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Prolific TV mother Samina Ahmed thinks people are too quick to dismiss Pakistani dramas with plots revolving around domestic issues — especially the usual saas-bahu storylines.

Speaking to Nariman Ansari on the BeyGhum Begums podcast, the actor said she finds such dramas to be a tool for women to empower themselves in the media and in real life.

Talking about women’s participation in the industry, Ahmed asked Ansari who she thought was most vocal in their criticism of Pakistani soap operas. She went on to say it was mostly people from inside the industry — often men — who don’t even watch Pakistani dramas.

The actor said the industry had changed quite a bit from when she started with Pakistan Television, recalling how she was often the only woman on set with male co-stars and all-male crews. She said, “Nowadays, women do makeup… for everyone, there are girls in wardrobe, there are female directors, producers and dramas today aren’t made without three to four women in the cast.”

At any given moment, she remarked, “There are eight to 10 women in a drama‘s makeup room, that’s a big change I’ve noticed and a positive one.”

Ahmed said these domestic stories were our stories too, “stories of our women, in our homes,” and they deserved to be told. Saying there’s a bit of fact in all fiction, she told the host that when dramas show abuse towards women, it’s a reflection of society, and they also show women standing up for themselves.

The two agreed that television was a medium for education, with the actor adding that taboo subjects had been brought into scripts to raise awareness and spark conversations.

“When we first made dramas about these subjects, there was much hue and cry, but now they are discussed in the media, our society has evolved to be able to discuss these things,” she told Ansari.

Ahmed said she felt TV — alongside film and literature — also helped people deal with the loneliness of modern-day life. She said she believes “when we live in isolation, we begin to feel our problems are ours alone and there’s no way out of them. Then, when you see something you relate to on television, you feel less alone, you realise people feel the way you do.”

Stories and their characters, she contended, enrich lives and raise awareness.

On women participating less in the world, the actor said they are often conditioned to fear the world from a very early age by society and told they are inferior to their brothers. That, she said, shatters their confidence.

Ahmed said her own mother’s style of upbringing — sending both her daughters out into the world alone for their studies — gave her the confidence she needed to survive as a single parent.

That too, she says, was a big challenge, “People treat you differently as a lone woman, but if you don‘t pay much heed to them, keep to yourself and follow your own beat, you’ll be fine.”