Womanhood in fragmentation: exploration of intersectional feminist resistance in Fayeza Hasanat’s the bird catcher and other stories

Abstract

This thesis examines Fayeza Hasanat’s short story collection The Bird Catcher and Other Stories through intersectional feminist theories to explore how womanhood in the Bangladeshi context is constructed, resisted, and fragmented. To do this, it draws on gender performativity, the theory of subalternity, the concept of hegemonic masculinity, ecofeminism, and migration, which show how women’s lives are shaped by overlapping power structures. Through a close reading of the short stories and the use of secondary sources including articles and book chapters, the thesis demonstrates that women and the marginalized characters in the stories appear fragmented because they do not perform the roles society imposes upon them. Their fragmentation is not a deficiency but a way to disown the burden of unified subjects that patriarchy demands. It is a condition of resisting categories that were never built in the first place for the betterment of women’s lives, especially in the context of diaspora, where womanhood is expected to adjust again to new norms under someone else’s conditions. Hence, womanhood is not just a category but a structure that normalises pain for women. This womanhood has never been whole, and Hasanat shows us that freedom lies in the broken parts. Therefore, this thesis explores how such representations of Hasanat disrupt the assumption that gender must be coherent and follow rigid categories to be meaningful. It proposes a powerful feminist critique: to undo the myth of a ‘true’ woman is not to erase womanhood but to liberate it.