Think about the agency of the abducted women in Menon and Bhasin text “Recovery, Rupture, Resistance: The Indian State and the Abduction of Women During Partition.” Do you agree that the states – India and Pakistan were enforcing patriarchy by “rescuing” the women? Suppose you are a Muslim woman from Faisalabad, Pakistan. During the riots of Partition in 1947 you get abducted from your family and end up in India, but you manage to flee to Delhi. You struggle against the odds, carry this violence of being ripped apart from your home, mourn your loss and set up a new home and have a child with your new spouse. After the borders are drawn and the new countries of India and Pakistan are formed, Pakistan mandates that you be “rescued”. What would you do in that scenario, would you resist the state? How would you feel about returning to your previous family? Discuss your attachments, kinship dynamics and patriarchy. You are taken forcibly by the soldiers to Pakistan and can never see your family in India again. Would you argue that the state is patriarchal? “We must save our women.” Think about this phrase and how the states of Pakistan and India used this to legitimize their “saving” of the women. Keeping the phrase in mind, think of a second scenario in the present context where a young woman is sexually victimized. Both the victim and the perpetrator are identified to the public. Generally, we see that the focus is on the victim – i.e., the woman, and how she is “dishonored” and how her family has “lost face”, rather than the violence of the perpetrator. Do you think that the role of the women in the state and the family is the same in the face of gender-based violence? Do you agree that honor and culture is tied to women’s bodies? Is honor tied to men’s bodies in the same way? Justify your notion
Think about the agency of the abducted women in Menon and Bhasin text “Recovery, Rupture, Resistance: The Indian State and the Abduction of Women During Partition.” Do you agree that the states – India and
Pakistan were enforcing patriarchy by “rescuing” the women?
Suppose you are a Muslim woman from Faisalabad, Pakistan. During the riots of Partition in 1947 you get abducted from your family and end up in India, but you manage to flee to Delhi. You struggle against the odds, carry this violence of being ripped apart from your home, mourn your
loss and set up a new home and have a child with your new spouse. After the borders are drawn and the new countries of India and Pakistan are formed, Pakistan mandates that you be “rescued”.
What would you do in that scenario, would you resist the state? How would you feel about returning to
your previous family? Discuss your attachments, kinship dynamics and patriarchy.
You are taken forcibly by the soldiers to Pakistan and can never see your family in India again. Would you
argue that the state is patriarchal? “We must save our women.” Think about this phrase and how the states
of Pakistan and India used this to legitimize their “saving” of the women. Keeping the phrase in mind,
think of a second scenario in the present context where a young woman is sexually victimized. Both the
victim and the perpetrator are identified to the public. Generally, we see that the focus is on the victim –
i.e., the woman, and how she is “dishonored” and how her family has “lost face”, rather than the violence
of the perpetrator. Do you think that the role of the women in the state and the family is the same in the
face of gender-based violence? Do you agree that honor and culture is tied to women’s bodies? Is honor
tied to men’s bodies in the same way? Justify your notion
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