INSTITUTO SUPERIOR DEL PROFESORADO

DR. “JOAQUIN V. GONZÁLEZ”

LITERATURA CONTEMPORÁNEA EN LENGUA INGLESA

Extended essay

Homosocial Bonding and the Oppression of Women in “My

Son the Fanatic,” by Hanif Kureishi

Natalia Elisabet Barrera

2018

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 Abstract

This work analyses the concept of homosociality and its function within patriarchal society for
the oppression of women in post colonial societies in the light of “My Son the Fanatic,” a story
written by Hanif Kureishi. Such notion comprises the characteristics of the bonding pervading
the relationships among men and their impact on the overshadowing of the female
consciousness. Such obliteration can be equated with the subjection of the colonised by the
European coloniser, depicting a parallelism in which the subaltern is regarded as an ‘other’,
whose consciousness is to be suppressed. The present paper shows the oppression of women,
displaced as the ultimate objectified Other, and the extent to which homosocial ties among men
account for the affliction endured by the female members of society. The objectification and
demonization of the female body, together with the emergence of homosocial bonding among
men as a means of upholding male privileges, are exemplified throughout this work.

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 Table of Contents

1- Introduction ....................................................................................................... 4

2- Literature Review: Postcolonialism...................................................................... 5

3- The role of Women in Postcolonial Literature...................................................... 6

4- Homosociality: a Way of Preserving the Hegemonic Patriarchal Order.............. 7

5- My Son the Fanatic: a Brief Outline of the Story................................................. 8

6- The Role of Women in “My Son the Fanatic”...................................................... 9

7- Vertical Homosociality in “My Son the Fanatic”............................................... 11

8- Conclusions......................................................................................................... 13

9- References........................................................................................................... 14

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Homosocial Bonding and the Oppression of Women in “My Son the Fanatic,”
by Hanif Kureishi

Introduction

“My Son the Fanatic,” a story written by Hanif Kureishi, depicts the power struggles not only
between a father and his allegedly rebellious and highly religious son, but also between the
system of values of the coloniser and those of the colonised. Kureishi, being of both Pakistani
and English descent, brings forward the tension pervading the relationship between post-colonial
or post-independence societies and the Western dominant world; a bond characterised by the
latter’s regard of the former’s culture as inferior and, therefore, to be suppressed. Such
domination, evident in Kureishi’s work, also involves another system that operates in the same
way as imperialism does: patriarchy. The female figures in the story, besides being victims of a
dominating culture, are subdued by the power of men, who become the colonisers of their
consciousness. In The Second Sex, Simone De Beauvoir (1956) conceptualized the question of
being a woman as inextricably connected to being thought of as an objectified Other. By
developing the concept of “the second sex,” she conveyed the obliteration of the female
consciousness by the male consciousness: “[a woman] is defined and differentiated with
reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed
to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute- she is the Other” (159). Such abasement of
women can be observed to be systematically organized and reproduced by a system of attitudes,
beliefs and constraints socialized by men in their relationship with other men. Hammarén and
Johanson (2014) describe such social bonds between men by using the term homosociality,
which “…is often defined as a mechanism and social dynamic that explains the maintenance of
hegemonic masculinity, situating gender relations within a reasonably stable power structure”
(2). Within patriarchal homosociality, therefore, men in their relationship with other men, enact
the role of the colonisers over the female ‘other,’ in the sense that they reinforce their supremacy
by reproducing the same abjection and disregard shown by the imperialists but, in this case,
towards the members of ‘the second sex.’ The present work purports to explore the extent to
which homosocial ties among men further displace women as the ultimate objectified Other in
the story “My Son the Fanatic.” To this purpose, some instances that portray the obliteration of
women, the objectification and the demonization of the female body - together with the
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emergence of homosocial bonding - will be explored to expose the parallelism between the
experiences of women in patriarchy and those of colonized subjects in postcolonial societies.

Literature review: Postcolonialism

As Sawant states, “[t]he Post - colonial Literature and theory investigate what happens when two
cultures clash and one of them with accompanying ideology empowers and deems itself superior
to other” (2012). Hence, literature that is characterised as ‘postcolonial’ deals with the effect the
institutions of European colonialism had on the subjected culture, exposing aspects such as
system of beliefs, values, religion, interpersonal relationships and gender roles, among others.
The construction of the subject, its resistance and the different responses within pre and post
independence nations are also explored in many literary works, and might serve as a source of
analysis for the impact of European colonialism upon societies. There are, however, many
different interpretations for this type of literature, whose name itself presents opposing views:

Post-colonial’ and ‘postcolonial’ have different meanings. The hyphenated term ‘Post-
colonialism’ marks a historical period as is suggested by phrases like ‘after colonialism’, ‘after
independence’, ‘after the end of empire’ whereas the term ‘postcolonialism’ referring to all the
characteristics of a society or culture from the time of the colonization to the present (Sawant,
2012:120).

This present work will use the term ‘postcolonialism’ for the sake of analysing characteristics of
the Western society or culture as embodied by the protagonists of the story “My Son the
Fanatic,” by Hanif Kureishi. This term also involves the need to give voice to the deprived and
downtrodden colonised ‘other’, as well as to free him or herself from “all types of subjugation
defined in terms of gender, race and class” (Sawant 122). Among the critics who helped develop
this concept and devoted themselves to the study of the power of representation in colonized
societies were Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabba. The work of these writers
explored the way the modes of representation are employed as tools of colonial power, in order
to further subjugate colonized people to the colonial, European dominant rule.

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The Role of Women in Postcolonial Literature

Postcolonial literature also discloses an aspect of human relationships worth analysing: the role
of women in post-independence societies. As stated in Ashcroft et.al (1998), “both patriarchy
and imperialism can be seen to exert analogous forms of domination over those they render
subordinate” (15). There is, in this sense, a parallelism between the experiences of women
subjected to patriarchy and those of the subjects of colonization. Female colonized subjects can
then be said to have endured not only colonial but also gender oppression – ‘double colonization’
- making a stark contrast between the effects that imperialism has had on men and women. Such
predicament among colonised women also raises the question of whether gender or colonial
oppression is the most foregrounded aspect in their lives. While it is true that there is a marked
distinction between the experiences of Western women and those of colonised women, many a
Western feminist have failed to address this issue. As Mohanty criticizes:
the assumption that all of us of the same gender, across classes and cultures, are somehow socially
constituted as a homogeneous group identified prior to the process of analysis. ...Thus, the
discursively consensual homogeneity of 'women' as a group is mistaken for the historically specific
material reality of groups of women. (a.q.in Ashcroft.et.al 1998:16)
It can be stated, therefore, that the analysis of the type of colonization that women have endured
for being both colonial and female subjects is of paramount importance and deserving especial
attention when taking into account any instance of colonial oppression. As for the role of women
in “My Son the Fanatic,” there are many differences in the type of oppression suffered by the
two female figures presented in the story, which might reflect the status of one of them being
both female and of Pakistani origin, and the other of being a woman but European. In spite of the
existent differences that may suggest that the female immigrant suffers from being further
‘othered,’ both cases help to picture the subordination of these characters of the ‘second sex.’

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Homosociality: a Way of Preserving the Patriarchal Hegemony

As Hammarén and Johanson (2014) claim, “[t]here is a massive body of literature on the
homosocial bonding of men’s relations, and all the different strategies men use to maintain the
gender order and uphold male privileges” (2). What characterises homosocial bonds among men
is emotional detachment, competition, and the sexual objectification of women, which fosters
self-conceptualization as positively male, while blotting out the female figure. Additionally, and
according to West and Zimmerman (1987), “[d]oing men things or “doing masculinity” is simply
the commonplace activity of men’s daily lives, recreated over and again, maintaining the norms
of social behaviour” (aq.in Bird 1996:125). Men tend to embark on conversations, and/or share
activities that revolve around the topics of sports, women, business, politics and drinking,
leaving those that are considered ‘non-masculine’ aside, thus regarding them as ‘feminine’. The
abjection of everything that might be associated with femininity and the praise of masculine
features is characteristic in homosocial bonds, which also contributes to the deeming of women
as the ‘other’. Bird (1996) refers to an implicit contract in homosocial bonds among men which,
if broken, imposes punishment upon those “violating the hegemonic meaning of emotional
detachment [which], in other words, is to be “put on the outs,” that is, to be ostracized from one’s
male homosocial group” (126). Homosociality, as is clearly illustrated in “My Son the Fanatic,”
maintains masculinity and patriarchy, institutionally and interpersonally segregating men and
women (Hammarén and Johanson). While men are subjected to comply with the rules laid down
by the hegemonic masculinity in order not to be ‘othered’ – regarded as female- women, in turn,
have no such choice, since their condition of inferior beings is inherent to their sex.

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“My Son the Fanatic:” A Brief Outline of the Story

“My Son the Fanatic” is a story written by Hanif Kureishi, first printed in 1994 and then added to
a collection of short stories called Love in a Blue Time. The story narrates the problems of Parvez
and his son, Ali, who have migrated to England. Father and son are involved in a clash of
customs, lifestyles and cultures, which makes Ali to feel estranged from both his progenitor and
the society they live in. Parvez, a Pakistani immigrant who works as a taxi driver in England,
seems to have assimilated into the West culture and neglects the moral beliefs of his own,
depicting a clear example of acculturation[1]. Ali, on the other hand, shows a clear change in his
behaviour, as he starts to act in a way that is closer to his Pakistani roots. Parvez, who at the
beginning fears that his son might have become a drug addict, grows impatient and worried
because he considers that he ‘has lost his son.’ The father, instead of discussing his worries with
either his wife or his male friends, decides to turn to Bettina, a prostitute, whom he meets in his
drives and has become his lover and confidante. This woman gives Parvez advice on how to deal
with his problems with his son, who continually criticises his father’s way of life, which is “too
implicated in Western civilization” (Kureishi 104), as he drinks alcohol and eats pork. One day,
Parvez is driving his taxi with Bettina when they see Ali and stop the car to invite him in. She
tries to have a conversation with Ali, but he offends Bettina, who eventually leaves the car while
still in motion and runs away. Once at home, Parvez gets drunk and, infuriated, beats his son,
who does not either defend or protect himself, but just asks the father, “[s]o who’s the fanatic
now?” (Kureishi 108).

[1]According to Edward Brathwaite (1971), acculturation is “…the process of absorption of once

culture by another” (aq.in Ashcroft et.al. 1998:10)

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The Role of Women in “My Son the Fanatic” – Bettina and the Absent Wife

In compliance with the masculinity ideal, which involves detachment and independence, Parvez,
despite having a wife, does not establish a bond of intimacy with her but rather secludes her and
dominates her. Adopting a similar attitude to that of an empowered coloniser, he overshadows
her consciousness by depriving her of both action and voice. She does not even have a name in
the story, which implies that she is even deprived of an identity. The wife is to be condemned to
passivity, while Parvez enacts the active dominant role in this, what is more, apparently sexless
marriage:
Standing in the hall, Parvez heard his boy's alarm clock go off. Parvez hurried into his bedroom
where his wife was still awake, sewing in bed. He ordered her to sit down and keep quiet, though
she had neither stood up nor said a word. From this post, and with her watching him curiously, he
observed his son through the crack in the door (Kureshi 102)
This scene being one of the few portrayals of Parvez’s wife depicts a clear instance of the
obliteration of women: she is muted, awake, sewing, waiting. Her husband orders her to remain
in the position she is to be – seated and silent - which, sadly, she has not struggled to get out of,
as she feels that is her place. The wife, then, is shut in immanence (stagnation), and, in such
patriarchal society, “mother, wife, sweetheart are the jailers” (Beauvoir 60). Furthermore, the
wife does not have any kind of intervention in the struggles between father and son. She is
completely out of the picture and the men’s discourse in the story becomes monologic. As the
theoretician of French feminist thought, Hélène Cixous, claims:
[W]oman is always on the side of passivity […] when we examine kinship structures; whenever a
family model is brought into play; in fact as soon as the ontological question is raised; as soon as
you ask yourself what is meant by the question 'What is it?'; as soon as there is a will to say
something. A will: desire, authority, you examine that, and you are led right back -- to the father.
You can even fail to notice that there's no place at all for women in the operation! In the extreme
the world of 'being' can function to the exclusion of the mother. No need for mother -- provided
that there is something of the maternal: and it is the father then who acts as -- is -- the mother.
Either the woman is passive; or she doesn't exist. What is left is unthinkable, unthought of. She
does not enter into the oppositions, she is not coupled with the father (who is coupled with the
son) (aq.in Lodge and Wood 2007:264).

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In light of this thought, the wife being passive equates her non-existence regarding family issues
concerning her own son: there is no need for her interference; she is just to sit and be quiet.
Parvez is then coupled with his son, the power struggle being between these two male figures in
the story. The wife is in the periphery; she is ‘othered’ and stuck in the prison of domesticity and
anonymity.

Another woman who is also subjected to the surveying eye of the hegemonic masculinity is
Bettina. At first, Parvez seems to develop a bond with her that goes beyond that of a prostitute
and client. What is more, when dealing with his troubled son, he seems to find in this woman, the
emotional support that he is not able to find in his wife: “[t]o his relief, he found Bettina sitting
in his car […] she sat not in the passenger seat, but beside him, Parvez had talked to her about his
life and hopes, just as she talked about hers […] With Bettina’s help he would soon sort it out”
(Kureishi 100-101). She has occupied the wife’s position in the car, next to him, implying a bond
of intimacy and openness. Besides, she has a say in the family matters, since she is the one
Parvez turns to for advice on how to address the issue of Ali’s attitude. However, she is
eventually displaced and demonized by the son, to the point that she has to leave the car. The
automobile, which might be a phallic symbol, may represent the patriarchal society from which
Bettina is ousted, not only for her condition of being a woman but, what is worse, for not
actually performing the roles attributed to her: housewife, sweetheart, virginal. The prostitute,
then, is demonized, her sex not being reproductive, is condemned not only by Ali but also, in a
more subtle way, by Parvez himself, who is also embarrassed by Bettina’s presence: “Bettina sat
in the front. Parvez became aware of Bettina's short skin, gaudy rings and ice-blue eyeshadow.
He became conscious that the smell of her perfume, which he loved, filled the cab. He opened
the window” (Kureishi 107). Parvez is overwhelmed by Bettina’s figure. His awareness of her
stereotypical appearance as a prostitute makes him realize she does not meet the requirements to
be a woman to be respected and to be proud of. It is his son, then, who shows expresses his
abhorrence towards this ‘temptress’, together with the father’s act of driving a woman of this
type, a common practice in Western patriarchal culture. Ali, in demonizing Bettina – victim of
sexual objectification - fails to address the hegemonic masculinity that upholds prostitution.

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Vertical Homosociality in “My Son the Fanatic”

Parvez gets involved with Bettina only as a means of redefining his masculinity and to
strengthen his bond with other fellow men, a clear instance of vertical homosociality, which only
serves to further diminish women and regard them as the objectified ‘other.’ According to
Hammarén and Johanson (2004), “[H]ierarchical [or vertical] homosociality is similar to and has
already been described as a means of strengthening power and of creating close homosocial
bonds to maintain and defend hegemony” (5). The bonds established among men also shape their
relations with women, who are just the opportunity of sexual pleasure, to be exchanged as
symbols of potency. Such condition of prestige among males stems from the sexual
objectification of women, which, according to Johnson (1988) is a meaning “constructed and
maintained through relationships with other men whereby male individuality is conceptualized
not only as different from female but as better than female” (aq.in Bird 1996:121). Kureishi’s
story depicts such homosocial bonds in connection to women when narrating the typical life of
taxi drivers in England:
“Like him. most of the other drivers were Punjabis. They preferred to work at night, the
roads were clearer and the money better. They slept during the day, avoiding their wives.
Together they led almost a boy's life in the cabbies' office, playing cards and practical
jokes, exchanging lewd stories, eating together and discussing politics and their
problems.” (100)
This depiction is a clear example of male bonding as a means of perpetuating the typical
patriarchal mandates: a man, to be in the ‘in-group’ has to despise his wife and, not only has sex
with other women, but also talk about it with his fellow men. In this sense, “friendship between
men builds on and involves fantasies and experiences of having sex with women, as well as
sharing memories of collective sexual harassments and sexual encounters. Women become a
kind of currency men use to improve their ranking on the masculine social scale” (Hammarén
and Johanson 2014:2). Parvez, then, acts in compliance with the implicit rule of achieving
extramarital sex, therefore acquiring certain status among his fellow Punjabis, who also share
their narratives of their sexual encounters as part of the storytelling culture generated by
homosociality and deeply ingrained in patriarchal society.

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In homosocial bonds, moreover, men, fearing the possibility of being ostracized by fellow men,
act according to the canonical hegemonic masculinity, which condemns any characteristic
attributed to the ‘second sex’, such as the expression of intimate emotions or cooperation.
Parvez, acquiescent to the demands of the hegemonic masculinity, abstains from expressing his
emotions and deepest fears to his male friends, fearing that they might judge him and exclude
him from his social circle: “But Parvez had been unable to bring this subject up with his friends.
He was too ashamed” (Kureishi 100). The avoidance of topics that might hint at a man’s
weakness or emotional side is paramount in homosocial bonds among men, as it is what deems a
man ‘masculine’. According to Bird (1996) “[b]eing masculine, in other words, means being
not-female. The masculinity ideal involves detachment and independence […]Emotional
detachment is one way in which gender hierarchies are maintained” (125). Furthermore, those
who do express their emotions and fears are then subjected to a social exclusion similar to that of
women. In this sense, the “repercussion for violating the hegemonic meaning of emotional
detachment, in other words, is to be "put on the outs," that is, to be ostracized from one's male
homosocial group” (126). Parvez, as well as his friends in the story, then act conforming to this
implicit contract so as to avoid the unjust ‘othering’ women are subjected to just because of their
gender. Men are free from this punishment as long as they do not ‘become’ female. Fear of
effeminacy is also portrayed in ‘My Son the Fanatic”: “[w]hat bewildered him [Parvez] was that
Ali was getting tidier. Instead of the usual tangle of clothes, books, cricket bats, video games, the
room was becoming neat and ordered; spaces began appearing where before there had been only
mess” (Kureishi 98) As neatness and tidiness are associated with women, such traits are to
arouse anxiety in the father, who, instead, regards messiness as positively masculine. Parvez sees
these changes in his son and, therefore, fears his exclusion from the heteronormative social
circles in which they are involved. Parvez, far from questioning the status quo, only views these
divergences in Ali as private dissatisfactions, not an opportunity to question those values that
serve to subjugate the ‘other’.The tension between Parvez and Ali can be said to be not only due
to the different values of post-colonial societies and the Western world, but also to the
hegemonic masculinities and other subaltern identities.

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Conclusions

Kureishi’s “My Son the Fanatic,” in narrating the tribulations of Parvez’s family in the territory
of the English colonizer, also sets forth the distress suffered by those obliterated consciousness,
especially women’s, victims of the oppression of both imperialist and patriarchal systems.
Western values and those of patriarchal hegemony, embraced by the protagonist in a clear
instance of acculturation, prove to pervade the experiences of the characters, whose attitudes are
strictly controlled by the tacit rules imposed by them. Aspects of the European culture, such as
the subjugation and objectification of women, together with the suppression of any instance of
femininity, are predominant and somehow praised by Parvez, since those individuals who
comply with them are empowered with a status similar to that of the coloniser. Therefore, the
twofold nature of colonization is revealed, as it reinforces the supremacy of both the Western
culture and that of male power over the members of the ‘second sex.’ Male homosociality helps
to further perpetuate this ‘double-colonization’, while maintaining the gender order and
bolstering male privileges. Parvez’s total control of the wife’s consciousness by means of his
muting her might also be equated with his objectification of Bettina: in both cases he is the
Subject, they are the object – the ‘other’. The protagonists’ adherence to the Western culture
clashes with the son’s rebellious attitude, whose voice comes in to question these values
imprinted on the coloniser, but still fails to address the affliction they cause on the female
figures. As has been observed, within patriarchal homosociality, women are the outsiders and,
much in the same way as with the colonised peoples, their oppression is a necessary condition to
secure the perpetuation of the hegemonic order.

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References

Primary Sources

Kureishi, Hanif, and Andreas Gaile. My Son the Fanatic: a Screenplay. Reclam, 2007.

Secondary Sources

Ashcroft B., Griffiths G. and Tiffin H. (1998) Post-Colonial Studies. The Key Concepts.
London: Routledge

Bird, Sharon R. “Welcome to the Men's Club: Homosociality and the Maintenance of
Hegemonic Masculinity.” Gender and Society, vol. 10, no. 2, 1996, pp. 120–132. JSTOR,
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/189829.

De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. 1949. First edition. New York: Vintage Books, 1949

Hammarén, Nils, and Thomas Johansson. “Homosociality.” SAGE Open, vol. 4, no. 1, July
2014, retrieved from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244013518057

Lodge, David, and Nigel Wood. Modern Criticism and Theory: a Reader. Longman, 2007.

Sawant, Dr. Shrikant B. “Proceedings of National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and
Literature.” Nanded, 27 Jan. 2012.

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