How Daayan Exposes the Power of Internalized Misogyny

I didn’t expect Daayan to be this gripping. On the surface, it’s just another family drama—wealthy feuding relatives, betrayals, forbidden love. But ten episodes in, it’s about misogyny and how women can become its most ruthless enforcers. From the very beginning, the show establishes a world where female fertility is currency, love is transactional, and a woman’s will is expendable in the grander scheme of dynastic succession.

Though its pacing is often rushed—sacrificing nuance for high-stakes drama—Daayan remains compelling as it unpacks the insidious ways patriarchy operates. Not just through overt violence, but through coercion, duty, and systemic control.

The most ruthless villains aren’t the men, but the women—women who have learned to wield the weapons of patriarchy against their own kind.

Aurat Ki Sab Se Bari Dushman

The story begins with a crisis: Zawar Shah (Ahsan Khan) and his wife, Shabaab (Hira Mani), cannot have children.This is not merely a personal issue—it is an existential threat to the family’s dynasty. In this world, a woman’s worth is tied to her ability to produce an heir.

If anyone should have been the victim in Daayan, it was Shabaab. She has done everything right—married into wealth, been a loving wife, remained loyal. Yet, when she fails to bear a child, her position is immediately at risk.

Rather than taking a second wife, Zawar finds another way: he convinces his younger brother, Hunain (Osama Tahir), to promise his firstborn to Shabaab.

Meanwhile, Hunain has fallen for Nihaal (Mehwish Hayat), a mild-mannered university student who is a poor fit for the world she’s about to be dragged into. But love in Daayan is a liability. When Nihaal’s abusive father, Shakeel (Nayyer Ejaz), finds out about the romance, he beats Hunain to death in a drunken rage .

This is where the real nightmare begins. With Hunain gone, the Shah family still needs an heir. The solution? A grieving, broken, and powerless Nihaal is forced to marry Zawar.

The latest episode,  delivers one of its most harrowing scenes: Nihaal, stripped of any autonomy, is dressed up and herded into a bedroom like a sacrificial lamb. Her hesitation, her visible discomfort, is mocked rather than acknowledged—with housemaid Noori sneering that she’s being overly dramatic for not wanting to step into a room where Zawar waits for her. It’s a moment of casual cruelty that exposes how deeply normalized women’s suffering is in this world.

Mahwish Hayat’s portrayal of Nihaal grows stronger with each episode. While her early scenes as a shy college student and starry-eyed romantic felt somewhat unconvincing, she truly comes into her own as Nihaal descends into grief and powerlessness, embodying the role of a zinda laash.

Who Is the Real Daayan?

The title Daayan suggests a singular evil woman, a villainous force orchestrating it all. But as the show unfolds, it becomes clear:

• Is it Shabaab? The woman who forces another into marriage to protect her own position?

• Is it Zakia and Fauzia? The sisters who sabotage another woman out of their own insecurity?

• Is it Nihaal’s mother? Who chooses silence and allows the cycle to continue?

• Is it Noori? The housemaid who taunts a completely powerless woman and mocks her pain?

• Or is it something much bigger than any of them?

The real daayan in this story is internalized misogyny itself—the force that turns women against each other, convinces them that their value is tied to men, and ensures that even when they suffer, they are the ones enforcing their own suffering.

The horror of Daayan is not that one woman is evil—it’s that every woman in the story has been so deeply shaped by patriarchy that they inevitably become its weapons.

So perhaps the real question isn’t who the daayan is.

It’s that maybe becoming a ‘daayan‘ is the only way to survive.