03 The Reinforcement of Public & Private Domains Through Television in Contemporary Pakistan

Abstract

The division of society into public and private spheres and associating the former with males and the latter with females has been fundamental to patriarchy. Patriarchy has existed for thousands of years using discursive discourses and without being much criticised. Gender ‘roles’ has been naturalized and presented within ideological discourses that reflect the existing power structure. The main objective of this paper is to delineate how males maintain patriarchal social structures by disseminating gender roles and ideology through television in contemporary Pakistan. The data for the study comes from television’s dramas and commercials. The study is informed by poststructural theories in cultural studies and critical discourses analysis. Deconstructing and interpreting media texts, the study’s analysis found that television programmes are ideologically invested that legitimize and reinforce the public and private division of the society by locating women in domestic sphere and men in the public sphere.