The Construction of Femininities in the Discourse of Pakistani Women's Magzines

Abstract

The present research aims at analyzing the kinds of ideology and / or femininity offered in two Pakistani women’s magazines (KHAWATEEN DIGEST and SHE MAGAZINE) through Feminist Research Methods. The primary objective of this work is to deconstruct the discourses of these women’s magazines as linguistic and semiotic constructs which represent femininity in specific ways through socially constructed ideals. This study is stimulated by the researcher’s project of M. Phil thesis (2003) entitled ‘A Study in the Discourse of Advertising,’ in which the advertisements in the two English magazines (MAG and SHE) were dominated by the female images. Moreover, these advertisements were not only exploiting the language but also sexualizing women to achieve their political aims. The present study is a comparative analysis of the femininities constructed in the Pakistani women’s magazines. The area and the scope of the research has been broadened by including the complete text of the two women’s magazines (one Urdu, KHAWATEEN DIGEST and the one English, SHE MAGAZINE).The choice of English and Urdu magazines provided an interesting, rich and varied data, as different world views, ideologies and cultural beliefs about femininities are encoded in languages differently. This dissertation will also find out the impact of the discourses presented in these two magazines on the readers. To investigate the difference in the impact of the discourses presented in these two magazines the researcher selected the method of purposive sampling. Two questionnaires (one for each magazine under study) were constructed for the population of four different age groups: from 18 to 28, from 29 to 39, from 40 to 50 and from 51 to 60 years. These questionnaires measured the educational, marital and social statuses of the population and consisted of twenty items each. For close-ended items of the questionnaires, data were analyzed quantitatively by using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences), whereas a quantitative analysis of the open-ended items was made by reviewing the responses through Feminist Research Methods mainly. In order to uncover the ways in which the linguistic and semiotic codes are manipulated for the construction and dissemination of the ideologies about femininities in the discourses of both the magazines, the specific portions of the contents of these magazines were analyzed qualitatively by following Feminist Research Methods. The findings indicated that the age, educational, marital and social statuses of the readers were significantly affecting the readership. The element of escapism from the world of reality was more stressed by the readers of KHAWATEEN DIGEST and it was admitted that the escapism resulted in the feeling of relaxation, calm and relief. The English magazine on the other hand, was found to offer more entertainment and a large variety of ideas about everything related to women. The findings also revealed that both the magazines (KHAWATEEN DIGEST and SHE MAGAZINE) were constructing dissimilar ideologies about femininities for women to pursue: the Urdu magazine was offering very constrained sets of femininities based on traditional and patriarchal representations of female images whereas the English magazine was constructing the ideologies of modernity, glamour, independence and empowerment of women. This was an academic research and the investigator tried to observe the patterns of discourses in magazines and the readers’ involvement in them. This research can be augmented from different perspectives in future investigations. For instance, the research may inquire to establish the change in particular magazine over a period of time or it could also help in sensitizing and raising awareness among the academicians and the general public about this issue: the hidden assumptions about femininities in the discourses of Pakistani women magazines.