Vidya Balan has time and again challenged Bollywood stereotypes with her roles, living out her characters with power-packed performances. The actress says it was not something that she did deliberately. Vidya Balan has revealed that she has faced gender bigotry which angers her and she gives ‘them a piece of my mind’. Vidya also recalled a dinner table incident where she was told that she ‘should know how to cook’ even though neither she nor her husband Siddharth Roy Kapur know how to do it.
Speaking with a leading daily, Vidya Balan said, “I think all of us have faced gender bias and not just by the members of the opposite sex. Even I think we all tend to judge each other, box each other as human beings and it’s a little sharper for women or with women. Of course, I have faced gender bias. I get angry… I get angry and then I just give them a piece of my mind. It happens much less now, but still.”
The actor also said, “I remember people telling me over a dinner that Oh my god, you don’t know how to cook. I said, ‘No both Sidharth and I don’t know how to cook’. They said, ‘But you should know how to cook na…I wanted to say (enacting a hitting scene) why should it be any different for Sidharth and me?” She also recollected when her mother would ask her to learn cooking. “I would say why the hell should I learn to cook, I will earn enough to hire a cook or marry a man who can cook,” she added.
Presently, she awaits the release of “Sherni”, where she plays an upright forest officer battling social barriers set by the patriarchal society.“Sherni” is scheduled for a digital release on June 18 on Amazon Prime Video.
