It was just another Ramadan afternoon. Nishi, a university student, was walking home through a narrow lane when a woman stopped her. She stopped her not to help but to humiliate.
The woman began shouting at her for the way she was dressed. “At one point, she called me a ‘prostitute’ and left,” Nishi recalled. “People gathered around and I felt so overwhelmed that I had a panic attack right there. Even now, that memory haunts me at night.”
It wasn’t a random act of cruelty. It was moral policing. And the most hurtful part is that it came from another woman. Across Bangladesh today, moral policing has quietly become part of everyday life. From homes to workplaces, from streets to cafes, it’s traumatising everyone, especially women.
At first glance, it may seem harmless: a disapproving look, a whispered comment, a “friendly” suggestion to be more decent. But it leaves invisible wounds that take years to heal.
Our society is deeply infected by outdated norms, which are often disguised as morality. Those who internalise these values always feel responsible for enforcing them. They don’t even care about whether others agree or not. And that’s how Moral Policing thrives.
We often talk about men controlling women’s choices. From family members to strangers on the street, they try to make you “decent” from their point of view. But the truth is far more complicated. Sometimes, its women who police other women.
If you come home late, neighbours will talk. If you dress the way you want, people will whisper. If you speak too loudly, laugh too freely or stay out long, other women might remind you to “behave properly.” These happen almost every day. And it hurts more as it came from those who should have understood you best.
Another young woman shared her experience from the Dhaka metro. “A child once tripped and fell. I instantly grabbed her so that she wouldn’t get hurt,” she said. “But her mother rushed over, pulled her away and glared at me. After asking her, I found out the reason. It was because of how I was dressed! She was angry and didn’t want me to touch her child because I was wearing Western clothes!”
These small moments reveal something much deeper. Women enforce rules that were never written for them. From childhood, girls are taught to be “good,” to stay soft-spoken, modest and agreeable. So, when a woman steps out of that line, others feel responsible to pull her back to the “right” track.
Sociologists call this internalised patriarchy. Moral policing is rarely done out of hatred; it’s a learned instinct. But that doesn’t minimise the damage. When a woman turns against a woman, patriarchy wins quietly. For women in Bangladesh, surviving social expectations is already hard enough.
Between judgment, harassment and safety concerns, simply existing in public can be exhausting for a woman. And with the burden of constantly being watched is unbearable.
Moral policing won’t disappear overnight. But it can fade if women choose empathy over envy, understanding over judgement and solidarity over silence. Because when women truly learn to know each other, they will learn to protect each other.
The gaze that once said, “know your place” could one day mean “I see your strength”. Change doesn’t begin with grand gestures. It starts in small moments. When the sisterhood becomes real, perhaps then women will finally be free from the gaze that has followed them for generations.
