Sexist Language as Structural Violence: What Swarnamoyee’s Suicide Teaches Us About Patriarchal Discourse

The recent suicide of Swarnamoyee Biswas, a female journalist at the online media outlet Dhaka Stream, after accusing her departmental editor Altaf Shahnewaz of sexual harassment, has sparked a storm of outrage across Bangladesh. Swarnamoyee worked there as a graphics designer. Her complaint against Altaf Shahnewaz—alleging sexual harassment and workplace bullying—was not verbal gossip but a written statement. On July 13, twenty-six staff members, including seven female journalists, submitted a joint written complaint to the outlet’s Human Resources Department detailing Altaf Shahnewaz’s repeated sexual harassment.

Yet months have passed, and the editorial authority has taken no effective action. Instead, five female journalists were reportedly terminated for their involvement in filing the complaint. The management’s silence and retaliation spoke louder than any policy statement. Cornered by humiliation and despair, Swarnamoyee chose suicide as her ultimate protest.

The allegations are horrifying not only for their obscenity but for what they reveal about power and language. Altaf Shahnewaz is said to have made a grotesque remark about her body, stating: “A woman whose breasts shape are deformed like that—her Bengali must be deformed too.” The sheer vulgarity of this statement is staggering. How can a man, born from a woman’s womb, reduce another woman to such degradation? The mind revolts at the thought. This is not merely indecency; it is linguistic violence—the deliberate use of language to dehumanize.

In the discipline of Sociolinguistics, this behavior is identified as sexist language—language that psychologically and socially assaults a particular gender, most often women. It operates as a cultural weapon, reinforcing hierarchy through humiliation. As American linguist Robin Lakoff argued in her seminal 1975 work Language and Woman’s Place: “Language uses us as much as we use language.” Her insight is timeless. Sexist expressions are not slips of the tongue; they are the social DNA of patriarchy. Each word reveals an ideology: that women exist to be evaluated, judged, or disciplined through language.

This was not Altaf Shahnewaz’s first controversy. Before joining Dhaka Stream, he was the literature editor of the daily Prothom Alo, where, according to colleagues, he also faced multiple allegations of sexual harassment. He reportedly sought “poetry in the curves of women poets’ bodies”—a vulgar metaphor that betrays both his abuse of power and his bankruptcy of intellect.

A graduate of Jahangirnagar University, Altaf Shahnewaz enrolled under the disability quota and was supported during his student life by Professor Dr. Selim Al Deen, the legendary playwright and one of Feni’s most distinguished sons. Dr. Selim Al Deen ensured his accommodation, food, and education. Yet, unable to become a teacher of the university later, Shahnewaz turned bitter and reportedly began spreading slander about the very teacher who had sustained him. That is the measure of Altaf Shahnewaz—a man who calls himself a poet but lacks the first condition of poetry: humanity. For no true poet can be an abuser of women.

Across Bangladesh, women continue to face sexual harassment in workplaces—from newsrooms to corporations, universities to ministries. Most remain silent, crushed by the weight of social expectation, job insecurity, or what we cynically call “shame.” They internalize this suffering as a “normal process” of survival. But inside them burns a silent rage and wordless protest. This is the cruel paradox of our patriarchal society: women are forced to adapt to oppression as a condition of existence. Only a few dare to speak up—and when they do, they are punished, stigmatized, or destroyed. Swarnamoyee is the most tragic embodiment of that pattern. Her suicide was not an act of weakness—it was a symptom of a system that left her no room to live with dignity.

What is happening in Bangladesh is not accidental—it is “New Normal” institutionalized patriarchy. We are witnessing the normalization of sexist behavior, where the degradation of women has become part of the everyday rhythm of the workplace. This normalization is what sociolinguist Sara Mills calls the “discursive reproduction of sexism.” Through repetition and silence, misogyny begins to look natural. Vulgar comments are brushed aside as “humor.” Harassment becomes “misunderstanding.” And management, driven by fear or convenience, shields predators under the banner of “organizational image.” In such an environment, words lose their moral gravity. Sexism becomes policy through omission.

A patriarchal society is full of contradictions. It worships the image of “Mother” but disrespects living women. It celebrates female “purity” yet violates it daily through speech and behavior. It expects women to endure humiliation quietly, calling it “grace.” Before making a filthy remark about a woman’s body, men like Altaf Shahnewaz forget that it was a woman who brought them into this world. They forget that women are not metaphors for pleasure—they are the emblem of intellect, dignity, and agency. But the burden is not only on the abuser. It is on all of us who stay silent. For every sexist joke left unchallenged, every slur we ignore, every victim we disbelieve—we become accomplices in the crime.

The cost of this silence is measured not only in suicides like Swarnamoyee’s but in the daily erosion of women’s confidence across the country. Bangladesh’s workplaces are crowded with Altaf Shahnewazes—men intoxicated by power and protected by impunity. They destroy promising careers, crush young dreams, and leave women psychologically scarred. This is why, despite decades of “empowerment” rhetoric, the workplace remains one of the most unsafe spaces for women in Bangladesh. Until justice replaces fear, until the system values ethics over image, the same tragedies will recur.

Moral outrage alone is not enough. Real change requires structural reform. Three shifts are essential in this regard:

Institutional Accountability: Every organization must establish an independent, gender-sensitive complaint mechanism—not a token HR cell designed to suppress scandal. Complaints must lead to transparent investigations and consequences.

Gender and Language Training: All employers, editors, and managers should undergo regular training on gender-sensitive communication. Understanding how language can harm is the first step toward ethical leadership.

Cultural Reeducation: Society must unlearn its habit of blaming victims. Media, schools, and universities should integrate gender ethics and sociolinguistic awareness into their curricula. Change begins with consciousness.

The irony here is brutal. Journalism exists to expose injustice, yet its own houses often nurture it. When media outlets suppress complaints or silence whistleblowers, they betray not just their employees but the public trust itself. The newsroom cannot demand transparency from politicians while hiding predators in its own ranks. The pen loses its moral force when it refuses to confront its own corruption. Until journalism becomes a safe and dignified profession for women, every banner headline about justice will ring hollow. The tragic story of Swarnamoyee is not merely the story of one woman’s despair—it is the story of an entire system’s decay. She died because she refused to accept degradation as destiny.

Before making a vulgar comment about a woman, we should remember that every man was once born from a woman’s womb. We owe our very existence to those we so easily demean. Women are not objects of commentary; they are the bearers of life, builder of society. They are our mothers, sisters, lovers, colleagues, and companions in building a humane society. The question we must keep asking is simple yet searing: When will women in this country find workplaces free from fear, violence, and humiliation?

Swarnamoyee’s silence now speaks for every woman who swallows her pain to keep her job, for every journalist who fears retaliation, for every daughter who wonders if her dreams are worth her dignity. If there is any justice in language, let us begin there—by naming the problem honestly. Let us reject sexist speech, confront the abusers, and dismantle the culture that protects them. Only then can we say we have learned from Swarnamoyee’s tragedy. Until then, women like her will remain the mirrors—reflecting, again and again, the ugliness of a patriarchal society that still refuses to see itself.


Emran Emon is a journalist, columnist and a global 
affairs analyst.