Is Feminism a Saviour Ideology for Post-Colonial Pakistani Women in Global Age? Intersections of Colonialism, Orientalism and Globalization

Abstract

The experiences of colonialism and its enduring postcolonial formations continue to shape feminism as an ideology in contemporary Pakistan. Feminism, particularly in its globalized forms such as white and neoliberal feminism, remains a contested concept within postcolonial societies, where it is variously perceived as a tool for women’s emancipation or as an extension of Westernization. These divergent understandings reflect the multiplicity of feminist interpretations embedded in Pakistan’s colonial histories, Orientalist representations, and global power relations. This paper adopts a qualitative, theoretical, and critical approach, by employing theoretical and discourse analysis methodology, drawing on postcolonial and feminist theory. It engages with the works of Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, Partha Chatterjee, and Chandra Talpade Mohanty to analyse how colonial and Orientalist frameworks inform contemporary feminist discourse and representation in Pakistan. The analysis demonstrates that global feminist discourses, rooted in colonial and Orientalist assumptions, often construct homogenized and reductive representations of Pakistani women. White and neoliberal feminisms reproduce binaries of civilized/uncivilized, active/passive, and Western/non-Western, marginalizing intersectional realities shaped by class, race, caste, and ethnicity. These representations privilege certain women as “saviours” while rendering others as subalterns, thereby reinforcing internal societal divisions rather than ensuring gender equality. The study argues that feminism cannot be understood as a singular or universal saviour ideology for postcolonial Pakistani women. Instead, feminism operates as a contested, contextual, and localized framework shaped by colonial legacies and contemporary global forces. While feminism is not inherently emancipatory, it holds emancipatory potential when grounded in local social realities and attentive to intersectional and postcolonial complexities.