Mythmaking of Reputation

Dating in Dhaka can be an absolute nightmare. The usual dating problems are further compounded by society's looming disapproval or expectations in the eventual outcome of the relationship and involved partners.

So being in your late twenties, single female, and Bangladeshi is a double-edged sword. Now is the time I have been resolutely and repeatedly expounded for 'settling down', find the perfect guy, merge, and procreate. Serial dating is considered a desecration of the sanctity of Bangladeshi femininity. I have been admonished to refrain from dating lest I acquire a 'reputation'.

Reputation? Reputation surmising the degrading labels attached to a young female who is living her life on the principles that are in complete contrast to the ideal archetype of a Bangladeshi woman. Regardless of the common knowledge, that females around the world from the same demography are living their lives on those very principles.

Reputation in Dhaka is at once tenuous and tangible. It is thrust upon you unwarranted yet its sole sustenance depends on you. A single false move can carry repercussions that will alter your future. Thus, females are encouraged and directed to guard their reputations with the utmost care and cloak it with sheer purity in order to enhance the females' rich futures. Hence, many safeguards are positioned around a young female's life in order to counteract any possible means of a 'reputation' being slapped on. Those safeguards soon become the basic compositions of Bangladeshi's females identities. In some cases, drastic measures are needed to radically alter or suppress females' identities in order to be in sync with the accepted notion of femininity.

In addition, females are incessantly informed that behavioral patterns that are deemed inappropriate during their singleness is generally considered normal once those females are securely married. In short, females must restrain their ostentatious personality traits during their single days so as not to acquire a 'reputation'.

Reputation plays a pivotal role in determining females' eligibility and rights. For single females, their pristine reputations or lack of can enhance or hinder, respectively, their chances for clinching good partners. For married females, their pristine reputation or lack of allow them to secure and exercise their basic rights.

In the end, reputation says it all. It can determine, deviate, or destroy.