cultural norms that women and girls are expected to follow
Women come to represent and maintain cultural boundaries and values in the manner in which society views them and expects them to behave. Women knew that their behavior impacted profoundly on how their family was looked at. The basis of excellent reputations were sexual reputations (Handa). Hence, this means that for a family in the south Asian culture to be considered good, the women from that community should ensure that their sexual life is good. Good sexual reputation means that they are not to go sleeping around with many men but be faithful to one, especially in a scenario where one is married. For young women, they were not expected to be sexually active; that is an excellent sexual reputation. These are the cultural norms that women and girls are expected to follow a reason for which parents and the community protected young women from western society’s ills in South Asia.
The society is America also focused much on the virginity of girls. It held on to the idea that for a girl or woman to be considered pure and morally upright, they had to be virgins. Virginity, in this context, meant that they had not had any sexual relationship with any man (Valenti). Keeping off from premarital sex showed that they had values and were morally upright, according to the dictated of the society at large. However, this is not always the case because women will indulge in other types of sex like oral and anal in the name of not wanting to lose their virginity so that they cannot break the rules of the society. They want to gain the aspect of being respected as feminine in the culture because the community has constructed that virgins should be respected because they are said to have ethical values and of admirable character.