Brown Girl Rant: The Childhood Trauma of a Brown Kid

If you're a female who has grown up in a brown household, you've likely experienced times where you felt like you weren't being treated fairly because you're a girl. This is be due to a number of reasons. If you had older brothers, maybe you remember them being babied, but you had to cook, clean, etc., but they didn't because they are the men of the house. Maybe you remember being shamed for being opinionated and extroverted, but your male cousins weren't being shamed for those same things. Similar things like this occur all the time in brown households. It may seem extreme what I am about to say, but because as females we are conditioned to this treatment from birth, we oftentimes don't understand the severity of the unfair treatment we get. 

Our parents and our community has failed us women many times. They have manipulated, shamed, and belittled us. A man can be outspoken about the politics back home in our country, but as soon as a woman has something to say, she's labeled as a loudmouth. Growing up my mother made it clear to me that the only way Bengali aunties would respect me is if I was "quiet" and acted shy. I didn't understand for a long time how a shy and quiet girl was equivalent to a good girl. Me and many other girls had been conditioned from birth to not share our opinions and be outspoken because we didn't want to be shamed by our own community. Not to mention the whole "boys will be boys" line to excuse irresponsible behavior. A man can explore his options and date who he pleases, but a brown girl would be shamed to do the same. Our community will preach modesty for women all day and make life for hijabis a living hell, but won't have the same energy when it comes to men. 

This brings me up to my next point. There is so much shame culture going on in the brown community. The amount of children afraid to be disowned or shamed by their own community is ridiculous. It's a manipulation tactic to keep brown kids under the control of our elders. Mothers will say, "don't you dare get a boyfriend or I won't ever talk to you again" and fathers will even go as far as to wish death upon sons who go against their wishes. Controlling our lives is only damaging our relationship with our elders because we're now more likely to communicate with friends or even strangers rather than our own blood. 

When we grow up, you really get to see the effects of the bad parenting habits. As parents are ready to get their sons married off, you see them shocked that their daughter in law won't baby their child like they did. They'll be upset that their daughter in law won't spoon feed their son, but they'll also be upset that their daughter wants to be independent and live on her own in Uni. They'll tell us women, "do you have no shame", because wanting to live life for your own happiness is shameful to them. 

Moving onto my generation and future generations to come, I really hope we go to therapy. I hope we fix our wounds and deal with childhood trauma. I hope we get into marriages that we want to be in with people that we  want to be with. I hope we break the generational curses and raise our families differently. I want to see our families have good communication. I don't want to see future generations grow up with resentment due to the life they lost trying to please their parents.