A couple of months back, Ranbir Kapoor recently made an impromptu joke on Alia Bhatt’s weight increase during pregnancy during an Instagram Live session. The comment has already been labeled as offensive everywhere.
Considering the society we are living in, I’m not surprised at what Ranbir said. I am rather furious at how Alia Bhatt reacted. Her cool, chilled down and smiling reaction to the “joke” is exactly what makes us women so vulnerable. Hopefully, she would have shunned him in private.
Something similar happened when President Murmu was referred to as “Rashtrapatni”. Her office should have at least made a press release denouncing the usage of such heinous words disguised as a slip of tongue.
If you happen to think that the corporate sector is relatively friendlier to expecting mothers, think again – and I say this from quite a bit of personal experience.
During my maternity leave I was employed with a well-known IT company. A few months after I joined them back as a new mom, I was rendered “useless” and eventually fired! Ironically, it was a middle-aged working mother herself who broke out the news. It took me 2 years to get back on the career path that was derailed by pregnancy and subsequent expulsion. I regret not speaking out against that injustice then, but I am speaking out today.
There is enough meaningless rhetoric about gender equality. All that is irrelevant unless women stand up to speak out for themselves and shed their victim mentality.
If you don’t get the respect you deserve, speak out to snatch it.