AAYP 2019 Youth Ambassadors Scholarship

Meril Mousoom

Submission Title: “Teacup”

I scurry out from my bedroom, eyes down low. If I’m quick, they won’t catch me. I stuff some cookies in my mouth. The deed is done. But alas, upon taking in my painted face and my traditional Bengali salwar kameez, I am caught.

“Would you be a dear and bring away these teacups for us?” It’s to the dungeon for me. Screaming on the inside, I smile and nod to their disguised command. But the men pay me no mind as the British cricket team scores another wicket on the TV, my smile wasted on an ignorant room.

In the kitchen, I greet my fellow servants to the patriarchy with teacups in hand. I don’t even think any of my uncles have even been in this room. My mother, a permanent presence in the kitchen at times like these, sends me off to my room to study and wishes me luck on my math test tomorrow. As always, my uncles never thought about my education when ordering me to
pick up after them.

In this world, wedged in the time between school and activist work, at family gatherings, I am just another pretty thing to cook, clean, and to bear children. My education, passion and talent will be useless. But I’ll make a good housewife, apparently.

My mom had always wanted to be an independent career woman, but she was a housewife with no education in America like most Bengali women. My mother had to wait until I entered school to pursue college and start working, following an agreement with my father. However, Bengali society isn’t impressed with her accomplishments. My mom is constantly criticized for not cooking and cleaning enough. Despite working long hours, she does the majority of the household chores.

Seeing my mom’s hardship, I knew it was possible to have a career but that part of me would always have to play the subservient housewife from a young age. So I played the part of a “soon to be housewife” as was expected of me with no complaints. But I hated it deeply. I was ashamed of being treated like a second class citizen in my community. Every time I catered to a command of bringing a male guest food or water, I felt a part of my ambitious spirit diminish. Sometimes my relatives would even joke that I was so obedient that I should just get married now as a child like the old times. Having come from a long line of child bride housewives, these
jokes angered me to no end. And my anger kept increasing, as with age, the expectations, chores and “jokes” increased.

I decided to share the plight of women in Bengali society. I loved my community, but our ways needed to change. I started off with my friends, and then brought the discussion to the many youth activist groups and gender justice nonprofits I joined. While I previously thought this was just something that had happened in Bengali community, I realized that women
everywhere were struggling.

I hope to become a senator, to inspire Bengali women to stand up to the patriarchy and become leaders. I will give a voice to the women in my community. I will fight for paid parental leave, free public daycare at colleges and high schools, immigrant domestic violence shelters and
college scholarships for immigrant women. But most of all, I will fight for a future where people have the power to choose their path in life, for the generations of women before me who had that choice taken away from them.