Every now and then while changing channels on your TVs you guys might notice a lot of similarities in Pakistani drama serials. Every story of Pakistani drama serials give the impression that Pakistani women do little beyond crying. Women are always shown to be hopeless and helpless.
If these stories had cropped up occasionally, they could still have been acceptable but when 100% of these stories revolve around only these tropes then this is a problem. The very first issue with our drama serials is the Askghari abkari binary. Both these characters originated from the novel “Miraat ul Uroos”. Abkari and askghari were sisters, Akbari is the older sister, who is given every possible vice under the sun. she is rude, ill-mannered and fights with everyone, basically she makes her way through the story being a caricature of the shrew. While the younger sister, Askghari, is sweet, kind-hearted, good-natured and talented young girl. This drama was written in the 19th century and it seems that the plays of today haven’t made any progress as they follow the same prototype. In other words, we are still standing at the same ideological point we were nearly two centuries ago. The plays that we are watching now adays still provide only two options to women: helplessness and self-sacrifice or evil and selfishness. This gives the women of our society the impression that if they become the goddess of sacrifice then everything they hope and wish in life will fall into place. The second problem with our dramas is that most of the time woman are always portrayed as woman`s worst enemy. Two women are never portrayed as friends and even if they are their friendship is usually meaningless. Furthermore, women are always portrayed as stupid who can`t handle a meaningful conversation. Its portrayed as if the only thing women can talk about is their household, husbands, kids and fashion. All these issues reflect the poor, lazy and uninspired writing which is very harmful in stereotyping the women of our society and it also reinforces toxic societal values.