I’m proud of my Pakistani heritage and it is a significant part of my identity. However, there are some aspects that I believe need to evolve according to our current society. A South Asian woman will constantly face judgment and pressure throughout her life. We are constantly receiving unsolicited “advice” from others in our community. If we dress in tight clothes, show too much skin, or wear too much makeup, we’re begging for male validation. What kind of respectable man would want to marry a woman like that? A woman should pursue higher education, but can’t be too successful because her husband is supposed to be the breadwinner. Women are expected to be the caretakers of the house and the family, but she also needs to have her own career, or else she’s just a lazy housewife.
Being a brown woman means enduring physical and emotional labor while balancing responsibilities as a wife, mother, daughter, or daughter-in-law. We are always expected to let go of our own desires/goals in order to appease our husbands, families, and in-laws. My close friend recently got engaged, and is planning on pursuing a career in dentistry. Her parents fully support this decision, however her in-laws insist that she chooses a shorter career path so she can prioritize her role as a wife. My friend wants to gain approval from her in-laws, but she doesn’t want to give up on her career which she has so much passion and drive for. This is a common situation that many brown women find themselves in: balancing their goals with what other people tell them their goals should be.
Men in our community definitely face their own struggles, but not to the same extent that we do. I wish South Asian women could freely make their own decisions and live their lives authentically without being controlled by double standards. I hope that my generation of brown women can break the cycle and let our daughters live the lives they deserve.
Unruly Bodies 
I completely agree with the need to challenge the traditional expectations placed on South Asian women. Women should pursue their passions and dreams, regardless of the pressures put on society. Communication is key in situations like your friend’s.
It is truly a struggle to be a woman, and adding in the pressure of culture only increases the severity of that pressure. Having to balance your individual goals and desires with that of your partner is challenging on its own. Balancing that with your desire to be a good daughter and to make your parents proud is even more challenging. But to also have to accommodate and please your mother or father-in-law is so much worse. There are so many voices and opinions and with so many people to consider it can be almost impossible to make everyone happy. Especially because it isn’t like you can just say forget it, I’m doing it my way, because that creates pain and chaos not just for you but for your partner and family and it isn’t always easy or satisfying to just dismiss that. I hope that your friend is able to convince her family-in-law to support her journey, maybe her husband can advocate for her to his family. And hopefully as a generation we can shift the priorities of our families, and teach our own children that they don’t have to do it all for everyone all the time.
I am half Pakistani and I know exactly how you feel. I have had a lot of problems with my father (who is Pakistani) because of the way he expects every women in the house to care for him when he comes home because he is the “breadwinner” of the family. And it is really true how a lot of men want their wives to stay at home, but they do not want their wives to “want” to stay home. They expect their wives to essentially give up their careers for their husbands, the wife cannot “want” to be a stay at home mom. They want their wives to give up their happiness and choose them and find a new sense of fulfillment and happiness from them.
This post resonates with me so much, as a South Asian woman myself. We often grapple with the tension of doing what is expected of us and looking after what we expect from ourselves. This tension is only furthered by growing up in family’s that teach you to be independent and value education, but do not give you the ability to truly embody that space in favor of working to control you, your whereabouts, and generally your life’s trajectory. While, I too love and celebrate my heritage to the utmost extent, so much it often seeped in long-standing patriarchal traditions and misogyny that can be perpetuated at every level.
As a fellow South Asian woman, I see so much of what I’ve noticed through my experiences in your post. Women in our community are expected to compromise in so many ways to uphold patriarchal traditions, as you pointed out with your friend. Not only are women expected to perform “homemaking” duties (AKA cooking every meal, upkeep of the house, taking care of the children, and serving the needs of everyone in the family), they are never given the support of the rest of the family to pursue their own aspirations even if they are given permission to. I also feel like the diaspora does more in some cases to uphold those standards to feel better “connected” to their heritage, though they tend to ignore the most important traditional values. However, the diaspora has also done so much to unlearn those harmful mindsets when they start to adopt “Western” mindsets, or practicing a more equal share of work in family dynamics.