My Appearance is a matter of choice and not an obligation to the Society
It is one of those routine shadis where you get to hear from your eager-for-rishta aunties “Ooh, looks like you have gained on some extra pounds – kuch kum karo larkay se bari lago gi”, “pehlay tu bohat gora rung tha ab kya hugaya” or may be “kuch khaati nhn ho kya itni weak hugayi ho” and such never ending lines. It is then when throughout the event you try to camouflage behind your shaffon dupatta to hide some of that access fat you have gained recently.
I wonder is it only in country like Pakistan where girls are fed on with such pricking comments or is it a norm throughout the world? I mean it is completely alright if you are comfortable inside your skin and have a graceful personality with some extra fat here and there. Why do people really have to point out on how obese, how tan or how thin you are? Most of the times, it is your close ones that feel like they have an obligation to make comments on your looks. I say what would really happen if you are not barged with such comments at your xyz’s wedding and you could attend the occasion peacefully? I mean how worse could that REALLY BE?
This is a very common yet a neglecting dilemma of our society where girls are actually bombarded with such mind wrecking comments on their physical beauty. The irony is even if you belong to a very elite educated family or a very middle class with an inter background you are treated equally (like a shepherd who treats all his herds equally) with such comments that deal with discouraging your physical appearance. Your physical appearance is your personal matter, how obese, how tan or how thin you want to carry yourself is a matter of choice and not a matter of obligation. Our society must understand that a girl’s physical appearance is her choice of how she would want to move around and not a matter of people’s discussion or mockery. Moreover, there is just more to a girl’s body that people in our society should focus on, it would really come out as rude for most of them out there but the society’s balls (eye- balls) should be more focused upon other dilemmas of the society than actually focusing on the looks and attire of women. It is more of a matter of respect that women in our society is looking for beside all these heart wrecking comments they are faced with.
With such attitudes your education, your achievements and other such qualifications become secondary to your appearance. No wonder you are a highly qualified Doctorate or an honor roll student throughout your life when it comes to choosing your life partner and career opportunities your physical appearance overshadow all the other factors. Such ritualistic observations on part of the society make a girl feel like an object of display from an early age, and then we wonder why she is being treated like one by a male-oriented society later on. Also, as a result you end up de-motivating and discouraging those women around you by throwing up such comments. You shatter their confidence and make them feel uncomfortable about their own selves. Some of them cannot even take the pressure and resort in committing suicides or locking themselves up. Even the worst case scenario is when they end up in the hands of some cheap fairness creams and liposuction treatments where results are even tormenting and irreversible.
I strongly disagree with such behaviors of our society where women are seen as physical beings only. Only if we could give it a thought and try rationalizing our behaviors towards physical appearance of women it will be a better living place for the other half of the gender residing here.
“I would rather be alone in a dignity than in a relationship that requires me to sacrifice My Self-Respect! – Mandy Hale