The prevalence of any mental illness is more common in women than men. But how can we speak of statistics in a society where women are silenced? For years, Punjabi households have revolved around a patriarchal system, and for many families, that is still the case. Women are expected to act as housewives and do not have a say in any family decisions, especially financial ones. I come from a family like many others; My parents came from India in order to give us a better life. My mother dropped out of school because it was “time for her to get married.” My father was working in America with a lot of land in India, which was all that mattered when it came to making the decision about marriage.
What about what my mother wanted? What if she wanted to finish school? What if she did not want to get married yet? Her feelings were not considered for a decision that still affects her life, today. This is a story many children, especially daughters, can relate to.
We see what our mothers went through. They may be content with where they are now because they have put their children in a better position, but have we ever taken the time to ask them about all of THEIR dreams?
If you come from a family like the one I described, our mothers will have unfulfilled dreams, whether it was before marriage or after. Imagine having unfulfilled dreams. Imagine knowing you could have done something in your life but could not, only because you are a woman.
From the very beginning, Punjabi women are silenced. Before we even come into the world, everyone is praying and hoping for us to be a boy so the family name and material possessions can be passed on. When we come into the world, we already have a sexist cloud shadowing us. We have everyone looking at us as if we are a curse to the family, all for existing. Whereas, a son’s birth is celebrated during the festival of Lohri.
As we get older, we are told what we should become in our life. We are told what to wear and how to behave. If anything happens, we are told how to react. Before marriage, our lives are controlled by parents due to the fear of what society will say, and after marriage, they are controlled by our husband and his family.So the question stands: when do we get the chance to control our own life? When will we get to fulfill our dreams as girls and women? The uncomfortable truth is that we are raised to be passive because we feel that we owe something to society for being a girl.
The Punjabi community builds personality based on an instilled fear of society. Every decision goes through a process of “what will they say?” We become so accustomed to pleasing a society that will never be pleased, that we fail to recognize the toll this lifestyle is taking on our mental health.
When going out, we need to be cautious of what we wear because if we wear anything revealing and become VICTIMS of cat-calling or rape, it is our fault and to add insult to injury, our cries are silenced because we do not want society to look down on us. We are even told we will not get married if someone finds out we were raped.
It never ends. When we get married, we are trapped in a societal contract with our husbands and their families. We are expected to put up with any wrongdoings of our husbands and his family. We are expected to stay in the marriage regardless of what we go through. We are expected to put up with verbal and physical abuse. We are told “it’s okay, he won’t do it again” or put at fault for his actions and through it all, we are expected to stay in this so-called “happy” marriage for the happiness of society. We cannot leave because we will be degraded and it will bring shame to our family.
The situations described above, all lead to mental health issues, but as women in the Punjabi community, we are expected to stay quiet. If we bring attention to these situations, we are troublemakers. We do not fit the societal norms of what it means to be a Punjabi woman and therefore we are “deviant.” However, a societal label should not hold more value than our mental health. We need our voices to be heard and we must seek help when we need it. Today, we have access to therapists, counseling, crisis hotlines, and even social media pages that are focused on shedding light on such issues. Although, we have instilled fear of no space being safe for us, we do have safe spaces and we must use them for our sanity and well-being.
The Guru Granth Sahib Ji states:
“From woman, man is born; within woman, man is conceived; to woman he is engaged and married. Woman becomes his friend; through woman, the future generations come. When his woman dies, he seeks another woman; to woman he is bound. So why call her bad? From her, kings are born. From woman, woman is born; without woman, there would be no one at all.”
(Guru Nanak, Raag Aasaa Mehal 1, Page 473).
Yet still, a society’s opinion is valued more over the sanity and mental health of a woman. The Guru Granth Sahib Ji explicitly mentions the equality of women in society. However, we have created societal norms within the Punjabi culture that completely go against the religion we claim to derive from.
When we do this, we force our women to keep their trauma to themselves and not discuss it with anyone. We force them to let it eat them alive. We allow them to become depressed. We allow them to have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). We allow them to become suicidal. We force them to struggle alone. We force them to struggle in silence. We force them to believe their life has no value. We bury them alive.
Gurjit Kaur
Gurjit Kaur is a 23-year-old Fourth Grade teacher from Queens, New York. She did her undergraduate in Elementary Education and Sociology and is currently attending graduate school. She has a strong passion for bringing light to gender based issues, as well as, raising awareness and support around mental health. She is the cofounder of Kaabū, which is an organization that aims to break the stigma around mental health in the Punjabi community.