**7. Conclusions**

The space of Punjabi dance has traditionally been a strictly segregated space in which male and female performativity is regulated and disciplined by traditional gender norms and expectations. Since the 1980s, bhangra, classified as a Punjab imale dance and co-opted in the production of Punjabi ethnocultural identity in the state of Punjab and Asian/Punjabi/Sikh identity in the diasporas, gained unprecedented global visibility whereas female Punjabi dances remained marginalized. Not only is the space of bhangra production heavily male centric in its inability to make room for female participation except as consumers, but its lyrics are also highly masculinist, sexist, and casteist that perpetuate Punjabi/Jat/Sikh patriarchical structures and gender hierarchies through the reificiation of women as the good beloved and the bad whore. In their consumption of bhangra and embracing it as the signifier of Asian/Punjabi/Jat/Sikh identity to resist racist regimes, female clubgoers and musicians unwittingly accept its disturbing gender hierarchy. However, a number of female musicians have successfully interrogated Punjabi/Jat/Sikh patriarchies through refusing to conform to the idealized image of the demure, obedient, good Punjabi/Jat/Sikh girl by opting for diverse subject positions that include performing movements or playing instruments requiring strength and stamina, borrowing features of the bad girl through dancing, drinking, and visiting nightclubs, or by establishing themselves as successful singers to challenge patriarchal definitions of femininity. The bhangra rapper Taran Kaur Dhillon alias Hard Kaur, through her refusal to fit into the binary of the good or bad Sikh girl, foregrounds the disciplining of the female body implicit in the expectation of identification or disidentification with either subject position and carves out a new definition of femininity through blending elements of the masculine and feminine, the good and the bad girl in her self construction.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **References and Notes**


Bindrakhia, Surjit. 2011. Jatt di Pasand. In *Billiyan Ankhiyan*. New Delhi: T-Series.


©2020 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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