The Stigma Matrix
As developing states adopt neoliberal policies, more and more working-class women find themselves pulled into the public sphere. They are pressed into wage work by a privatizing and unstable job market. Likewise, they are pulled into public roles by gender mainstreaming policies that developing states must sign on to in order to receive transnational aid. Their inclusion into the political economy is very beneficial for society, but is it also beneficial for women? In The Stigma Matrix Fauzia Husain draws on the experiences of policewomen, lady health workers, and airline attendants, all frontline workers who help the Pakistani state, and its global allies, address, surveil, and discipline veiled women citizens. These women, she finds, confront a stigma matrix: a complex of local and global, historic, and contemporary factors that work together to complicate women's integration into public life. The experiences of the three groups Husain examines reveal that inclusion requires more than quotas or special seats. This book advances critical feminist and sociological frameworks on stigma and agency showing that both concepts are made up of multiple layers of meaning, and are entangled with elite projects of hegemony.
—Erin McDonnell, Author of Patchwork Leviathan
"This remarkable and richly detailed ethnography explores how frontline women workers in Pakistan navigate the colliding norms of purdah and neoliberal economic policies. With a keen analytical eye, Fauzia Husain shows how cultural stigma is shaped, while also providing a novel and multifaceted account of women's agency. The Stigma Matrix is mandatory reading for anyone interested in gender and work in global contexts."
—Rachel Rinaldo, Author of Mobilizing Piety
"[The Stigma Matrix] is well written and will be accessible even to those who know little about Pakistan or Islam. Recommended."
—G. M. Farr, CHOICE
"The Stigma Matrix is written in an accessible manner and provides a compelling mix of ethnographic narratives and complex theoretical work. Husain provides a contemporary perspective on canonical topics such as stigma and agency and offers portable frameworks that scholars may apply in other contexts."
—Sidra Kamran, Journal of Development Studies
"An important contribution to the scholarship on gender, neoliberalism, and the public space, The Stigma Matrix is a meticulously crafted book that explores the experiences of the 'so-called dirty women' in Pakistan's public service.... The book convincingly attends to how political economic structures and colonial histories generate stigma for women and work in particular globalized contexts."
—Maria Rashid, The Developing Economies
"The Stigma Matrix is an elegantly written and critical contribution to the growing scholarly literature on gender in Pakistan. It beautifully explicates how women navigate stigma while maintaining their dignity and integrity as frontline public workers in a deeply patriarchal context."
—Ayesha Khan, Pacific Affairs
"This rich and eloquent discussion will leave readers at once unnerved by the endless mistreatment women frontline workers are subject to and also moved by their creative courage."
—Selina Gallo-Cruz, American Journal of Sociology
"Husain masterfully describes the multi-dimensionality of agency and what it means for Muslim women, particularly in Global South spaces as in the case of her interviewees."
—Sarah Ahmed, Gender & Society
"The Stigma Matrix is an important contribution to the scholarship on gender, globalization, and stigma. Husain provides a new perspective for understanding the complex relationship between women's work, neoliberal global forces, and cultural norms shaped by a colonial past."
—Heidi E. Rademacher, Contemporary Sociology
"A compelling exploration of the layered challenges facing Pakistani women in public service sectors, particularly in health, law enforcement and aviation, Husain's book combines theoretical rigour with narrative-driven fieldwork to examine how Pakistani women navigate social stigmas intertwined with local, colonial and global forces."
—Livia Holden, South Asia Research
