Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
Photo by NATHAN MULLET on Unsplash
Sugar-coated Misogyny, Anyone?
Here\’s a snapshot of the latest Bollywood romcom – Tu Jhoothi, Main Makkar.
Handsome, rich, pampered boy – running a breakup business on the sly, meets pretty young thing, who is obviously a boozing, philandering, commitment-phobic, ambitious, career-minded creature, who doesn\’t believe in \”saving herself for the right man\”. Stereotyping, anyone?
She is interested in \”time-pass\”, he is smitten. He chases her till she relents and agrees to commit to him.
Cut to his large extended family that literally suffocates her with truckloads of love and too much attention.
She wants space. He can\’t live without his brood.
They break up. End of story? Not if it\’s a Luv Ranjan film. He of misogynistic potboilers like Pyaar ka Punchnaama and Sony ke Titu ki Tweety (hope I got that right).
But let\’s come back to this film, that\’s being touted as his most liberal minded(!)
The femme fatale still has feelings for her ditched lover, and wants him to stop her from going abroad to chase her career dreams. They talk things out, with buckets of tears and accusations.
And no prizes for guessing how things pan out. She agrees to marry the family, the entire lot.
They love her to death, prepare her tiffin-box, send her off to work, spoil her when she\’s pregnant. Everyone happy.
Happy ending? Not for me.
What about the girl\’s wish to have her own home? Her space, her life? Her in-laws love her (we are reminded repeatedly), but what if she wants breathing space, a place to spread her wings away from the family? What if she doesn\’t want kids, or a conventional married life?
In the end, it is a compromise that she makes, for the sake of her \”true love\”. The man gets away with a little heartbreak, and some admonishing from his brood. Win-win for the hero!
Things never change, do they?
I left a successful corporate career in HR and teaching, to focus on my first love - writing. My first book of short stories - Pebbles in the Sand, is available on Amazon (https://www.amazon.in/ read more...
This post has published with none or minimal editorial intervention. Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
Please enter your email address