There are probably more people in the world who know who the Kardashians are than can locate Bangladesh on a map. Whether for beauty, wealth, reality stardom or business acumen, this family has become world-famous; dominating tabloid news and being at the centre of celebrity gossip.
However perfect you may think these ladies are, you’ve got to admit it is a rather unnatural looking perfection. The 21-year old Kylie Jenner looks much older than her years and Kim Kardashian’s distribution of fat around her body is unattainable through diet and training alone. A knowledge of the number and intensity of the procedures they have had may stop people from following their social media content, buying their brands and wishing they were them, but not once does it cause one question their character.
Jump to Bangladesh, a girl gets breast implants and suddenly she is the face of all things wrong and immoral in society. Sanayee Mahboob, a Bangladeshi actress and model, decided that she was not happy with what she had been endowed with on her top half. She wanted to change this, using the funds and technology she has at her disposal. She stole from none, and asked for no permission. “If I changed my cheek, would you be sending me death threats?” says the disappointed actress. In her Facebook live video, she reiterates again and again how shocked she is at the behaviour of her followers. I feel the same. Some of the comments are disgraceful, calling her all kinds of names that I can’t make myself write about another woman. Yes, a bunch of the comments I speak of are from women.
One comment was especially creative.
Sanayee, in all her sass, ‘liked’ the message and replied “best comment ever”. It was indeed an interesting one, if we place it amongst all the other unspeakable ones.
The colloquial word for breasts in bangla is “doodh” i.e. milk, originating from the evolutionary function of the breast – to provide milk to one’s young. The irony herein lies; that the organ we are indebted to for sustaining life, we objectify and harass, forcing people to adopt extremes – either covering them till they are no longer visible or dramatically changing them at the risk of health, like Sanayee.
But whichever one chooses, we cannot question a person’s right to do so. Sanayee is outspoken and awesome in her responses to her haters – questioning their warped views on women and why they have such a huge problem with what she wishes to do with her body and her money. She asks why people wax lyrical about nari shadhinota or womens’ independence if they do not allow them a basic independence over their own bodies.
Sanayee appeared on a number of talk shows soon after her operation – maybe to publicise, probably to explain. The media ridiculed her no less, making sexual innuendos about whether her “bottom floor” was out for rent too, referring to Sanayee’s response to a question about her source of funding that she had rented out a floor of her house to fund the surgery.
Sanayee despairs about how she has to wear a burkha to leave the house.
“People tell me, ‘Bangladesh is not for you’. So, should I give up Bangladesh?”
- The naked female body is treated so weirdly in the society. People are constantly begging to see it, but once they do, you’re a hoe.”
(Lena Horne, Actress & Civil Rights Activist)