She’s absolutely delicious,” writes Aishwarya Subramanyam, concluding the introductory paragraphs of her interview with Bollywood’s favorite, Kareena Kapoor. The fact is, you have to read maybe two lines at the top to deduce that the writer will next disclose something traumatic happened on the accompanying photo shoot. After all, the last time we read or heard about, “everyone” present having a “b*ner”, the story didn’t meander into pleasant places.

Unsolicited er**tions, after all, are the bane of any woman’s existence. But Subramanyam decides it was a tribute to Kapoor’s ageing beauty that other people on the set, like herself, were all dying to tear a chunk of the actor’s flesh out with their teeth. She goes on to describe Kapoor as “juicy”, detail the bit of stomach Spanx couldn’t hold back, and what she wanted to do next.

Normally, one would have liked to say, no one cares, Aishwarya, but as an older woman, one has to take a stand. Contrary to popular perception, older women don’t really sit around craving attention from younger women, younger men, older men, older women, peers and betters. Also, women of any age do not really need to be described in a predatory manner by anyone of any gender or age. Unless Subramanyam is new to womanhood, which we all know she isn’t, women complimenting women isn’t something that needs to be encouraged. We all do it all the damn time, without being pretentious about it.

“Oh I will keep [normalizing] women finding other women especially older women hot and saying it any way they please!” Subramanyam responded to a comment on her Instagram, which asked her to not normalize “people having b*ners on set”.

If Subramanyam was spoofing male writers who ostensibly love women and the female form, she hit the nail on the head. If she was being sincere, she hit the nail on the head for future stalkers, rapists, and the general populace of men who speak to, and look at, women in ways that makes them want to immediately go home and wash the looks and remarks off their skins in the longest and hottest showers known to mankind (all genders included).

Women who choose to age without procedures to slow or reverse the effects of time on their faces and bodies aren’t entirely brave. They’re simply making a choice. Yes, for Kareena Kapoor, who has spent most of her life in front of cameras and is always in the public eye, perhaps allowing herself to grow visibly older in that public eye is brave. Subramanyam’s heart is in the right place. Her words are definitely in the place we think Quentin Tarantino, Robin Thicke, and garden-variety misogynists with no sense of boundaries live.

“43 years old, face still capable of non-stop movement, wrinkles etched deep, eye bags heavy, easy in her body, incandescent with confidence and vitality. She owns every inch of her skin, and she’s never looked better,” describes Subramanyam. Well, if you can still look juicy and biteable and everyone has a b*ner, while you have deep wrinkles and eyebags, we suppose the writer thinks you should take the win.

The problem isn’t that Aishwarya Subramanyam thinks Kareena Kapoor is hot. The term ‘girl crush’ didn’t take birth in isolation. Women are very cognizant of when another woman is attractive, and usually very secure in their own selves and sexualities to go right ahead and acknowledge the attractiveness. Just that most of us tend to do it without making the other woman feel unsafe.

We get enough of not being safe from being out in the world where most, if not all, men think they can speak to us derisively, condescendingly, offensively. We surround ourselves with people of all genders that make us feel safe. The last thing a woman expects is for another woman to speak in a manner that though not about her, is simply offensive to her as a woman and makes her feel unsafe.

The other concern that arises here is that if a woman at a shoot; the model, actor, celebrity, is looking particularly good one day, will she incite any kind of unwanted sexual advances or aggression from her colleagues? Is there someone around who makes sure these instances are kept in check?

Lastly, there is unbridled admiration, and then there is unchecked sentiment. You can be edgy without being gross, and perhaps, that is a fine line that needs to be found whenever putting anything out for public consumption.

We get enough of not being safe from being out in the world where most, if not all, men think they can speak to us derisively, condescendingly, offensively. We surround ourselves with people of all genders that make us feel safe. The last thing a woman expects is for another woman to speak in a manner that though not about her, is simply offensive to her as a woman and makes her feel unsafe.