The Rebellious Spirit of a Brown Girl

I belong to India where a lot of expectations are placed on brown girls. It entails carrying the burden of the "good girl" stereotype all the time. Society expects me to prioritize other people's viewpoints over my own, frequently at the expense of my goals and ambitions. It is rebellion to defend myself. Even if it costs me to respect people who are trying to destroy my life, I must keep quiet and listen. A girl already had so much pressure the day she was born. But what about the boys? Brown girls are always instructed to sit properly, not laugh loudly, not talk to boys and always be docile and soft. Why is a girl's gender the requirement to clean the house or be in the kitchen?

No matter how flawed the gendered perceptions of society, women always need to conform to them. You need to be financially independent and emotionally strong and prove your worth in academics," my teacher told the girls in our class when I was fifteen. She stressed that to be respected in our patriarchal society, we had to become self-sufficient and achieve academic excellence. As a young girl, having to prove my worth to others to attain respect sounded bitter, but as I grew up, I did resonate with what she said back then.

The Gendered Expectations Of the Society Set For a Brown Girl

Ladies should speak gently. Other people should be impressed by your words. You'll have to adjust as you'll spend most of your days indoors. I felt insulted when I heard what my college professor had said. It was discouraging to listen to such expectations from a teacher who had over 30 years of experience, and who should inspire young women to go against the norm. My deep-rooted faith in feminism was sparked by this incident. At each family gathering, the notion that "all the women will eat later; let the men eat first" somehow never sat right with me.

What great feat did they achieve for women to not join and eat in the same room as men? Why is controlling women throughout their lives acceptable in our culture? Besides working, grown women are now supposed to study how to cook, clean, and do all other domestic stuff. Taking care of a family demands all these skills. If these "tips" did not suggest that a woman's prime job is to manage the household, I would be fine.

I don't think I have ever known anyone tell a man to learn how to cook or clean in hopes of someday being accepted in society. Since gender roles are so heavily embedded, even nice advice tends to have sexism in it. "Learn this so that you can be self-sufficient," should be the advice. In India, to be an adult woman often means to have all the duties of adulthood without the liberty that goes with it.

The firm implications of being cultured as a brown girl

Over the years, I have often heard terms such as "adjustment" and "compromise" used when talking about being a desirable brown girl. Placing ourselves first is extremely taboo, and as brown girls, we are usually asked to put our own needs second. Getting embroiled in familial backlash because of the choices made in professional life is normally one of the many examples. "Girls have to compromise after marriage, it will not be your house where you can do whatever you want," "You will have to listen to what your in-laws say or your marriage will not succeed," and other similar lines are notions every brown household normalises after a certain timeline. The general belief that women's income is only supplementary is very patronizing.

These kinds of thoughts suppress dreams and aspirations in the career trajectory of women. We need to recognize that women have more barriers than most individuals can even think or imagine when they stand before us. Treat her with the same respect you would anyone else, regardless of her gender. The pervasive notion that men are not equal partners but merely sporadic domestic helpers is something many men believe in. They believe that by helping out around the house, they are doing women a favour rather than just fulfilling their responsibilities.

It brought to light the wide disparity in perceptions of what equality and true partnership in a relationship entail. A man can cook, sweep, and do laundry just as well as a woman. Women are frequently expected to cook and clean daily, even though many of the world's most famous chefs are men. Men must realize that when they are assisting in doing chores at home, they are simply being responsible and not giving us a favour. No one is born to do the laundry or cook simply because he or she is a man or woman.

Conclusion

Though I know I am fortunate to have the independence to make my own decisions, I know that most women continue to struggle and settle for whatever is provided to them since the notion of "compromise" has been conditioned in their minds for a long time. Women have sacrificed their lives for compromise for years, and I believe it's time for them to start asking themselves, "How much compromise is too much compromise?" Let's oppose these expectations and help one another work toward a society in which women are respected for who they are and have the freedom to choose how they choose to live their quest called life.

-Hridya Sharma