SUPER-EXPLOITATION IN THE IDEOLOGICAL DRIVE OF PATRIARCHY: A FEMINIST STUDY OF THE IDLE STANCE OF THE TIPPLER PIGEON

Abstract

This study explores the ideological motivation of the patriarchy and the super-exploitation of women in The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon by Safinah Danish Elahi (2023) through the Marxist-feminist theoretical framework. It explores the interaction of patriarchal and capitalist systems to deliver stratified types of gendered oppression extending beyond monetary exploitation into ideological, cultural and psychological realms. The study particularly concerns the way in which labor of women, both productive and reproductive, gets made invisible, undervalued and normalized both in the domestic and social systems. Three main research objectives guide the study; to examine patriarchal positions as the root of women oppression, to address the depths of super-exploitation of the female characters, and to discuss the psychological, emotional and physical effects of exploitation. The theoretical perspective combines the idea of super-exploitation and housewives by Maria Mies with the idea of political economy of reproductive labor by Silvia Federici, the Dual-Systems Theory, and intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw. A combination of these views allows having a complete reading of the intersection of gender, class, and ideology through the lens of which women experience their lives in the novel. The research design involves qualitative study approach where close reading, thematic coding and contextual analysis of texts are used to analyze specific passages of a text. They find that patriarchal ideology exists through surveillance, the normalization of female sacrifice through culture, and the control over female movement, and super-exploitation is maintained with the help of free domestic work, low-paid service labor and emotional nurturing of males. Moreover, the discussion also explains that women suffer considerable psychological and emotional implications, such as anxiety, trauma and fragmentation of the identity, due to the long-term structural oppression. The study finds that the novel presents a very strong critique of the patriarchal capitalism delivering a—social construction of endurance of women and its economic exploitation. It shows that the power of women in these situations is not the mark of freedom but, instead, conceals the behind-the-scenes control and exploitation.