From the age of 12, I would hear my parents, in the most loving tone, calling me nicknames like motan. (Motan roughly translates to "fatso.'") After every monthly doctor’s appointment, my parents would try to convince me of how beautiful I would look if I were petite, rather than caring about the fact that something had to be done about my kidney infection. I was taught household chores and cooking, not for survival purposes, but to feed my future husband and his family. When it came to my appearance, an unbelievable number of relatives came to me with absolutely absurd “beauty tips." Sadly, even religious scholars around me preached teachings that blended with backdated cultural beliefs about how modest Muslim girls should dress.

Brown girls have never failed to experience injustice. All across the Indian subcontinent, media has impacted the way society decides a girl should be. When I was growing up, my family gathered around the TV to watch movies, in which the only female protagonists had a fair complexion, a petite figure, and good hair health. The audience around me would throw out unwanted opinions about the cast or the plot, or me: from “That actress is perfect!” to “Don’t worry about Tanaz. At some point even she is going to be just as perfect as her.” Growing up, questions would circulate in my mind: Do I need to be as beautiful as the girls who are cast in movies to be appreciated? 

I would always sense pity from my relatives at family functions because I was overweight and, to their knowledge, I was only good at preparing food.  The fact that elders were experts when it came to using Facebook made it worse, because they would get ideas. My parents came from different cultural backgrounds and the one thing their cultures had in common was early marriage, or child marriage. My grandparents, elder aunts, and elder uncles believed that if my sisters and I didn’t get married as soon as possible, we would become uncontrollable. There were times at the dinner table where I heard my grandmother and my father fighting over my marriage. “She’s interested in cooking and cleaning, why not get her married already?” “She will be hopeless if she isn’t married.” 

I also realized that it’s not just the elders in the society but the kids of my age who desired (or desired to be) the “perfect” one. The boy I dated around that age would always express how he loved me because I knew how to cook and clean, and that my appearance was very appropriate as his soon- to- be housewife. Then, when I hit puberty at 13, things got even more complicated. I was introduced to a new category of problems beyond the never-ending pressures to lose weight or get married.  

In Islam, one reason why women dress modestly and wear hijab is to manifest an inner commitment to worshipping our Lord. However, the local scholars would always say that women should cover themselves to prevent harassment or rape. Indeed, when I started developing, I would receive stares and complaints; my aunt would come to my mother and say, “You should really get her checked, it’s inappropriate to grow this much at this age." She'd also say, “It’s not fair. She is always around my sons and they might feel aroused.” Upon hearing my mother laughing it off and, yet again, blaming my overweight body for it, I thought maybe this criticism was deserved.

The most messed up part was when I first met my elder cousin brothers after puberty. They would stare at me with "concern," making comments like, “You should start wearing a hijab so that people don’t eye you as a harlot."  

Things really hit me when I turned 14. I started questioning every single feature that I had, and even my own existence. I would find myself arguing with my mother. I expressed how sad I felt that she never stood up for me when someone would bring me down. I would find myself going crazy after every single interaction with my relatives. Life had started to feel as if I were thrown in a race track and had to acquire the first place in order to fit in and be loved. My society had so normalized body shaming that, every time I spoke up about it, I'd be told, “Get over it. It’s nothing unusual.”

My grandparents, elder aunts, and elder uncles believed that if my sisters and I didn’t get married as soon as possible, we would become uncontrollable.

I remember looking at the mirror every day, frustrated. I would try keto diets, skipping a meal or having absolutely no sugar for the rest of the week. But no matter what I did or ate, I'd never achieve what I wanted. Did I need to be underweight to be accepted by everyone in my family? Did I have to be the only family member to take care of someone else’s families and problems? Did I have to dress modestly just to ease the cravings of hungry men, rather than for my Lord and my religion? Eventually, all of this led to just one question: Was the “‘normal”’ environment that I grew up in really normal?

In her 2022 Daily Star article, “Women Don’t Want To Be Superhumans,” editor Afia Jahan writes, “Do we ever stop to wonder if this sacrificial nature of women is truly inherent, or a trait that they are trained to adopt? Probably not, given how that would mean we would need to acknowledge that women, like everyone else, are just human. They get tired, frustrated, and are not always beautiful and ‘presentable’" Nor should they have to be.” Jahan speaks about how society has never thought about the sacrifices a woman makes in order to fit in and how this sacrificial nature of woman has always been taken advantage of. Now that I look back, I ask myself, whether all of this happened because I failed to stand up for myself, and whether I went through it all just because it was normal to my parents and my family. 

The Bangladeshi culture that I’ve always known about was supposed to be a vibrant tapestry woven from its historical experiences, natural beauty, and the resilience of its people. When I turned twelve, though, things started to look a lot more different to me. The media has to stop glorifying backdated beliefs and showing children how to be “desirable” at such a young age. And as elders, we must remind the younger generation that there’s more to life than forcing themselves to become the “best,” “desirable," or “perfect." Instead of highlighting backdated cultural beliefs about South Asian women, it’s time we highlighted women’s empowerment, regardless of appearance and societal standards.