As a literary scholar, building on my initial observations about the lack of agency that Siraiki women writers have received within the Siraiki and Pakistani context, this article aims to articulate Siraiki Tr & imacr;mt & imacr; (Feminism) through my autoethnographic experiences. The objective is to discuss how my local/regional or Siraiki sociopolitical context and role as a political activist has impacted or matured my feminist perspectives. This local feminist perspective is regarded as tr & imacr;mt & imacr; in this article and is based on Siraiki culture, which is rarely comprehended through feminist accounts, at least in the global context. While my initial focus on the study of Siraiki identity and culture was the highly charged political context, the present discussion primarily highlights how women are exposed to multiple and intricate layers of marginalization when they simultaneously face the challenges of dealing with their social, political and gender-based struggles. This may be that aspect of intersectional feminism which has not been discussed within this specific cultural context.
Reading the written and film versions of Isak Dinesen's 'Babette's Feast' together, as texts in dialogue, offers deeper insight into this religious refugee parable and the spiritually rooted friendship, or sisterhood-philia, between its three central female characters. This is a relationship that is often overlooked by critics. Drawing on Jacques Derrida's thoughts about friendship, particularly his observation that there has been a 'double exclusion of the feminine' from the historical and philosophical canon, in this article I argue that, through comparative close reading of the 1950 short story and the 1987 film of the Babette story, both Dinesen and film director Gabriel Axel contribute narratives that challenge the male centred tradition which has historically silenced the possibility of friendship between women.
