Dear Body

This episode of Dear Body explores the physical and emotional transformations women experience during perimenopause and menopause, phases that are rarely talked about but deeply affect how a woman feels, thinks, and connects with her world.

We talk about the exhaustion that doesn’t go away with sleep, the hot flashes, the headaches, the brain fog, and the growing irritation that no one seems to understand. But most of all, we talk about what it means to go through all of this alone, in a culture that celebrates a woman’s youth but silences her body as she ages.

This isn’t just biology, it’s identity, emotional labour, and survival.

Let’s break the silence around menopause, hormones, and women’s health in Pakistan and beyond. Because understanding these changes means understanding the women who raised us, nurtured us, and continue to hold everything together even when their own bodies are falling apart.

You can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saroshibrahim/

#DearBodyPodcast #WomensHealth #Perimenopause #MenopauseAwareness #SouthAsianWomen #HormonalHealth #BodyAcceptance #EmotionalHealth #PodcastPakistan

In today’s episode, I open up about a world beyond social media, the 9 to 5 world. The world where being a Pakistani working woman means living by a different set of rules.  We talk about body image, feminism, workplace bias, mental health, and the weight of expectations women carry in professional spaces.   

Through real stories, this episode explores the unseen struggles of women navigating careers within patriarchal systems, from labels and rumors to the quiet ways our workplaces fail to support us.  

Tune in if you’ve ever felt unseen, unheard, or underestimated at work.

In this episode of Dear Body, host Sarosh Ibrahim takes listeners into one of the most urgent and silenced issues in Pakistan: suicide among women. September marks Suicide Prevention Month, but here, conversations about suicide are often hidden behind whispers of shame and honour. Through real stories from Southern Punjab, Rawalpindi, and Chitral, and with insights from studies by Farooq Ahmed, Neha Jain, and Hussain et al., Sarosh explores how patriarchy, forced marriages, domestic violence, and family honour shape women’s lives, and sometimes, their deaths. This is not easy listening, but it is necessary because silence can be deadly.

You can find me on Instagram @saroshibrahim. 

What happens when more than half the women in a country are living with a condition no one talks about? In this episode of Dear Body, we’re diving into the world of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), what it is, how it affects women’s bodies and minds, and why silence around it can be just as harmful as the symptoms themselves.

I’ll share stories of young women navigating shame, stigma, and confusion, while also highlighting the groundbreaking work of initiatives like PCOS Helps, who are reframing PCOS as not just a health issue, but a human rights issue.

This isn’t just about medical facts, it’s about empathy, awareness, and breaking cultural silences. Whether you’re living with PCOS or want to better understand the women around you, this episode is a must-listen.

Follow the journey and join the conversation with me on Instagram: @saroshibrahim

This week on Dear Body, I step into a story that is both urgent and deeply personal to me: the gendered impact of floods in Pakistan.

When we talk about climate disasters, we usually hear numbers: homes destroyed, acres submerged, lives lost. But behind every statistic is a body, often a woman’s body, carrying the heaviest burden.

That’s why I collected and wove together these stories. I felt the need to highlight them because these stories show that floods are not “gender-neutral.” They reshape women’s health, dignity, futures, and they demand a response that sees women not just as victims but as leaders of resilience. 

These are not my stories, but I carry them forward because they deserve more ears, more eyes, more urgency.

Please support the organisations named here: Mahwari Justice, Mama Baby Fund, Sujag Sansar, HER Pakistan, whose work restores dignity where disaster strips it away.

In this episode of Dear Body, let's unpacks a troubling pattern in Pakistani television: the endless cycle of baby-faced, fair-skinned female leads in their early 20s paired with male actors twice their age. From the diverse casting of the 2000s to today’s obsession with youth and “innocent” features, we explore how beauty standards, popularity politics, and colonial-era ideals continue to shape the stories we tell, and the women we put at the centre of them. Why are older male leads allowed to age on screen, while women are replaced by younger faces every few years? And what does this say to the next generation of girls watching at home? Tune in for a critical conversation on representation, ageism, and the future of inclusivity in our media.

What kills women in Pakistan isn’t always a weapon. Sometimes, it’s the silence that surrounds them. In this deeply personal and reflective episode, Sarosh speaks about the harrowing realities of femicide and honour killings in Pakistan — where women are murdered for speaking up, for dreaming, for choosing.

Through the stories of Humaira Asghar, Qandeel Baloch, Noor Mukadam, and countless unnamed victims, this episode explores the systemic violence that justifies a woman’s death in the name of honour. It questions why society remains silent until after a woman’s body is found — and why her life was never considered sacred to begin with.

From legal loopholes to social apathy, this episode of Dear Body asks: What is the cost of a woman’s freedom in this country? And who decides which dreams are worth dying for?

In this episode of Dear Body, host Sarosh returns after a 2.5-year hiatus to critically examine how toxic relationships are romanticised in Pakistani television, particularly in the drama Mann Mast Malang. Through a character analysis of Kabir and Riya, Sarosh explores how media normalises control, silences women, and embeds dangerous expectations into cultural understandings of love and marriage.

This episode delves into the psychological and societal dimensions of these portrayals: childhood trauma, coercion masked as love, the invisibilisation of women's voices, and the deep-rooted pressures surrounding fertility and gender roles in marriage.

Dear Body is a podcast about the lived experience of Pakistani women — their bodies, their stories, and the systems that seek to shape them. Each episode invites listeners to reflect, question, and reimagine what it means to reclaim agency in a society that often denies it.

In today’s episode, we have a bit of a complicated situation with Taylor Swift’s new music video that came out recently titled “Anti-Hero.” Here, she reflects upon her experiences being in the limelight. However, some fans and viewers took to Twitter to address their take on one of the clips from the music video. Before we dive into it together, do not forget to follow me for weekly episodes on our bodies because this is your safe space.

If you have any thoughts on this topic or any other issue, or just want to get in touch with me about the show, email me at [email protected].

• Follow me on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RZkdon

• Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs

• If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be helpful! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs

• Follow me on IG: @saroshibrahim

• Follow me on Twitter: @saroshibrahim

In today’s episode, we will together explore a major stigma in various cultures and spaces i.e. Periods. I am going to start off with how this physiological process of bleeding continuously for 6-7 days was labeled a luxury. How much does the Pakistani awam know about menstruation, and how well-aware are Pakistani women about Menstrual Hygiene Management? There are so many projects and campaigns in Pakistan fighting to remove the stigma of menstruation so young girls cannot be stopped from sitting in classrooms during their period.

If you have any thoughts on this topic or any other issue, or just want to get in touch with me about the show, email me at [email protected].

• Follow me on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RZkdon

• Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs

• If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be helpful! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: https://apple.co/3RXPvfs

• Follow me on IG: @saroshibrahim

• Follow me on Twitter: @saroshibrahim