Wonder Women: GirlTalk

India is a realm of contrast and juxtapositions. With one foot firmly planted in a burgeoning global and modern reality, and the other in world of ancient traditions, there is a stark dichotomy that is jarring to any outside observer and troubling to the next generation of Indians everywhere. It is becoming increasingly difficult to excuse some of the more antiquated concepts of love and marriage in a society that regularly promotes a vision of romance in its films and media. More concerning is that despite being the world’s largest democracy that boasts the greatest expanding middle class, it is also home to arranged marriages and child brides that simply cannot be ignored. For a society that promotes love in nearly every Bollywood movie produced there, it is perplexing that such abhorrent attitudes continue to dominate the mindset of the general population. Change is occurring, but as reality dramas like the recent Indian Matchmaking on Netflix show, India has a long way yet to go.

LCAHouston International Society News Editor, Ruchi Mukherjee chats with Asha Dahya, global TV Host & Producer, Author, TED Talk Speaker, and Founder of GirlTalkHQ.com, on her views of women and society in the rapidly changing landscape of Indian marriage, and how child marriages are also very much a shockingly home-grown American issue.

RM: What inspired you to write your book?

AD: It began as a blog series on my website GirlTalkHQ.com where I wanted to focus on everyday inspiring women who were doing heroic things that deserved more attention. Eventually the blog series got the attention of a literary agent who reached out and asked if I was interested in working with him to put a book proposal together around the idea of this series. Of course I said yes!

So I pulled some of the interviews from the blog series, updated them, and then set about finding even more women to add to the list. I have 50 women altogether who come from all over the United States, and some from other countries like Ghana, UK, South Africa, Guatemala, Canada and more.

The other reason I was inspired to write the book was the current climate we are living in. Over the past few years we have seen an explosion of women’s stories and voices in politics, pop culture, business, sports and numerous other industries with the knowledge that there is no reason why we shouldn’t have more equality in every aspect of life. I wanted to write this book to inspire readers to know that they too have the power to make a difference in the world, in their community, [and] all they have to do is look at the 50 examples in this book to know it is possible.

RM: Tell us more about child marriages that are not only prevalent in India, but also in United States.

AD: Yes! This is an important issue, and one that a woman I interviewed in “Today’s Wonder Women” knows about all too well. Fraidy Reiss is a forced marriage survivor from New York who today is the founder of the only organization in the US dedicated to ending child and forced marriage in America, called Unchained At Last. Here are some basic facts: between 2000-2010, there were approx 250,000 child marriages across the US! A lot of this data comes from public state records like marriage licenses and court filings.

To date 46 states STILL allow child marriage under some form of exceptions, which is horrendous. The only states that have fully outlawed child marriage with zero exceptions are Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. But even those states’ laws were recent. Up until 2018 it was still legal in all 50 states.

We think of child marriage as a problem “out there” in the world but the most common reason in the US (which happens across multiple religions and belief systems) is parents wanting to have their pregnant teen daughter married. Without needing her consent, parents and judges can decide it is fine to have her married, potentially to someone much older than her. It is scary to think that in a “free” country this practice is happening and it largely goes unnoticed.

RM: Who is your female role model?

AD: There are so many, and all of them for different reasons! Aside from all 50 women in my book because they are so incredible in what they do, my mum is probably my biggest role model. As an Indian girl growing up in the UK, then Australia, and now the US, it has been hard to find role models who look like me and have a similar life. Which means my mother’s presence was all the more important as she was the one who showed me what was possible. She was one of the oldest of 6 children who were born in East Africa then migrated to the UK in the 1960’s. Because they were immigrants and she was one of the older daughters in an Indian family, she didn’t have the opportunity to go to college. Instead she worked at a number of jobs, got married and had kids, and spent most of the time raising us. Once my siblings and I were finishing college, she decided it was time to focus on herself! She ended up doing a Masters in teaching, and then went on to have a wonderful career as a high school ESL (English as a second language) teacher, working with immigrant, refugee and asylum seeker students who migrated to Australia.

Her own lived experience as an immigrant and a mother was poured into the lives of her students, some of whom still contact her to this day because they are so grateful to her. My mum is so unassuming, doesn’t draw attention to herself, but showed me the power of persistence, and that you are never too old to achieve something new.

She is also the person who instilled in me a passion for the stories of women, as I vividly remember always watching indie movies (both in Hindi and English) about women who survived and struggled against great odds. In her own way she gave me an early taste of social justice and feminism, and because of the seed she planted I am able to do what I do today.

RM: Yes things are changing, but I still see such a slow process. Whether in dating or arranged marriages, the pressure to look the best is always on women. What do you think it will take to change that?

AD: I think each of us has a role to play. It starts in the one-on-one interactions. How do we respond to small micro aggressions and cultural tropes we come face-to-face with? When someone we know makes a comment about a woman’s appearance, do we ignore it or do we speak up to challenge them? When someone tells us what we “should” be doing or achieving as a woman of a certain age, do we give in to their outdated expectations or do we push back and give them a new perspective on what it means to be happy and successful in life?

A lot of the expectations and cultural norms continue because they are handed down from generation to generation without even a thought! When we know better, we must do better. It may feel uncomfortable to speak up or rock the boat, but we can think about the long term impact and the ripple effect it can create.

Photo Credit: Angelo Sgambati