Recently, film critic Rajeev Masand conducted The Actresses Roundtable 2018 and invited Rani Mukerji, Alia Bhatt, Deepika Padukone, Tabu, Anushka Sharma and Taapsee Pannu.
The discussion, that revolved around the change in female roles, audience interests, and playing grey characters, also veered towards the #MeToo movement that enveloped Bollywood this year.
During the conversation, actor Rani Mukerji commented that the onus to stay safe from sexual harassment is on women themselves and even young girls should be taught self-defense and martial arts.
When Deepika and Anushka countered her by stating, it is important ‘nip the problem in the bud’, Rani continued to state that ‘mothers cannot be taught how to raise their children, and it is the responsibility of women to protect themselves’.
In this time and age, the basic thing is to teach everyone – men and women – the concept of consent, personal space, and boundary. Naturally then, her statement sparked outrage on Twitter, with people calling out the duality of her approach, that skewed a little towards victim blaming as well:
Oh, ok.
So you can’t tell people how to bring up their sons to be respectful of women, but perfectly practical to make sure all women, girls, infants are enrolled for karate classes en-masse, pronto.Dafuq Rani? #ranimukherjee and Preity are a blot on the actresses of their time https://t.co/lRAQNLGSYY— megzie (@megzie__) December 30, 2018
Rani Mukherjee’s views on #MeToo are so bloody problematic!
Please ask her how a 4 month old baby girl is gonna kick her rapist between his legs?? #ActressesRoundtable— Dishti (@dish_teaa) December 30, 2018
It’s 2018, and it is high time we move towards a future where learning self-defense is a choice for women, not a necessity
You can watch the complete video here: