“A deeply personal reckoning with one’s own upbringing in a patriarchal culture of shame”. This is how the publisher Cappelen Damm describes the book. – From the time I was born, the expectation was that I should make as few mistakes as possible and take up as little space as possible. The consequence was an inflicted shame that silenced me, says Nadia Ansar. – The good minority girl’s fight “My shame” can be read aloud against her husband Abid Raja’s book “My guilt”, write the publisher in a press release. Raja’s book received good reviews when it was published in 2021, and subsequently became the best-selling book this year. Here, among other things, you can hear about the battle that Raja and Ansar had to fight to be allowed to be together. – But Nadia’s voice was missing, wrote the publisher, and continued: – With the book “My shame” she now wants to use her personal and professional voice to tell the story of the bright minority girl’s struggle to be allowed to be herself. HUGE: Abid Raja and Nadia Ansar have been together for 27 years. They have both fought their own battles, but also a battle together to be allowed to be fit. Photo: Patrick da Silva Sæther / news In Ansar’s new book, you get an insight into her upbringing, which according to her was very marked by shame. An upbringing marked by shame Ansar grew up on Ekeberg in Oslo. In the book, she writes, among other things, about being the only girl in the class with a minority background, and about how her father was torn between the egalitarian, Norwegian society and the expectations of the patriarchal culture. Today, Ansar works as a psychologist, and is a specialist in emotion-focused therapy and a specialist in clinical family psychology. From the outside, she has been a well-integrated psychologist and expert on feelings such as guilt and shame, says the press release. But she has long harbored a lot of shame and dark secrets that even her husband did not know about. – In my most vulnerable moments, when I most needed to speak up, when I tried to call for help, I had no voice to call out with, says Ansar about his childhood. Ansar says that she sees several well-educated fellow sisters with a minority background giving up the “painful art of balance in the egalitarian Norway”. She says that she sees that many become housewives with hijab, and that some move back to their parents’ homeland. She believes that shame prevents them from living free lives. – If we are to achieve the integration of immigrants in Norway and create full women’s liberation also for women with a minority background, we must realize that the power and shame that pull them back into oppression continues to wear on them, she says. The book is scheduled to arrive in September.
ttn-69
– An inflicted shame that silenced me – news Culture and entertainment
