Good Girls Marry Doctors

Finally, a real conversation with my father, finally I'm good enough.He leans forward. “So, when are you guys having kids?”I am shocked. “I just got married. To a Parsi. When will you stop harassing me?”His face lights up. “You don't know the order of things? After marriage, there is a child,” he counts on his finger. “Then the second child. Then doing your children's navjote ceremony so they can be proper Parsis, then getting the children married. To nice Parsi boys, don't forget,” he laughs. “It never ends.”There it is. My life preordained. The weight of it settles on my chest. The hurt of it lingers.
- from “Breathe” by Phiroozeh Petigara

A beautiful collection of personal essays, that provides a glimpse into the home lives, personal lives and rage of women who feel trapped within the framework of what is required of being a “good girl” ... though these are stories of normal women. Brave, strong, powerful, honest and beautiful women, some of whom are loved and accepted for who they are, who they love, the careers they chose ... and some who are not. Wonderful, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny.

Standout essays:
• “My Mother, the Rebel” by Jabeen Akhtar (about a mother who starts attending protests, and her daughter who rebels by becoming a part of the system)
• “Someday Never Comes” by Rajpreet Heir (about a high school girl touring college campuses with her twin brother, and the double standards of expectations)
• “The Day I Found Out I Was a Witch” by Fawzia Mirza (about a woman whose mother told her to stay away from boys, and accused her of being demon-possessed when she came out as lesbian)
• “Patti Smith in the Dark” by Jyothi Natajan (about sexuality, patriarchy, and a mother who, when both her adult daughters say they are not going to marry their long-term partners, insists on buying them Vitamix blenders because they won't get any wedding presents)
• “What It Looks Like to Grow” by Ankita Rao (about the family's silence around the author's anorexia)
• “Breathe” (as shown in quote above, about a woman who grew up in Canada, but it still expected to follow the traditions and expectations of her parents' culture)
• “Operation Make My Family Normal” by Mathangi Subramanian (about a young girl's attempts to make her family celebrate “normal, American” Thanksgiving, because of her shame around her family being immigrants from India)