SHOWING WITHOUT REVEALING: DIGITAL RESISTANCE AND PASHTUN WOMEN’S SELF-REPRESENTATION ON X (FORMERLY TWITTER)

Abstract

A significant number of Pashtun women on X (formerly Twitter)— the ‘modest’ and ‘pardah-daar’ (veiled) members of a conservative patriarchal society —have found a way to exist on the digital platform by managing to camouflage their real selves. Living under watchful familial surveillance, these women are often regarded as “nang” (honor) of their family, clan, and tribe. Often confined to their homes in remote rural regions or made to shroud themselves in veils of chastity (Pardah) when out and about, these women, take advantage of the anonymity of social media forums to channelize their expression.  Despite these limitations, there has emerged a Pashtun digital subculture where the Pashtun women have found their existence in anonymity. They record their digital presence by posting photos of their manicured nail polished hands, aesthetic half faced images, slow-paced feet videos wearing attractive jewelry or mere silhouettes which showcase their created existence. In effect, these Pashtun women have found a robust digital existence and negotiated visibility through such micro-visual practices, negating to submit fully to their patriarchal erasure. To borrow Foucault’s concept of Panopticon, Pashtun women often surreptitiously form anonymous aesthetic public spaces where they create elaborate digital identities. They choose anonymity as they are under the panopticon of gender-segregated tribal codes. By using pseudonyms, fake and imaginary location, images that do not display their full faces, and innovative identities instead of their original names, they erase their traceable real identities. This is how they successfully circumnavigate their real-world familial surveillance as well as the risk of being identified by any acquaintance.