216 Margalla Papers 2018 PAKISTAN’S ELITE ENGLISH PRESS DEBATES PIONEER WOMEN: HINA RABBANI KHAR AND SHARMEEN OBAID CHINOY Shiza Nisar * Abstract This study analyses the portrayal of Pakistan’s first female Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, and Pakistan’s only female Oscar-winning filmmaker, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, in the newspaper coverage of four Pakistan’s four leading English newspapers, The News, Dawn, The Express Tribune and the Nation. It is also investigated if the debate on women has changed in Pakistan’s patriarchal social system and they are encouraged for their achievements. The study is theoretically linked with framing theory and conducts a discourse analysis of 94 news articles. The findings depict a different image of these women as media appreciated the achievements of SOC while discouraged a debate on HRK due to the profession of both the women. Keywords: Hina Rabbani Khar, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, Newspaper, Women, Pakistan. Introduction oted filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (SOC) is Pakistan’s leading female to have two Oscars to her name, for the best short documentaries in 2012 and 2016, while Hina Rabbani Khar (HRK) was Pakistan’s youngest and first female Foreign Minister in 2011. Both the women represented Pakistan on a global setting and came under public scrutiny for their respective roles in the patriarchalPakistani society. HRK repeatedly faced sexist remarks and was targeted for the inability for the office she held. On the other hand, SOC faced slurs of being a “western agent” or the “mouthpiece of the west” after her success at the Oscars, for her documentary on honor killing. In general masses, the Oscar failed to qualify as a proud moment for Pakistan and was sadly contoured with hesitations and displeasure since it followed a bittercriticism of SOC. SOC was called a pawn in the hands of the West for projecting a rather ugly and traumatic image of Pakistan 1 . This research aims to reveal the opposing discourses of femininities offered by the elite print media in Pakistan by concentrating on changing narratives about women’s empowerment and, their social and political positioning. This research project studies how major English-language newspapers in Pakistan have mediated public * Shiza Nisar is lecturer at Centre for Media Studies, Art and Design, Lahore School of Economics, Lahore. N