Shabana Azmi: ‘Patriarchy affects not just women but also men’

Bollywood’s veteran actor Shabana Azmi has given her take on the age-old debate about feminism.

During an interview with IANS, the actor said that patriarchy was not just against women but it also limits the freedom given to men and affects them drastically as well.

"Many years ago, when I was a Member of Parliament, I was on a committee that was set up by the chief minister's wife on the scourge of female foeticide,” she said.

“Many steps at that point were taken and one feels that ultimately, it is based in patriarchy. The belief that a boy should be privileged at birth because of being born male -- that discrimination against the girl child exists all through her childhood, adolescence and then later adulthood," she went on to say.

"What we need to do is to tackle patriarchy, because patriarchy affects not only women but also men.

“Men also internalise. We have definite ideas of how a man should behave. Boys should never cry -- why shouldn't they? Why is it looked down upon?

"Why do we, at the age of three, decide that girls should be playing with dolls and the minute a boy decides to play with dolls we say, ehaww, this is terrible'. All this stratification that starts sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, is what we need to really get to the root of," she concluded.