Siddiqui introduces his readers to important thinkers like Gramsci and Foucault, who, being on top of the juggernaut, changed the course of Western intellectual history. Once the reader is familiarised with the modus operandi of how language’s might is harnessed for desired impact, she is then brought back to the familiar human terrain of South Asia. The author then gradually unravels the nexus between language and power and introduces his readers to the unhappy victim of this collusion: gender.
The idea of how language is manipulated to serve power has come rather late to Pakistan and still lacks pervasive efficacy. Nevertheless, its power cannot be resisted now. The time for this grand expose — to rip off the smokescreen of dishonest verbiage — has come. In this book, Siddiqui exposes how language conspires with power to suppress the weaker gender. Sayings, proverbs, jokes, fairy tales, advertisements, films and songs prophesy about the “role” of women. Myths are created and then validated, perpetuated by social institutions and authenticated as “social reality.”
Siddiqui maintains his academic poise throughout the work and painstakingly brings down all the crutches which present language as a neutral transmitter of information. By doing so, he insinuates others to follow suit and in a similar manner, explore other edifices of our social reality, which too stand on similar props.
The book is divided into six sections and each section carries two or more chapters which offer academically oriented but light reading. In total, the book has 20 chapters with each chapter offering an independent read. So it is quite possible to read the chapter ‘Matrimonial Ads: Societal Expectations’ before reading chapters which precede it without staking any aspect of readerly pleasure. More scholarly readers, however, would prefer to familiarise themselves with the theoretical framework before looking at its explication in the South Asian context.
Especially relevant to our context is the section on ‘Language, Gender and Media.’ After establishing how media actively shapes and creates culture, Siddiqui moves on to how television plays, the internet, newspapers, and magazines play a pivotal role in constructing gender. The chapter cites an important study of the Global Media Monitoring Project on reinforcing or challenging stereotypes according to which the media in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal play a role in reinforcing gendered stereotypes.
Suggestive advertisements which uphold gender stereotyping are discussed in the chapter ‘Women in Advertisements.’ “Through advertising they [a]re told clearly that they [a]re women, what women should be, and what that particular product [can] do to help,” Siddiqui says. He cites and finds fault with the media’s validation of gender stereotyping and manufacture of consent among women on what they have to be in the society.
In the chapter ‘Television Plays and Gender Stereotypes,’ Siddiqui presents an analysis of Pakistani plays from the point of view of gender and identifies male-centric atmospheres and themes in most of them. There is indeed much in this section of the book which may even advise media policymakers and planners to ensure a balanced representation of women and help them dispense with detrimental stereotyping of women in Pakistani society. In the wake of intense debates on the role of the media in depicting political reality, focusing on gender representation can be a useful spin-off which may contribute positively to the evolution of media in the country.
Siddiqui makes a good effort at indigenising his study in the context of Pakistan. Here, especially in the realm of the social sciences, there is a dearth of localised research. Even when such research is produced, it fails to engage general readers because of its data density and bogged-down prose. Siddiqui ensures his communication of ideas does not become a daunting read for the general reader. Brevity is thus sustained throughout the book.
Siddiqui, also the author of Rethinking Education in Pakistan: Perceptions, Practice and Possibilities (2007), and Education, Inequalities and Freedom: A Sociopolitical Critique (2012), is someone who is privy to the dynamics of the education system in Pakistan. Readers will thus find him at his best in part four of the book entitled, ‘Language, Gender and Education.’ This part has three chapters: ‘Gender and Education,’ ‘Nursery Rhymes and Gender Representation’ and ‘Representation of Women in Fairy Tales.’ As Dr Tariq Rehman said, the book is a pioneering work on this subject in Pakistan. The chapter on ‘Gender and Education’ reveals how gender, a social construction as opposed to sex, a biological one, is stereotyped and how classrooms become places where “gender stereotypes are validated and perpetuated.”
After sensitising his readers to the nexus between power and language, Siddiqui draws his readers’ attention to the need for language reform; an ambitious project indeed. He expresses his desire to end stereotyping which “is very much about the process of applying a simplified model to a real, complex individual, often to negative and derogatory effect.” By citing a few initiatives in language reform like revising discriminatory job titles and gendered expressions, the author in the last chapter moves to ‘Resistance Through Language’ in which he advocates redefinitions, revisions and [re]networking for the cause. Such explicit advocacy of radical reform is what makes this work unique in the context of Pakistan. Our society is in dire need of this non-violent form of academic advocacy.
The reviewer teaches English at GC University Lahore
Language, Gender and Power: The Politics of Representation and Hegemony in South Asia
(GENDER STUDIES)
By Shahid Siddiqui
Oxford University Press, Karachi
ISBN 978-0-19-906739-8
220pp.
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