The Anxious Patriarch: Male Fragility and the Crisis of Hegemonic Masculinity in Haider’s A Woman on a Suitcase

Abstract

Shazaf Fatima Haider’s A Woman on a Suitcase (2024) challenges the gynocentric focus of existing South Asian literary criticism by offering a scathing diagnosis of the male oppressor. This research paper shifts the critical lens from the female protagonist to the male characters—Momin, Jameel, and Ameen—arguing that their tyrannical behavior is not an expression of inherent power, but a symptom of "male fragility" and a profound crisis of hegemonic masculinity. Drawing on R.W. Connell’s sociological frameworks, the analysis reveals Momin not as a traditional patriarch, but as a "performative" figure whose sexual anxieties and professional insignificance manifest in the ritualistic eviction of his wife. Similarly, Seema’s father, Jameel, is interpreted as a "failed patriarch" whose descent into dementia serves as a psychological flight from his inability to reconcile his desires with his duties. Building upon recent scholarship regarding Seema’s political mobility and aesthetic resistance, this study contrasts the female capacity for evolution with the male descent into stagnation. While Seema utilizes the "suitcase" to navigate the world and the "canvas" to create meaning, the male characters remain paralyzed by their need for control. Muneera’s husband, Ameen, utilizes violence not out of strength, but out of a paranoid fear of female independence. Ultimately, this paper posits that the patriarchal structure in the novel is collapsing from within, sustained not by authority, but by the "tin-drum" noise of anxious men terrified of their own irrelevance.