Traumatised Women Caught in the Whirlpool of Religious Fanaticism and Patriarchy: A Study in Tehmina Durrani’s My Feudal Lord

Since time immemorial, trauma has been an integral part of women’s lives. In every culture and milieu, women have borne physical and mental trauma and have suffered sexual and domestic violence by the patriarchal set-up. Patriarchy subjugated women, subordinated their existence and dehumanised them into objects. This widespread oppression of women is further intensified in Middle Eastern and South Asian countries like Pakistan with their fanatical attitude towards religious dogmas which further serves to marginalise women. Rigours of religion and shackles of patriarchy generate endless ordeal for these suffering women. Several memoirs published by women in Islamic countries talk about their brutalization and oppression by the religious fanatics. My Feudal Lord: A Devastating Indictment of Women’s Role in Muslim Society (1991) is one such memoir published by Tehmina Durrani. It bears testimony to the intense trauma and inhuman suffering endured by an educated Muslim woman at the hands of her powerful politician husband who takes away all her happiness, identity, dignity, children and leaves her psychologically wounded and damaged for life. The paper explores the trauma suffered by Durrani by virtue of being ‘doubly-colonised’ as a South-Asian Muslim woman, in the light of trauma studies. An attempt has also been made to see the exemplification of Hélène Cixous’ idea of L’ecriture feminine (which talks about writing through a woman’s body) in Durrani’s memoir.