How Bollywood Portrays Women as Sex Objects Series
- Dikshita Jain
- Apr 11, 2022
- 2 min read
Portraying women as sex objects is not a new topic for us to hear about. It has been happening for centuries and decades. Women are openly sexualized as objects that satisfy a man's sexual needs, and are also left in a position to not make any bodily choices for themselves. Furthermore, they are put in circumstances where they have to put the needs and wants of others before herself by taking care of everyone, the house and possibly extended relatives.
It is to note that I do not disparage anyone who does housework, cleans their house, or is a stay-at-home partner. I only demean those who believe that it is a women’s job to keep their partner sexually happy, while ignoring thier own happiness. I demean those who do not believe that being a stay-at-home partner or parent is a 24/7 job in itself. I demean those who consider that they have a right over the body of their partners.
By creating dialogue and spreading awareness about women being viewed as toys, one of the biggest influences for sexualization towards women comes from the music we listen to. We all jam to these songs, without even realising the true meaning of the lyrics.
Growing up, and listening to songs that portray women as sex objects and disrespecting them and their bodies only leads to more rapes and sexual violence acts against women.
A lot of us (including myself) were not aware of this concept surrounding sexualization at all. We have been brought up in a society where sexualizing women seems to be normal, and even justified if you call out your loved ones or strangers for their derogatory comments towards women. Women have always been taught to be a certain way, and be treated a certain way by society.
Buzz by Badshah is a song I personally enjoyed listening to before I realised what one of the lines in the songs meant. One of the lines in the songs read ‘Jahaan se hone chahiye, Wahin se hai tuh thick,’ meaning your body figure is thick exactly from which part it should be.
Do these lyrics ring a bell? This line does anything, but promote how a woman’s figure should be shaped. It only adds more to what society wants a woman to look like. Any other type of body figure is nothing, but a shame to her.
Why does someone else –especially a man – have the need to give their two cents about your body and whether it gets approved based on how it’s shaped? In our society – and community – it’s no surprise that men prefer women of only a certain shape, such as them being slim, thin, maybe curvy, but definitely light-skinned.
These ideologies stem from European beauty standards and years of no fat representation, especially from Indian media. If you watch Bollywood movies, let alone know any of the women actors, you’ll figure that almost every woman has a nice body, is light-skinned, has the perfect nose shape, their breasts are captivating and the list goes on.
Ever seen a healthy/overweight female play the lead role in a Bollywood movie?
Objectifying women as having a certain body type with big breasts, and a thin body is nothing but disrespectful.
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