{"id":49519,"date":"2022-10-21T18:00:19","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T09:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2022\/oct\/21\/i-was-supposed-to-grow-up-to-be-a-good-indian-woman-i-chose-freedom-instead"},"modified":"2022-10-21T18:00:19","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T09:00:19","slug":"i-was-supposed-to-grow-up-to-be-a-good-indian-woman-i-chose-freedom-instead-sangeeta-pillai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=49519","title":{"rendered":"I was supposed to grow up to be a \u2018good Indian woman\u2019. I chose freedom instead | Sangeeta Pillai"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was told to listen to my parents, find a husband and ignore my own needs. But I decided to take my own path <\/p>\n<p>As a young girl growing up in a very traditional Mumbai family, I knew I was expected to grow up to be a certain sort of woman.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what I was taught. A good Indian woman is obedient and lives the life her parents and society tell her to live. A good Indian woman gets \u201cmarried off\u201d early and becomes a mother quickly because that is her primary purpose. A good Indian woman doesn\u2019t reveal any part of her body or her sexual desires. A good Indian woman ignores her own needs and lives her life serving others. My mother, my grandmother and many women before them had lived exactly this life.<\/p>\n<p>Sangeeta Pillai is a south Asian feminist activist and the creator of <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/7eCWGNxaofWADklejsML95\">Masala Podcast<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/letters\">letters<\/a> section, please <a href=\"mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20underneath%20your%20letter.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%E2%80%99s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20if%20your%20letter%20is%20used.\">click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2022\/oct\/21\/i-was-supposed-to-grow-up-to-be-a-good-indian-woman-i-chose-freedom-instead\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was told to listen to my parents, find a husband and ignore my own needs. But I decided to take my own path As a young girl growing up in a very traditional Mumbai family, I knew I was expected to grow up to be a certain sort of woman.Here\u2019s what I w&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3377,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,79,61,281,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india","category-society","category-south-and-central-asia","category-women","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3377"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49520,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49519\/revisions\/49520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}