When Patriarchy Strikes: An Exclusive Interview with Qaisra Shahraz

Abstract

Qaisra Shahraz is a UK-based novelist, activist and educationist. She was born in Pakistan and has spent most of her life in the Western world. Qaisra Shahraz as an author and intellectual represents the New Age Muslim Woman who have started exploring the theme of 'the suppressed half' in the traditional societies. Her writings are the testimony of an 'unusual traverse', as she says, through the uncrossed boundaries 'hitherto untouched'. She realises all Muslim women, veiled or unveiled, under forceful, manipulative and hegemonic pre-literate societies in Pakistan and Afghanistan Muslim women suffer a similar fate under forceful, manipulative and hegemonic pre-literate societies in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Qaisra tries to uncover the ways in which the 'women are being held captive; physically, socially, and culturally' in a prevailing feudalistic atmosphere of 'not-cosmopolitan' areas like Sindh.