Woman as ‘other’ in the short stories of contemporary Bangladeshi writers

Abstract

Women, irrespective of all classes, races, religions and societies, have always been confined to particular roles sanctioned by the male-dominated society. The patriarchal ideologies regard women as “sexual objects” or mere “inessential entities” owned by their fathers or husbands. This parasitic treatment of women has robbed them of their individuality and independence, and rendered them powerless and dispensable. To get acceptance in the established order and avoid abnegation, women too have consciously or unconsciously incorporated these servile attitudes and paradigmatic norms endorsed by males and remodeled themselves as lesser beings or the “second sex”. This incarceration and mortification of women has been exposed eloquently by Simone de Beauvoir in her Le Deuxième Sexe or The Second Sex. The despondent condition of the 20th century western women that Beauvoir unveiled still prevails in the lives of many 21st century Bangladeshi women. This paper will attempt to investigate the lives of these marginalized women of contemporary Bangladeshi society as reflected in contemporary Bangla literature to bring forth the discriminatory ideologies and beliefs that reduce women to subservient beings and detain them as universal gendered Others.