Women are impediments to true feminism, has nothing to do with men: Kajol

Kajol recently celebrated thirty years in the movie industry, delivering some memorable performances and portraying strong female characters along the way.

The actress doesn’t hesitate to pick unconventional stories that are out of the ordinary and has always impressed us with her performances.

In a recent interview with Humans of Bombay, when asked about feminism, Kajol said that the biggest impediments to “true feminism” are “women themselves” and have “nothing to do with men”.

“I think the biggest people who are impediments to true feminism are women themselves. I truly think it actually has nothing to do with the guys, it has nothing to do with the men. It has to do with the women not wanting to own up to that, not wanting to… Like some women actually like the fact that they appear you know a little dumber than normal, a little more useless, a little more brain dead. They like it that way.”

In her earlier interviews, the actress said that she grew up in a feminist household where women were responsible for all the household chores and they understood it as a way of life. So, for her, feminism was also a part of life.

In the interview, Kajol said that she was “brought up by women who were natural feminists”. Kajol said that she is a “burn the bra kind of feminist” who grew up in a household where women did everything and she understood the meaning of “feminine power”. “You don’t really need anybody else to support you. We should all have that innate belief in ourselves,” she said.

Kajol is the daughter of yesteryear star Tanuja who continued to work after getting married, which wasn’t seen as the norm in those days. Her aunt Nutan was also a very successful star who first started working in the movies in the 1950s and continued to work until the 1980s.

Kajol continued to work in the movies even after she got married to Ajay Devgan in 1999.

When asked about being a trendsetter in that regard, Kajol said that the actors who made the decision to not work after getting married did so because of the perception they have of themselves.

“That had something to do with the actress’ perception of themselves. It was not so much everybody else’s expectations,” she said and named actors like Tanuja, Nutan, Saira Banu, Sharmila Tagore and many others before her who continued to work in the movies even after they tied the knot.

“It was their own perception that ‘Oh, once you get married then we can’t wear such clothes, how to go out like this or what will society say if you go out and you are hugging another man’ or whatever. It’s your own perception of how you see yourself. You see yourself as a wife and therefore you cannot do these things, or therefore you cannot work in this profession. I feel it had more to do with that than me being actually a trendsetter or anything like that,” she said.

Kajol’s latest outing was Salaam Venky which was released in December 2022. The movie is based on the life story of teenage chess player Kolavennu Venkatesh, who had Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He died in 2004.

The slice-of-life-drama directed by Revathy and co-written by Kausar Munir and Sameer Arora, also has an appearance by Aamir Khan along with Prakash Raj, Rahul Bose and Priyamani playing crucial characters.