Anushka Sharma recently gave an interview, talking about the prevalent sexism in Bollywood. She talked about the existing wage gap, the difference in treatment between male and female actors and she didn’t hesitate to hold back when she came clean about how women are treated when they do speak up against sexism.

Here are some of the problems regarding sexism she talked about

Many other actresses in Bollywood have spoken up about this issue

For example, this was Kangana Ranaut’s response to sexist questions:

Some of them have even been attacked for it

like Shruthi Seth.

Self-proclaimed actors like Kamaal R. Khan, who have unfortunately gathered quite a following on social media platforms, misuse their power to lock horns with actresses.

That’s KRK. If you don’t know him, consider yourself lucky.

He has repeatedly harassed Bollywood actresses like Nargis Fakhri, Bipasha Basu and numerous others from behind his keyboard. One such instance was the ridiculous poll he held, asking his followers to vote for which actress has the best ass in Bollywood.

Thankfully, Sonakshi Sinha spoke out against this

but KRK, being the shameless, arrogant prick that he is, he simply disqualified her from the poll altogether and responded in the most KRK manner ever:

The content of Bollywood movies also has a pattern for being sexist.

There is a dire lack of female lead characters with actual significance

That has been an issue for an immensely long period of time. In the past couple of years alone, the movies that have made the most money (Kick, Dhoom 3, Dabang) have all glorifed their male leads, giving little or no significance to the actresses in the movies.

The sass is strong with this one.

It’s refreshing to see that this is being combatted by movies like Queen, English Vinglish and Kahaani, that not only talk about the empowerment of women, but also celebrate female leads.

The standard of beauty in Bollywood is pretty debatable as well

It basically dictates what  an actress should or should not look like, regardless of how out of shape the male lead might be. Bollywood has long promoted a certain body type, setting unrealistic and sometimes un-achievable standards for girls everywhere.

While promoting a body type is not an issue, focusing on one and demeaning other body types is where Bollywood tends to mess up. How many times has the plot about an overweight girl (who’s always padded by a fat suit, jbtw) who loses weight been spun into a movie? What happened to being happy with the way you look as long as you’re healthy?

Again, actresses like Vidya Balan have a pretty clear stance on this situation

She has been pretty clear on how she believes in health and personal satisfaction being placed first.

Violence against women is another rampant concept

Not only is it rampant, it’s also completely acceptable.

Women are shown to be weaker and are often seen to be accepting of the violence inflicted upon them, all upto the point where the hero swoops in to save them from their wretched fate. Is cinema really still that backward?

Eve teasing and objectification are also pretty common

It is another form of harassment that is widely accepted and often mistaken as flirting or having fun.

A prime example of this is Grand Masti, a pathetic excuse of a film that has no story line and used jokes referring to boners and boobs as its saving grace. The objectification, from the vulgar camera angles to the obscene humor, made up more than 90% of the movie’s content.

Let’s take our beloved SRK’s movie, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

How is Pretty Zinta introduced? With an ass shot. Because focusing on her ass for an introductory shot was obviously going to make up for the lack of a decent story line.

The media doesn’t make it any better, especially when stuff like this happens:

Women have boobs, people. Get over it.

Lack of consent is another recurrent sexist theme

Be it Akshay Kumar’s complete disrespect for Kareena Kapoor throughout Kambakht Ishq, where he kisses her without permission repeatedly, chases her everywhere, demeans her and is borderline abusive:

To the idea that men can simply harass a woman into falling in love with her, which is basically every actor ever in every movie, such as Haseena Maan Jayegi, where Govinda pretty much threatens a girl till she falls in love with him:

Bollywood is pretty much unaware of the idea that consent is an actual thing that exists.

The influence that these movies have on the masses is the primary concern. Obviously, there are certain movies that try to overcome the very same mindset. Unfortunately, since they lack masala and the thrill of watching women being treated as usable objects, they don’t do as well as these other movies. Kudos to the efforts though. If the efforts continue, maybe, one day, they might actually get the message across.

Or so one can hope.

Till then: