The MeToo movement took Bollywood by storm last year with many actors and directors being named and shamed for sexual harassment. While director Rajkumar Hirani was the latest to feel the MeToo heat, actress Swara Bhaskar, too, opened up about abuse recently. Swara revealed she was sexually harassed by a director but it took her nearly six to eight years to realise what had happened as the culture doesn't teach women to recognise predatory behaviour.
Has anything changed in the film industry with so many women speaking out about workplace harassment? Speaking to THE WEEK on the sidelines of an interview before the release of her film Sonchiriya, actress Bhumi Pednekar said that today men are scared.
“They do not even have the balls for a casual, prolonged handshake, which is so required,” she said.
She said that what is still flawed is the fact men do not seem to understand what sexual harassment is. “They feel ‘it’s okay’ to send me a sexual text, which I have not responded to, and keep sending me that because you think you are trying on me. No, it does not work that way. Had I been interested, I would have responded.”
Also Read: I will never be the same person after 'Sonchiriya', says Bhumi Pednekar
The actress admitted she has not had harrowing experiences like the accounts that have been coming out in recent times. “If I speak specifically of my fraternity, I became an actor at a point when things had become very corporate. There is a Yash Raj and a Dharma. My generation and may be a few generations before me, were lucky to have got opportunities with companies like this. A lot of people have shown curiosity because I was casting. But I have not had these experiences because I was casting for Yash Raj. Does it not happen elsewhere? Of course, it does. All the stories that came out were heartbreaking.”
“This is such a welcome movement. There are these girls who come from small cities. They have fought at home to be here. I read a lot of views where people say that ‘why did she go on with it?’ or, ‘why did she not complain then?’ But she did that because she has a certain ambition and she is scared it will be crushed. The men need to change, the women do not. I have always believed that the boys need to change and their mothers need to change. You have to teach your kid the difference between right and wrong,” she said.
