My upbringing was quite humble where there was not much opportunity to demand expensive toys, treats, or holidays. The focus was always on academics – so much that my hobbies and other interests eventually took a backseat. My elder sister who is currently half-way through her Ph.D. is a first-generation student. She has always been the kind of child other parents would ask their kids to learn from or look up to. My childhood could have become a very typical story of the second child who is an underachiever and grew up to be insecure and jealous but that did not happen because our parents did not draw comparisons of our academic achievements.
So that was my domestic childhood – did not face a lot of active discrimination because we were both girls. We were not sent to co-ed schools so did not have direct contact with patriarchy in our outside world either. It is only with time and age that I realized how ingrained patriarchy is and how we all grew up practicing and being part of it on different levels and magnitudes.
I remember that I didn’t like staying indoors as a kid but there is only so much freedom the family and society give you when you are a girl child. Even now, after living in a different country for 5 years, whenever I go out in India, I have a curfew of 7 pm. I have grown up to be an introvert who loves staying in, so the curfews were not an issue most of the time. But the problem lies in the fact that even if I didn’t have a curfew, I wouldn’t feel safe being outside after dark. There is an immense amount of fear and insecurity that girls grow up with. We can’t stay out for as long as our male friends do – and a lot of the time it's their responsibility to take us back home safely. And here, when I say safe, I mean without being catcalled, harassed, ogled at, or touched by unknown men on the streets.
“Are you serious? Is it really that bad? “ – you might be thinking.
Well, yes and no. But as girls, we are taught to keep our guards up – be careful our food or drinks are not spiked at a party, our clothes should not be 'asking for it’ , we should not be out alone late in the night - all because there are predators out there. And no matter how old you grow and how empowered of a woman you become, feeling unsafe in a room or elevator full of unknown men becomes an instinct.
Things are getting better though- our society has started the conversation about teaching the boys and men to change instead of asking girls to stay inside for safety. It’s a good start but we have a very, very long way to go. As someone who has moved to a supposedly safer nation, I still carry my instincts with me. I used to walk back home quite late in the night after studying on campus. Whenever I would see a group of students from afar, I would walk fast or pretend to talk on the phone. There have been times that I went closer and realised it was a group of girls and not boys which was obviously a relief. As I said, those instincts are hard to get rid of. Women feel safer and I earnestly hope that someday we can feel safe around unknown men too.
When I was only a few weeks old in Canada, my limited exposure to the South Asian community here in Toronto comprised of a lot of questions about how my parents sent a young girl alone to a country this far. After those questions faded, there were some matrimonial propositions where I heard I would be “allowed to study” even after marriage which my parents, thankfully, laughed off. On the other end, at school when I was trying to find work, I came across potential colleagues who were surprised by how good my English was and complimented me like it had nothing to do with their assumptions about my skin color.
I am 25 years old, living life on my own terms. In my culture, most girls my age are already married or going to get married soon. This is what they call to be the ‘right age’ to find a spouse because only then you can bear a legitimate child before 30. I grew up always feeling like a misfit in this culture, not understanding its many social and religious practices. And even when I live so far away from it now, the feeling of not belonging is intact. I can’t fathom how girls have the courage to fulfill the responsibilities of being a daughter-in-law, then a mother because those are a huge part of marriage in South Asia. As independent as I am, its hard for me to imagine creating space in my life for a new family while I am still struggling to find my place in the family I was born into.
I don’t approve of everything my culture represents but I wear my skin and my language loud and proud. I feel like this journey of feeling like an outlier will never end for me and I am learning to accept it without bitterness. As much as I would like to be applauded by my society or relate to brown girls my age, I see beliefs and practices that I don’t want to be a part of. Because when you are a brown girl, you either allow social norms to dictate your life, or you don’t. Unless you like pretending to be someone you are not and live a dual life, there is no middle ground. There is no turning back once you start to peel the patriarchy off your beautiful, brown skin.
Photo Credit: Trace (Instagram handle: @illustracee )