As female writers in Urdu prose and poetry tend to be overlooked, they still struggle for their place and appreciation of their work. A reason for this is their small number as well as the prevailing themes in Urdu poetry, which are “the beauty of the beloved, the plight of the lover and the pains of unrequited love”.1 Mir and Mir show that, despite their commitment to social change and equal rights for everyone, even most of the poets of theProgressive Writers’ Movement write, poems that depict women as the weaker sex. In such cases, the veil of seclusion is criticised or women are shown as rebels, who play a public role in transforming society. A more radical position in which women appear as companions is rarely present.2 Gopal makes a similar argument about the presentation of women in prose and poetry. She particularly highlights that “[g]ender relations and sexual politics, far from being absent, are approached in a variety of compelling and, at times, self-reflexive ways, going beyond the ‘woman question’ to include questions of masculinity and male identity.”3 However, Mir and Mir claim, that no poet of the PWA “unambiguously assumed women’s independent power, subjecthood and agency”,4 until the works of Kishwar Nāhīd and Fahmīdah Riyāẓ.5
