meethapani

BEYOND THE GENDER BINARY From 1954 to 1999 the advertisement of the Marlborough man, a rugged lean cowboy smoking a cigarette became the symbol of masculinity. The strong and silent Wild West man, as Lydia R. Cooper suggests, “ identifies himself as that other against all others” - the wilderness, the native tribes and women. To post World War II American Culture is also ascribed, by Daniel Wickberg, the term homophobia, first coined by the psychologist George Weinberg. Literally meaning the fear of sameness, homophobia was described as a disease as well as an attitude. Wickberg places this against the back drop of the Jewish holocaust, which generated a collective guilt in western culture of tacitly condoning extreme prejudice. The post war years saw all sorts of liberalizing movements – in particular, the Civil Rights Movement, Women’s Rights, and Gay Rights. R.D. Laing even suggested that schizophrenia was the true voice of freedom in an insane restrictive world. As with

Living Life Artistically Legend has it the peacock, that most beautiful of birds, cries in anguish when it glances down at its ugly feet.   Stretching the metaphor considerably, it could reflect the contradictions of Pakistan – some of the world’s most beautiful mountains and rivers, and filthy city streets; hospitable and generous people, and selfish drivers; exquisite embroidery and drab everyday clothing; flower garlands painstakingly strung and badly hacked trees. Daily we swing between admiration and anguish.   For a nation that loves poetry, somewhere along the 70 years, we lost the poetry of life.   We usually cite political turmoil, economic anxieties, poor education levels, cultural influx and a host of other equally viable explanations. But these factors are not new to this region that has seen at least 3000 years of invasions, colonization, wars, economic disparity and displacement. Our national bird is not the peacock, but the chakor. The chakor of mythology,