The Girls Are in Town: Purdah, Emotions and Everyday Resistance in Urban Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan, mid-1950s. Many upper-class women had already left or were about to leave purdah (or its remnants). This article investigates how these women challenged seclusion, redefining relations of power, femininity, emotions and the design of urban and public spaces. Drawing on material and visual culture, newspaper clippings and government records, it uncovers the strategies women used to cleverly manipulate the social and emotional intricacies of seclusion to contest and, eventually, subvert the rules of purdah. It goes on to illuminate the pivotal role of non-Western women and their gendered, situated agency in reshaping women's and global history.