Beauty in Kainat (the universe) : Discourses of heterosexuality in Pakistan’s early childhood classrooms

This chapter focuses on how present discourses of heterosexuality work to maintain regimes of religious patriarchy in early childhood classrooms in Pakistan. Teachers in this participatory action research aimed both to promote gender equity and to disrupt the dominant gender discourses that permeate their school setting. However, their attempts to promote gender equity were regulated and stymied by gender binaries and compulsory heterosexuality, embedded in religious discourses. Teachers’ attempts to offer alternative narratives that used feminist thinking to subvert discourses of heterosexual marriages were rejected by the children. Teachers and learners alike invested in gender dualism, through which heterosexuality was normalised. Respondents stressed that God had intended the world to be divided along heterosexual lines and that both the male and the female provided the beauty of Kainat (the universe), combining to achieve balance in the world. This chapter concludes that discourses of heterosexuality in Pakistan sit within a very narrow spectrum of thought that influences what is possible or not possible for teachers to disrupt. This has substantial implications for gender equity work and what can be achieved in strict, rigid, and regulated contexts that are visibly invested in regimes of religious patriarchy.

© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Deevia Bhana, Yuwei Xu, and Vina Adriany; individual chapters, the contributors. All rights reserved.