The besmirching of brown aunties

Bend It Like Beckham, 2002 (dir. Gurinder Chadha)

Throughout history, older South Asian women have garnered the reputation of being a “brown aunty.” These aunties are characterised by their love for gossiping, evil and judgmental nature and incessant need to interfere in the business of others, particularly younger girls from the South Asian diasporas. This caricature has become an ongoing joke within the South Asian diaspora, as well as within pop culture. 

One of the earlier examples in pop culture where older South Asian women are depicted as evil villains is Bend It Like Beckham, released in 2002. In the film, the protagonists most challenging obstacles are women; in the roles of siblings, parent, and aunties – all standing in the way of her dreams of becoming a footballer.

More recent examples of this caricature include 2022’s Disney’s Ms. Marvel and Netflix’s Never Have I Ever. Both shows depict the protagonist' mother as overbearing, irrational and judgmental; ultimately holding their daughters back from reaching their goals. 

Though society has fought for South Asian onscreen representation which defies stereotypes, the older generation of South Asian women are depicted as villains, even 20 years apart. 

On the internet, young brown YouTuber’s and TikToker’s often profit from mimicking older South Asian women, whether it be a TikTok community bonding over delineating the nosy, judgmental aunty or Lilly Singh’s earlier sketches of the annoying brown mother. 

The nature of judgement and gossip spread by Brown Aunties today, relate how they to govern the notions of modesty and femininity, to mould a respectable South Asian woman. These obsolete expectations of femininity are not created by women; instead, they are devices rooted in the male gaze, created by men, and forced upon women for generations. A patriarchal society enforces that all privilege and power is held by men, and so archaic notions of femininity cannot, and are not created by women. Therefore, the brown aunties spreading gossip are not creating these archaic standards for young women – they are merely exercising an ideology which has strictly been enforced unto them. 

Sabrina, 48, is an older Pakistani woman who is actively involved with fostering young children in the Haringey neighbourhood, in London. For many young children, she has provided a safe and non-judgmental space to safely exist. I met to discuss her thoughts on why the older generation of South Asian women are generalised as gossipy and judgmental. Upon reflection, she shared:

“Older women gossip because for a simple reason – they are insecure. They don’t have the privileges young South Asian girls have in a Western society and a more progressive world. As girls, they grew up in strict households, with the entire community scrutinising them, waiting for them to make a bad move. And even now, as adults, they are still restricted by rules and responsibilities being overseen by their husbands and elders. Of course, they are frustrated and insecure. They have no control or power except for talking to other women who are stuck and feel the same.”

South Asian women of the older generation have been stuck in a repetitive cycle where they are scapegoated for the failures of everyone around them.

Whether it be as a wife, getting blamed for not being domesticated enough or raising the children wrong. As a daughter, we are constantly scrutinised to not bring shame to the family name. As a mother, for not being understanding enough because she's too strict. Or as an aunty, for gossiping far too much.

In the fight for our own liberation, somewhere along the way, we stopped seeing ‘brown aunties’ as nuanced human beings. As a society, we failed to see that at one point, these women were young girls with childlike innocence, snatched away by a patriarchal system and replaced with everlasting responsibility. They were teenagers with dreams and ambitions, which they had to lay to rest in the name of being a dutiful mother and wife.  Slowly but surely, they were stripped of their power, leaving them with only crumbs of autonomy.  And in the midst of it all, they were assigned the role of depthless villains existing to cause the demise of others.

There is no justification for rumours which harmfully ruin the reputation of others, but it is important to recognise the systemic structures which have nurtured the previous generations of South Asian women to act as agents of the patriarchy whilst simultaneously falling victim to it. Feminism is not intersectional until it encompasses all minorities - including the older generations of South Asian women who are still misunderstood and misrepresented in pop culture and have never had a safe space to unlearn their internalised misogyny, let alone represent themselves. Understanding this is a key element to bridging the growing gap between two generations for women.