The Politics of Women’s Pain in Heart Lamp: A Feminist Medical Humanities Perspective

Abstract

Feminist medical humanities is a transdisciplinary discipline of the humanities that examines the intersections of gender, disease, emotional or suffering and social arrangements through literature and culture. This paper looks at the politics of experiencing pain in terms of feminist medical humanities in the work Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq. The narrative does not only tell of women's suffering, it also acknowledges that women's suffering is a social phenomenon which is constructed through patriarchy, cultural oppression, gender discrimination and emotional silencing. The study emphasizes the ways women’s bodies are targeted and controlled within patriarchal social systems, subjected to judgment, and experiencing emotional violence. The approach used in the research is qualitative using a textual and thematic analysis. The analysis of Heart Lamp is mainly done through primary sources, but also relies on secondary sources related to feminist criticism, trauma studies, and medical humanities scholarship. Themes include the experience of suffering, emotional pain, silence, psychological oppression, social stigma and survival. It also examines how women take on the roles of the men determined by their culture and how cultural systems become synonymous with women's pain. Medical humanities turn into critique of patriarchy that medicalizes, silences and controls women’s bodies and emotions through feminist medical humanities. The study emphasizes the need of literature for cultivating empathy and emotional consciousness and critical consciousness of women lived experiences.