Seven beliefs that can silence women and how to unlearn them
Ted Talk by Deepa Narayan (2019)
Deepa Narayan is a social psychologist and she did this Ted Talk back in November of 2019. Her Ted Talk is about the seven beliefs that can silence women and she tells us how we can unlearn these ideals that are instilled in us since birth. These seven habits delete women and make them disappear. Society has made these habits familiar, good, and moral so they are never questioned. Narayan says the first habit is: you don’t have a body. This habit says that girls should not talk about their body, it doesn’t exist. This habit causes many sexually molested girls to not tell anyone about what happened to them. The second habit is: be quiet. This habit stops girls from speaking up for themselves and teaches them that their feelings and opinions don’t matter enough to share. Habit three is: be a people pleaser which teaches women that everyone only likes girls who always smile and are never angry. It teaches girls that other peoples’ happiness is not as important as their own. Habit four is that women have no sexuality because if you don’t have a body (habit one) then you don’t have sexuality. The fifth habit is: don’t trust women. Women need to come together in solidarity and this habit says otherwise. The sixth habit is duty over desire which means that by the time a woman fulfills her duty, any desire that she has leftover is also lost. Habit seven says to be totally dependent which goes in line with the rest of the habits causing women to fear and become entirely dependent on men. These habits take the life out of women and prohibits them from being themselves.
I really liked Deepa Narayan’s Ted Talk because she told us all these things that we’re taught from birth and causes you to realize that she’s right. Every habit that she talks about can be seen in how we are raised growing up. We can see how much the patriarchal society has inhibited women in everything they do and we see how it is instilled from the very beginning. Narayan tells us all seven of these habits but she also tells us how to change them. She says that we have to unlearn the habit for ourselves but that that isn’t enough. She says that we have to go to the root and change the way that society thinks or else it will continue the endless cycle that has gone on for centuries. She says that “we don’t need elastic women, we need elastic definitions.” This means that we don’t need women who are willing to adapt to what society wants, we need a society who is more open and willing to adapt to all different kinds of people. She says that this big societal change cannot happen without men and that women and men need to sit down and just listen to each other without blame and judgement. Narayan made me see that yes, women have been dealing with all of this for such a long time but if we all come together then there is a change that can be made. I loved the way she ended her talk by saying, “women don’t adjust, men adjust- it’s time.” I took that as her saying that women have changed enough to meet society's wishes, it’s time for men to change and help change all of patriarchal society’s way of thinking.
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