PRIYA MALIK
ARTIST
When the feisty Priya Malik recites one of her intense poems, you shut up and listen. But how was it for her having to listen to prejudiced comments about her looks and being subjected to comparisons using so-called beauty ideals as the standard? She says, “I’ve lived in a joint family, and I think it all starts at home – you start getting compared to others, your height is measured, your hair, skin colour, facial features are compared. I was always told my nose is too big, my eyes are too small, and that, though my skin colour is fair, my features are not sharp. What happens next is you start internalising all you hear, so, when you look at yourself in the mirror, especially when you’re growing up, you start believing those things. And it took me a long time to accept myself as who I am!”
Speaking further about how the stereotyping affected her self-esteem, Malik says, “In the ’90s, when I was growing up, the media was very white-washed, so you only saw a particular kind of beauty being promoted in mainstream literature and films. So, I began to compare myself with what I saw and with other teenage girls around me. It was also a time when the beauty pageant industry grew, and I remember this funny incident – my mom had told me that a girl’s height stops increasing once she starts menstruating, so, when I got my first period in school, I was crying out loud to my friends and my teacher saying I could never become Miss Universe now because you have to be 5′7′ for that and I was 5′2′.”
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Denne historien er fra March 2021-utgaven av Grazia.
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