As part of South Asian Heritage Month, Masala Podcast, the award-winning South Asian feminist podcast, has launched a campaign that tackles some of the taboos South Asian women face head-on.

From orgasms to perspectives on marriage, LGBTQIA+ relationships to being a dutiful daughter, a series of creative campaign imagery raises the cultural taboos that many South Asian women aren’t ‘supposed to’ discuss.

The campaign, created by RAPP UK, is titled ‘The Campaign We’re Not Supposed to Talk About’. It features fiercely proud South Asian women and long-term Masala Podcast listeners against striking copy that raises the topics often left undiscussed. The challenging headlines relate to the personal lived experiences of the people depicted around the themes of sex, relationships, periods and more.

The campaign positions the podcast as a safe place for discussion, where South Asian women can have a voice and share their experiences.

The campaign runs across out-of-home, using a savvy media buying strategy with the campaign specifically positioned in postcodes with a substantial South Asian community. The placement is intended to reach South Asian women and is crucially positioned in places where women are known to congregate.

Across social media, the campaign also makes use of slurs often used against South Asian women offering alternative definitions of words like ‘besharam’ which means ‘shameless woman’ and ‘chee chee’ which means ‘dirty’. The campaign flips the definitions using ‘besharam’ to mean ‘a woman brave enough to live her own life’ and ‘chee chee’ to mean 'a woman who isn’t afraid to love herself’, giving South Asian women an opportunity to take ownership of words once used to hurt them.

The Masala Podcast features some of the world’s best-known South Asian women, including musician Anoushka Shankar, TV Presenter Anita Rani, British comedian Shazia Mirza as well as personal reflections from creator Sangeeta Pillai. Through open and honest conversation it aims to break down taboos and empower South Asian Women.

“South Asian women are one the UK's most marginalised groups. Despite 2.75 million of us living in this country, we have barely any media representation. That's why Masala Podcast (featuring the voices & experiences of South Asian women) is incredibly important, serving as a safe space for us to tackle cultural taboos: from sex, sexuality, periods, mental health, menopause and more,” explains Sangeeta Pillai, Founder of Masala Podcast.

She continues: “Our podcast has quite literally changed the lives of our listeners: some women say it makes them feel less alone, others feel inspired by it and for one listener, it gave her the courage to leave an abusive marriage.”

Tackling taboos head-on ‘The Campaign We're Not Supposed to Talk About’ successfully empowers women to engage in important cultural conversations.