The Excellence Tax on South Asian Women | Adithi Kadle | TEDxTAMS Youth
For too long, South Asian women have been told that excellence is the price of respect—that worth is measured by achievement, not by humanity. Meanwhile, our community has silently grappled with domestic violence, mental health crises, and deep-seated gender inequality. We've been taught to keep these struggles private, to maintain the facade of perfection. This “excellence tax” isn't just uncomfortable. It's dangerous. This speech challenges us to disrupt narratives that demand our compliance and calls for a radical shift through dialectical feminism—the choice to embrace contradiction, complexity, and change. By shifting the stories we tell about ourselves and redefining the knowledge we value, we can dismantle the systems that have held us captive and demand more from ourselves and our community. Adithi Kadle is a senior at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science at UNT. She is passionate about intersectional feminism and believes that community-based organizing is the key to building more empathetic, justice-driven policy. Outside of school, Adithi is involved with several advocacy groups and enjoys volunteering with children. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
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