As a brown woman in a traditional South Asian Muslim home, there was much I bristled against almost constantly. The unacknowledged labour was not just expected but demanded from me. The requirement to keep my mouth shut in deference even if an older person, especially a man, was disrespectful, discriminatory, or just plain wrong in their frequent pontification. To always, always, always think of the collective – the family, the parents, the husband, the society, before my own needs or wants – because everyone matters. Everyone except me.
