature relationship that problematizes predomi-
nantly western assumptions, and call for a revision of mainstream ecofemin-
ism to include an alternative/postcolonial perspective. As a disclaimer, it is
necessary to add that owing to the relatively short history of Anglophone
Pakistani literature, women–nature representation in the texts discussed is
not the only way of seeing the women–nature relationship in Pakistani
culture. Literature produced in the national language of Urdu and in other
regional languages would certainly provide additional insight into this
relationship.
One of the major interventions that Pakistani Anglophone literature makes
in mainstream ecofeminist discourse is to challenge its assumption of a typical
women–nature relationship in which women have a caring and compassio-
nate attitude toward their natural environment and, if they fail to do so, it
is because they have internalized patriarchal ideologies that sanction the
oppression of both women and nature. Instead, this intervention underscores
multiple facets of the woman–nature relationship.
Uzma Aslam Khan is one of those Pakistani authors who skilfully depict a
unique women–nature relationship. In her novels The Geometry of God,
Trespassing, and Thinner Than Skin she presents numerous female characters
from different social classes, religions, cultures, and geographies. These char-
acters’ relationships with their natural environment vary according to their
class and/or religions, and/or culture, and/or geographical region. Also,
since environments are political (Mukherjee 2010) and politically con-
structed, the post/neocolonial status of the characters affects their relationship
with their natural environment. In The Geometry of God, the female protago-
nist Amal provides a striking example of an unconventional woman–nature
relationship. The novel is set in Zia’s dictatorial regime, notorious for its Isla-
mization of the country that implied a clash between Islam and science. Khan
takes the opportunity to criticize the notion by portraying her protagonist as
an upper-middle-class woman who is a paleontologist. Her interest in the dis-
covery of lost marine species, anatomy, the origin of life, and “examin[ing] the
living” (Khan 2014, 245) is scientific, problematizing the reason–emotion and
culture–nature dualisms in which reason and culture are synonymous and
emotion and nature are identical. Dualism, according to ecofeminist
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in ter v enti ons – 2 1 :3 358
Do they need it? If for thousands of years people have survived, with varying degree
of success, by building irrigation channels from glacier melt, despite their poverty
and isolation, did they need a man from the city to bring them pipes and taps? It
was a fine line, the one between helping and hurting. To do nothing could mean
becoming a witness to a potential calamity. To do something could mean becoming
the agent of a worse calamity (Khan 2012, 71–2, original emphasis).
Irfan understands that living in the hills, the nomads have their own special-
ized knowledge, along with their myths of jinns and fairies, that help them
sustain themselves. On his previous trip to the valley, he and his friend
Nadir learn about the nomads’ belief in the glaciers’ marriage and that for
the mating of the glaciers, places for the collection of male and female ice
are carefully selected. Female ice is collected from the area where, besides
being beautiful, women are also talented:
Talent meant knowledge of yak milk, butter, fertilizer, and, of course, wool. From
caps to sweaters all the way down to socks, the questions were always the same.
How delicately was the sheep’s wool spun? And what about the kubri embroidery
on the caps – was it colourful and fine? Most importantly, did all the women
cooperate? (Khan 2012, 40).
This list of talents also shows that the people of the valley acknowledge
women’s talent. They realize that the community depends on women as
well as men for its survival, on their share of work and knowledge. Men
also are supposed to have specialized knowledge: “of firewood, agriculture,
trekking, and herding” (40). The greatest secret of their sustainable lifestyle
is “they did not fell that which gave them life” (139). There is necessarily
no difference of attitude between men and women toward the environment.
Both are equally concerned for the natural environment. Furthermore, this
relationship is determined by their need for a sustainable natural environment.
In contrast to Irfan, the female character Farhana visits places to conduct “a
comparative study of glaciers in northern Pakistan and northern California”
(57). She is unable to understand the hospitality of the nomads. She takes
young Kiran with her in a boat, misunderstanding her father’s hospitality
for his approval. Irfan is aware of the intrusion that tourists make by trying
to help the nomads. Farhana, on the other hand, tries to behave like a
saviour without knowing what it is that the nomads need to be protected
from – tourists, men with guns, forest inspectors, or religious extremists.
Khan seems to be incorporating the idea of maldevelopment, a concept pre-
sented by Vandana Shiva (1998), a renowned Indian physicist, environmental
activist, and anti-globalization activist, who considers western developmental
plans for the Third World as more harmful than beneficial: “development
could not but entail destruction for women, nature and subjugate cultures,
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in ter v enti ons – 2 1 :3 360
which is why, throughout the third world, women, peasants and tribals are
struggling for liberation from development just as they earlier struggled for
liberation from colonialism” (2). Shiva sees developmental plans for the
Third World as a continuation of the colonization process that expands the
wealth of the colonizer and produces more poverty for the colonized;
hence, “maldevelopment”. In Khan’s novel, when Maryam was young, her
mother would tell her that “it was the Angrez who invented the whole
business, the whole revenue-generating forest policy that bound the herders
to pay a grazing fee and tree-cutting fee. Before the Angrez, they had been
free to graze and chop” (2012, 250–1). Even the efforts of the government
that apparently seem to help the nomads, without understanding their
needs, damage them. The herders are forced to buy Australian sheep whose
dietary requirements are hard to satisfy because of restrictions by forest
inspectors, and when “the free grazing lands are turned to state farms” (245).
It is the intrusion from various sides that disrupts the sustainable lifestyle of
these nomads. Kiran’s death forces them to leave the valley earlier than usual
and move to the plains. Their untimely arrival in the plains brings problems
for them and their animals – the extreme heat of the plains and a lack of
food for the animals. Some of these nomads are tricked into abandoning
their traditional lifestyle and settling down: “giving up free grazing rights,
purchasing small plots of land from the state that told them what to plant
and when. The same cash crops … [for] the same people who took away
their grazing rights” (251). These people would “wait fifty years for each
pine, deodar and fir to reach maturity. Only after maturity could each be
cut. Hardly anyone waited anymore” (248). They now turn to unsustainable
practices because of the restrictions of the forest police. For Khan, maldeve-
lopment as a material condition of these characters determines their relation-
ship with their environment. The apparently damaging practices of these
nomads are survival tactics more than anything else.
Khan’s (2013) presentation of ambivalent women–nature relationships is
yet another example of theoretical intervention. Her characters in Trespassing
do not always exhibit a typical caring and compassionate attitude toward
their natural environment and life in general. Their relationship with the
natural environment is ambivalent, as they establish it according to their
material conditions. The female character Dia, on the one hand, marvels at
how the silkworms spin their silk, and on the other hand wonders “would
the Empress have squashed the caterpillars if she had known what would
happen twenty-five hundred years after her find? If so, the Sicilians who’d
been trying to make silk from spider webs wouldn’t have kidnapped and tor-
tured their neighbors” (11). Dia is concerned more for human life than for the
worms who are boiled in water to obtain silk. Similarly, her mother runs the
factory that breeds the worms and produces the silk, but she is against the
toxic dyes and instead prefers organic dyes that are harmless for the
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conservation areas are considered less precious than animal lives. The point
that Ahmad hints at is that valuing and caring for animal lives should not
be at the cost of human life. From a mainstream ecofeminist perspective,
this approach may sound human-centered, but such ambivalent human–
nature relationships are the outcome of material conditions and a regular
feature of a postcolonial ecofeminism.
Ahmad’s short story “The Spell and the Ever-changing Moon” relates to many
sets of dualisms: man–woman, mind–body, reason–emotion, and culture–nature.
In all these sets, man, mind, reason, and culture are synonymous; and woman,
body, emotion, and nature are identical. Because women are connected to
nature, as both reproduce, they belong to the bodily realm – hence the embodi-
ment of both women and nature. Some ecofeminists denounce the body and
embodiment debate as essentialist (Gaard 2011). Some, however, insist on claim-
ing the body, since rejecting it coopts the discourse that privileges mind and
reason and devalues body and emotion, creating binaries between man and
woman, culture, and nature. Feminist and environmental philosopher Terri
Field (2000) claims to be a non-essentialist, yet considers the body to be indispen-
sable for ecofeminism: “Given that it is our bodies that have situated us as ‘mere’
nature, animality, flesh, immanence, I suggest that it is to our bodies that we
should turn to rethink these notions” (56). Ahmad’s “The Spell and the Ever-
changing Moon” takes a similar stance when its female protagonist finds the
way to emancipation through owning her body. Ahmad uses a cultural supersti-
tion as a tool to make her character Nisa own her body. Nisa goes to a woman
named Talat who apparently has some magical powers to perform miracles,
including bringing sadistic and abusive husbands back on track. Talat suggests
to Nisa that she should add a drop of her menstrual blood in her husband’s
drink to subdue him and make him her slave. Nisa shudders at the thought of
performing such an “impure” act but, as her husband’s abuse increases, she
gradually comes to think of her menstrual blood as not as impure as she pre-
viously thought. Although she never does add her blood to his drink, “her atti-
tude to her own body change[s] subtly”, and she “[begins] to refuse him. That
was the way of wayward women, she’d been taught, but she no longer cared”
(154). Her name, Nisa, is also symbolic, as it is the title of one of the chapters
of the holy Quran. It means “woman” and the chapter deals with the rights
and obligations of women. Her acceptance of her body reveals her rights as a
human being. It frees her of her acceptance of her husband’s abuse. Learning
that Talat is a fraud, Nisa also learns there is no spell that can change her circum-
stances other than her own actions and decisions. Instead of waiting patiently for
a miracle or a spell that would work, she leaves her husband’s house. Nisa’s
acceptance of her body is a step toward her emancipation. In societies like
Nisa’s, where women internalize their inferiority because of their femininity,
going back to their bodies would help them escape their inferiority, as Field
suggests.
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in ter v enti ons – 2 1 :3 364
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