What does a Perfect Pakistani Woman Look Like?

What does it mean to be enough exactly as you are — in a culture that has spent decades telling you otherwise?

In this episode, Zainab and Saema get into two of the most personal and least talked-about pressures facing South Asian women: colorism and body acceptance. Zainab shares the moment she realized she had spent years avoiding white clothing because someone told her it would make her look darker — and how one cream suit changed that. The conversation opens up into something bigger: what it means to carry your body as a life lived, not a problem to be solved.

Zainab shares a story that will stop you cold — walking into a rishta meeting as a highly educated, professionally accomplished woman, only to be turned away because of her skin color. It is the kind of story South Asian women have never been supposed to tell out loud. This episode tells it.

By the end, the takeaway is simple but hard-won: the glow up isn't lighter skin or a perfect body. It's finally deciding neither one defines you.

In This Episode

• Why South Asian women were taught to fear their own skin tone
• The real cost of colorism — not just to confidence, but to identity
• Why our bodies are supposed to change — and how to make peace with that
• What it looks like to rewrite the script, one cream suit at a time

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome back. So in this episode, we are going to talk about everybody's favorite topic. What does a Pakistani woman in midlife look like? So Doc. Let me ask you this. Like, what's the first thing that comes to your mind when I say this? A Pakistani woman in midlife? Yeah.

Speaker 0:18

What should she look like? I guess I'll take from my community and my background and my family. A woman in midlife should be married with kids, probably in their teens, not like my little ones, and running a household, having a career, and being mom and wife. That's what I've been kind of classically conditioned, and that's what I've seen often. But then you are talking about her role.

Speaker 1 0:42

Like I'm talking about her image. What she should look like. What does this woman look like appearance-wise? Let's talk about that.

Speaker 0:49

Ah, okay. So put together, thin, had to put together, organized, clean, and being able to tackle all the chaos around her with ease and simplicity. And do it all.

Speaker 1 1:00

Okay, so funny you should say that because I personally don't think that there is a template for that. We really cannot name that because I'll tell you what. Like my observation growing up in the Pakistani household, in Pakistan, in here, in my communities, we're in my friends, we're on family. We really don't have that one template. We grew up with one idea that is the gora rung, is the delicate features, and it's your slim persona, your slim body. You know, that is the kind of women worth looking at from a Pakistani perspective. And to be honest with you, none of this has changed today. Yeah. None of this has changed. So I have friends now in the US and I love them all, but they are in their late 60s, they're dressing like they're in the 30s, they won't admit to Botox, they won't admit to facials because they don't have a language for it. In Pakistan culture, you're either that template or what I just described, or you are nothing. There's nothing in the middle that defines the transition that you go through.

unknown 2:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1 2:15

Right? So these women I find have a real hard time reconciling with this transition and accepting that they're aging. Therefore, they don't know what aging gracefully look like. They're not even comfortable in their body anymore. You can tell.

Speaker 2:31

Well, I think that they don't understand their body. You know, I mean, I take this from the medical aspect. I sometimes don't even like to use the word transition when it comes to midlife. Midlife is a period of a lot of changes and symptoms medically, they're all tied into one encompassing thing that's causing these symptoms. It's all perimenopause or menopause, whatever it may be. And there's no talk about any of these things. There's no mention of the hormones, there's no mention of the sexuality, there's not even mention of the symptoms, hot flashes, muscle ache, brain, all of this that everyone is probably experiencing in some degree is never even sprinkled upon at all. So if you're never seeing it, if it's never being mentioned, how are you supposed to understand it in order to understand yourself?

Speaker 1 3:16

So see, and funny you should say that, because you know, my mom religiously watches all these beautiful, wonderful, funny Pakistani morning talk shows, you know, and I've seen a few of them myself. And one thing I couldn't help but notice is the talk show hosts only speak about the few things that I'm about to tell you, which I laughed out so loud. Fairness creams, oh yeah, I love those. Right? Injectables, how to keep yourself youthful, looking like 25. While the audience is total opposite of what they were talking about. So why are you not talking about hormones, internal health, talking about your transition and everything that women are going through? Why are you not bringing that conversation in the open where you just said, like, you know, they haven't heard it. It's not that they haven't heard it, they're actually so scared to talk about it because menopause in Pakistan is more a tauba tauba. So taboo. Taboo. You know, how dare you, mention that? How dare you mention that? No, I mean, menopause what? Yeah.

Speaker 4:14

What is menopause? The reality is I feel like the surface level of what you're describing, of just the appearance, is one of the hallmarks of what everyone thinks the Pakistani woman should look like. Right. It is just surface level.

Speaker 1 4:26

But the reality is we're human beings but imagine what that does to your mental health. I mean, I feel sorry for my friends who can't seem to see the light of day. Yeah. Or what is whatever that thing is, like, you know, daylight, you know, at the end of the tunnel, because they're so caught up in this whole, you know, persona that they believe they have to follow.

Speaker 4:46

Now imagine on top of that, so they're trying to look one way, but they're feeling so many different things and they have no idea how to approach that. And if you're unable to approach that, what are you doing for your overall health and your emotional and mental state? Nothing. You're actually worsening it right by just attaching yourself to something that's so forced upon you, but it's the only thing forced upon you. So it's the only mirror you have. Right. It's so limiting.

Speaker 1 5:10

Yeah. So no, so I mean, coming to um, you know, this angle, I really feel like we only have one template. That's all we have been brought to, like, you know, live by. Anything else outside of that norm is not acceptable. You know, and women are actually focused on the women are carrying a big weight on their shoulders when it comes to that transition of the parent.

Speaker 5:31

And the reality is this transition is also so important to understanding who we are and for our overall health. And this is where it always bothers me is that we're so focused on things that I hate to say and sound cliche but we're focusing on things that are not going to help us, are not going to allow us to understand ourselves and limit us as a whole and a population in the realm of medical and overall health. This is all we're boxing ourselves into one thing where and not even allowing ourselves to understand anything that we're going through. So who are we then?

Speaker 1 6:03

So, what would be that step for you to understand it, question it? How would I do that, or how would we should do that? Or what's how should we do that? Just like, how do we how do we come to terms with what we're experiencing now with our bodies?

Speaker 6:19

We talk about it. Well, talk about bodies. Well, this is the reality. So we're talking about it here, but how do we come in terms with our body images? We need to talk about what the body is, what the changes are happening.

Speaker 1 6:29

But here's the thing, Doc. You and I are really good friends. We we can see through things, we can support each other, we can talk about it in in the open live, right?

Speaker 6:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1 6:39

99% of the women, Pakistani, will not do that. No, they won't. Because that's to them accepting that insecurity, and they would rather not have that, you know, fielded in public , right?

Speaker 6:51

I think that if you were to ask me that, I would change the dialogue. But you can't change the dialogue so heavily ingrained in the system and in the culture. What I think that I would make it is broader then. If you're gonna tailor, then you have to broaden what that definition is. So well, you talk, well, it's not just talking about it, but what is the body supposed to look like? And in reality, midlife, the hormonal changes cause the body to be completely different than they were before. And it's funny that you mentioned this. I remember having, after having my second kid and losing, you know, my pregnancy weight, let's just say that. Yeah. I now suddenly was too thin. Too thin. Whereas in my 20s and in my teens, I was so big. I was too big. I was a little too chubby or a little bit too round here. And the fact of the matter is, it's so funny how weight comes into play in opposite ways. Absolutely. In different areas of your life. But it's also emphasized. No one said, Oh, your hair looks different or your skin look. It's the weight and the shape and the change.

Speaker 1 7:53

So funny you should mention that. And I'm gonna tell you something and brutally honest. Like I have noticed in Pakistani culture, you gain this much weight, even a little bit, you're invisible.

Speaker 8:03

I know, it's totally invisible.

Speaker 1 8:04

Nobody even wants to look at you because you're not good enough and you're not pretty enough, or you're not carrying yourself well enough. You're not like yeah, you're not desirable enough, right? So, how sad is it? And it all comes down to for me, what does it do to the women and her mental health that nobody can see?

Speaker 8:23

It ruins it, it ruins her mental health, it adds to all the different things that are going on. So I think the weight thing is a very important thing to bring up because even from an early age, I remember being compared to other children in other people in the community. And it wasn't actually my family doing this. It was I had mothers bring up their daughters and say, Oh, why can't you be like Saema or look like Saema? And I knew as a child how sad and how horrific that could be for a child. Now I know these girls later on in life, and they're always trying to compare themselves to people. And I think it's because that's the only real world they saw and heard, et cetera. And it's heartbreaking because they're never allowed. It hurts, it leaves such heavy marks and deep marks that you're never even allowed to, you know, you carry with you, you're never allowed to actually challenge it fairly to allow yourself to become a bigger person. So it's it's awful. It's awful. And now you add on to all the other things that are happening with the hormonal changes that also cause emotional instability at this time. And you're just constantly fighting for and putting yourself down to look a certain way. It's awful. So, how would you help them prioritize it doc? I think they have to accept themselves first. And so you they have to heavily remove that label that was imposed upon them, whether or not in the ideal body that that's something negative, or if they're even whatever the ideal body type is for a Pakistani woman, that that means nothing.

Speaker 1 9:47

I don't want to, I don't even want to get to that label about what is that ideal body type is because I like I said, it never existed. Still I agree with you, whichever part of the world you're in, that persona does not exist. There's only one template is Gora Rung, Delicate Features, and your uh slim, slim body.

Speaker 10:05

And I agree with that a hundred percent because there is no definition of a woman or a Pakistani woman at all, to me and to you, okay? But in order to reconstruct what each Pakistani woman thinks of themselves, you have to kind of redo the entire dialogue around it. So you have to acknowledge the fact that this is an image that's imposed upon us, and then you have to accept that this is not also an image. Does that make sense?

Speaker 10:31

I don't know if it is. No, I'm not sure. Break it down, please.

Speaker 10:34

Well, I think what I'm trying to say is that we have to be more forgiving on ourselves and other people. And how to implement that is very challenging because that's very personality driven as well.

Speaker 1 10:46

So But darling, that's really difficult. Pakistan is we're not even taught to forgive ourselves. Like this is I'll give you a little example. So, you know, I visited Pakistan very little growing up, right? I was there one time when, you know, my aunties in Pakistan decided that they were going to hook me up, you know, all the rishtahs that you know were shown. So I remember I was, you know, my family, like my mom, my sister, and my aunties were like taking great uh what do you call uh care in getting me dressed up because the Ladka Wala are coming, right? The boys' side was coming to see me. So we made all the arrangements, you know, get to sit with them. And I will never forget that conversation lasted five minutes because the woman sat down, you know, and looked at me and said, Yeah. And she said to my face, but mere bhai ko to gori ladki chaiyeh. Oh my god. And here's me, I'm a graduate with master's degree, working at a multinational firm, you know, top of my career, like looking at myself financially, a US citizen, everything that would check the box otherwise, but I did not matter because I was not fair skinned.

Speaker 12:00

Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:01

So what does that do to your confidence and your it ruins it? You know, you and really, I'm like, my God, if this is what I went through, I can only imagine what the women, you know, the rest of the women in Pakistan go through. No, right. That's the reality. No, it ruins yourself. No, so we can never get out of it because we can never forgive ourselves. Because I'm sitting there thinking, oh my god, like I wish I was Gora. Right? Like, I mean, you keep questioning yourself. And then you become so like, you know, immune to that, you know, but that goes back to what you're saying that there is no image of a Pakistani woman.

Speaker 12:42

There is no Pakistani woman outside of what is sold to us in terms of appearance, which is not the reality. Just just not. So, how do you fix it? Well, you accept, you accept yourself. Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:56

Know who you are. That's what I've learned to do, you know, because after that reaction that I've received from her, the one thing tha I have tried to do in the last little while is be honest with myself because that's the only thing I can do. Because nobody else is going to be forgiving to me. Nobody else else is going to be kind to me. I need to be kind to myself. Yeah. You know, and again, goes back to what I was saying in one of the earlier episodes about taking space. So I take space and I notice how people react when I take space, just the way I look.

Speaker 13:26

The color concept can be multi-episode, many episodes in itself. I mean, the color is so heavy, to be honest. And my whole life I was also told that I was too a little bit too dark or to not go in the sun to get an extra tan. I was a tennis player who loves the beach. You know, I'm gonna be out in the sun. And , it's funny because I sometimes think to myself when we take a lot of beach vacations, because my kids' age, it's easier to just plop them in the water and they do their own thing. But I think to myself at times, are my kids gonna just burn? Permanently burn. But I know there's nothing wrong with it. I'm thinking more of it as a medical aspect. But as I'm watching my kids in the sand, I remember how many times I was told to dhoop mein nahin jayo, like stay out of the sun, hat pehno, like play tennis indoors, like do all these things to avoid making me even more dark. It was such a heavy dialogue all the time, and it was so important and it's so irrelevant.

Speaker 1 14:20

You just because of this whole , you know, conditioning, mein aaj tak seaside pe nahin gayee.

Speaker 1 14:27

Oh man, you need to go to the water. We're going to the water, Z.

Speaker 14:30

You gotta go to the water.

Speaker 1 14:31

And I'm like, oh my god, I've been I have this phobia. See? Because mein kali no jayoon gi would've been more important. Exactly. This is what the log kya kahenge have done. Oh, you look.

Speaker 14:46

You know what I mean? It's like so sad. It's it's really sad, but no, we need to get you out in the sun.

Speaker 1 14:52

I swear, man, you and I together. It's vitamin D. It does us all good. That's the thing. I'm sure every Pakistani woman out there needs a vitamin D prescription. 100%. Right?

Speaker 15:03

Because we don't go under the sun. No, that's true. You know, my mom, my mom, she's so funny. She is very sensitive to the sun. She has like the allergies and everything like that. But if she goes into the beach or the sun, she is fully covered and then she'll start itching and it's Oh my God. But I have seen rashes on you, mom. I'm not saying that I have not seen sun rashes on you. Yeah. But is it a lot of that and a little bit of something else too? Oh, something like now. But I remember, I mean, I was a very big tennis player. My mom, I remember she took time out of her heavy duty schedule and made sure I went, drove, she drove me to the indoor tennis classes. The outdoor was down the street. I just had to walk, but the indoor was over there. But it's so ingrained upon us. And it's it's funny because I've heard my mother also tell, she actually loosely only did this color thing. It was very, she never really heavily did it like I heard it's done to other women or people in my family. But um, she overheard it many times and would tell those mother, you know, this is you're just ruining your child by emphasizing her color and appearance so much.

Speaker 1 16:06

Yeah, I think only they don't do that. No, no, it's the opposite, you know, and it's usually kaha jata hai kay aap ki beti samwali hai to uska rishta hona mushkil hai. Said so politely. Yeah. I mean, I have to commend my dad because you know, my father was very much into education and discipline, and he educated his three kids really, really well. And I think that's a good thing. You know, I've given my kids the best of education, best of everything. Yeah. Oh my god. The total opposite. If he was alive today, I would sit him down and say, Dad, this is the part you got really wrong. You know, education does not buy you a marriage certificate. Not in Pakistan. No, no, it doesn't because of what they want.

Speaker 16:52

Because you still don't fit the norm. Yeah, you don't fit in the world. You still do not fit the norm. And you know, you know, the whole other concept is like maybe being too educated is also an odd oddity. We're going to transition. You're going to stop studying, you're going to just go sit on the beach. That's true acceptance.

Speaker 1 17:14

That's my auntie please moment. Yeah, I'm going to do it. I love it. And I'm going to show how it's done. There's so many places we can go.

Speaker 1 17:22

We'll go together. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 17:25

Absolutely. But so what can we teach our, you know, viewers today about how to sit with this and what to learn from it and how to do it differently for them?

Speaker 17:34

To be accepting of their body. Their body is a life lived. And what people need to understand about the body too, especially a female's body, it's not no matter how much you work out, no matter how much you eat, right? We're everything is so hormonally mediated too. Our bodies will change. It's healthy to change, it's natural to change, but to accept it. So before accepting someone else's, you have to accept your own, right?

Speaker 1 17:58

That's the thing, you know, because we're so judgmental for others. Okay, we are so focused on the other people, right?

Speaker 18:06

Yeah, right. But it's a defense mechanism to point out pluses and minuses in other people and not wanting to self-reflect on that, right? You know, that's a defense mechanism. So get rid of the defense mechanism and accept yourself so you're not doing that to other people. The change has to start with yourself, and that's how you get the ball moving.

Speaker 1 18:24

But I think like the change has to happen to you, you know, start with yourself, but at the same time, I think they really need to get educated on why this change is happening. Because I think that Pakistani women really take a lot of effort or put emphasis on it, and go into this transition, not realizing how this is actually going to affect the outcome of the outer appearance, right?

Speaker 18:46

Of course. And I can give a whole course on that one. But yes, from the medical perspective.

Speaker 18:51

I would love to learn from you.

Speaker 18:52

The medical perspective, your body in midlife completely changes, muscle mass changes, fat distribution changes, and you have the hair thinning that happens. You have redistribution of um hair overall. You have loss, sometimes you have gain in other places, and everything changes. And it's I don't want to say it's normal, but it is the natural progression as we age and different variants. And then again, 10 years later, everything changes again. So 10 years later, it changes again. Oh, yeah. There's another tradition of that's what I'm saying. There's so much other, yes, yes. I think pardon? Are you gonna give me a hint about that next? Well, we're all gonna atrophy. In old age, everything, you know, everything we're trying to plump up these days is gonna naturally fade away because our muscle mass decreases and we have more fat loss. So the person that we're I always look at it this way, everyone's into the fillers right now. There's nothing wrong with that. Do what you have to do. We're filling because we're losing the fat, right? So the fillers also are not, have you seen elderly women with fillers? It doesn't fill. There's nothing to fill, right? Pretty much changes you exactly because it's so out of control. The actual the skeleton has completely changed. So the filler never fills. But around midlife, you can fill a lot to try to look youthful, but after a certain point, it doesn't look the same, or it looks actually the opposite effect of what you're trying to achieve. Wow. And by no means am I anyone in plastic surgery dermatology, but I know what the human body does over time, and that's why you don't get the same results that you want. And people put more in, more and more, and you're not able to achieve the results because the basic skeleton has changed.

Speaker 20:28

Then you know, we have to teach our women to not care about og kya kahnge l when it comes to their body image. Yes. And second is we need to tell them where to start with us. Yes. And I think understanding what you can control and what you can't is also key. Bingo. Because that may be the way that you can change the dialogue around it.

Speaker 1 20:50

Well, Darling, you cannot ever change the dialogue around it. Because how one century later, you and I will still be sitting here talking about it and no one else will come back and join us because women in in this culture don't come out openly and discuss this. Because discussing it is admitting that they have arrived at something that they have no language for, and this is the insecurity that I was talking about.

Speaker 21:14

So you're basically saying there will always be log.

Speaker 1 21:17

They correct. It'll always be behind closed doors, maybe by themselves in front of the mirror, but not with each other. No. That's which will never ever be brought into the public. We can hope though. They'll probably love us right now because they've seen two women talking about it, but this is not the norm.

Speaker 21:34

No, no, it's true. I agree with you. I think this conversation, although it's happening on a public forum right now, I don't think it's going to be the the dominant conversation amongst women .

Speaker 1 21:44

But that's why I think this this, you know, conversation is so important because we want to encourage the women to think about what it's doing to them. Yes. I think that's mental health impact making them insecure. Like, I mean, this is just this is a lot to go through this phase, right?

Speaker 1 21:57

Yeah. By themselves. That's true. We're here to listen, we're here to talk, and we're here to share our experiences.

Speaker 22:03

Yeah. It'd be nice to hear everyone else's stories too. Because I wonder how many women agree with us. And I'd also like to know what the opposite view is and why that view is so strong and what people think about it. Because you can always take something away from someone. Yeah. But the discussion is important. That's the key. Yeah. Do we have auntie please moments here? Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1 22:24

I was waiting for this one. It's my favorite part. Okay. You want to go?

Speaker 1 22:27

Oh, you want me to go first? Okay.

Speaker 1 22:30

This week I did something that I would normally not. I spoke my mind and didn't explain.

Speaker 1 22:38

Ah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 22:40

I didn't feel the need to explain. Mm-hmm. Like usually when I have to say something, like people are expecting me to say, well, why did I, you know, like and it was really what that I turned out an invitation after accepting it. And then I declined very last minute because I just did not have the time to entertain or like make, you know, pleasantries with people. I just did not want to be around. So I just told the hostess, and that was the end of c onversation.

Speaker 1 23:06

I am proud of you Z. Yeah. Me too. What about you?

Speaker 23:09

Well, going back to the color thing, I don't know. Which kind of way you want to go. Well, let's just say, like, never wore white up until about a year and a half ago.

Speaker 1 23:19

Gorgeous in white.

Speaker 23:20

But I'll tell you, I never did because I was always told that you should wear colors that make you look lighter. And white is such a contrast. And so I would assume apparently I look would look darker, and that's a bad thing, right? So I never wore white until a couple years ago where I was pulling some suits for something, and I pulled a cream suit from the store because I thought the material was beautiful, and I wore it. Wow. And I like the way I look in lighter colors, and I don't care what the contrast is. This is my color, this is who I am. So I am wearing white in front of you, and I wear white more than other colors nowadays. Well, the New Yorker in me wears black all the time. But yeah, it's such a simple thing when you think about it, it's so sad and pathetic. But I bet you I'm not the only one who was told this.

Speaker 1 24:08

Oh, I um I'm putting my hand right up because I was raised with this whole fear, okay, white me, you look kali.

Speaker 1 24:16

Yeah, of course. You know? Well, here I am wearing my whites, loud and proud, and maybe Kali.

Speaker 1 24:22

Exactly. I mean, as we proceed in our conversations, you know, and all the uh other discussion we're about to have, Saema, you will see how this whole thing is going to, the conditioning is going to unfold.

Speaker 1 24:33

Yeah. My God, the trauma, this culture, the absurdity. Wow, it all always comes down to log kya kahenge.

Speaker 1 24:42

Well I want the I want to do the Auntie-permission slip.

Speaker 24:45

We can do something. Absolutely. So what's your auntie permission slip? You want me to go?

Speaker 24:50

Go.

Speaker 24:51

Okay, we're allowed to. You're allowed to, I'm allowed to. We're allowed to have a body that changes. Our body is a life lived, it is different than the next person's but it person, but it's our body, and we're allowed to have whatever it is.

Speaker 1 25:02

I love that. And actually, I just made myself an auntie permission slip. I am going to wear white more.

Speaker 1 25:08

Oh, I love it.

Speaker 1 25:09

You know, and I'm going to show it off just the way it's supposed to be.

Speaker 1 25:12

I love that.

Speaker 1 25:12

Yeah. Thank you for joining. Thank you for joining us, guys. See you next time.