<p>This study investigates the discursive construction and strategic deployment of morality within Pakistani online Urdu texts addressing feminism, women’s rights, and objectification. Situated in Pakistan’s complex socio-political landscape, online platforms have become key arenas for ideological contestation, where competing moral frameworks are articulated. Employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this research examines a corpus of articles from websites representing traditionalist/anti-feminist (Daanish.pk, Daleel.pk) and liberal/secular (Humsub.com.pk) perspectives. The analysis reveals that the concept of morality is pervasively and ambiguously deployed as a primary tool of ideological struggle. Traditionalist discourses strategically link morality to religious authority to frame feminist demands for autonomy as immoral, Western-influenced, and a form of objectification, while simultaneously justifying restrictive practices such as veiling on moral grounds. Conversely, secular/liberal discourses critique this same traditional morality as an instrument of oppression, hypocrisy, and female objectification. Key discursive strategies identified across both perspectives include the use of terminological ambiguity, strategic framing, appeals to authority and tradition, blame attribution, and generalizations. These competing moral narratives, despite their opposing ideological premises, converge in their effect. Both functionally reduce complex socio-political issues to a moral contest centered on the female body. This instrumentalization of morality results in the persistent objectification of women, who are discursively framed not as autonomous agents but as symbols within an ideological conflict.</p>

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Morality, Ethics and Objectification: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Traditional and Secular Arguments in Contemporary Pakistani Online Urdu Texts

  • Asma Majeed,
  • Rabia Khawar,
  • Asma Riaz Hamdani

摘要

This study investigates the discursive construction and strategic deployment of morality within Pakistani online Urdu texts addressing feminism, women’s rights, and objectification. Situated in Pakistan’s complex socio-political landscape, online platforms have become key arenas for ideological contestation, where competing moral frameworks are articulated. Employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this research examines a corpus of articles from websites representing traditionalist/anti-feminist (Daanish.pk, Daleel.pk) and liberal/secular (Humsub.com.pk) perspectives. The analysis reveals that the concept of morality is pervasively and ambiguously deployed as a primary tool of ideological struggle. Traditionalist discourses strategically link morality to religious authority to frame feminist demands for autonomy as immoral, Western-influenced, and a form of objectification, while simultaneously justifying restrictive practices such as veiling on moral grounds. Conversely, secular/liberal discourses critique this same traditional morality as an instrument of oppression, hypocrisy, and female objectification. Key discursive strategies identified across both perspectives include the use of terminological ambiguity, strategic framing, appeals to authority and tradition, blame attribution, and generalizations. These competing moral narratives, despite their opposing ideological premises, converge in their effect. Both functionally reduce complex socio-political issues to a moral contest centered on the female body. This instrumentalization of morality results in the persistent objectification of women, who are discursively framed not as autonomous agents but as symbols within an ideological conflict.