Bollywood Movies That Showed Feminists How It's Done!

One of the first prominent Bollywood movies to be made, highlighting a sports other than cricket - and a woman's team nonetheless! With a cast made of the members of the hockey team, the movie went on to break gender stereotypes as the women's team played against the men's team and beat them with aplomb. While the movie had SRK bagging the starring role, the rest of the cast were the true MVPs.

Queen has garnered enough fame, as a movie celebrating the freedom of a single woman and looked good while doing it! An entire movie left on the shoulders of Kangana Ranaut and Lisa Haydon, both in entirely different roles and personalities, it's one of the earliest bachelorette movies to meet with mainstream success.

A middle aged woman who finally gets the chance to step out of the shadows of her family and do something worthwhile. During the journey, she has her fair share of troubles as she struggles to learn English but ultimately perseveres to prove everybody who doubted her wrong. Sridevi is delightful to watch in big her return to the silver screen!

Does this movie need an introduction? A pregnant woman in the search for her husband's murdered...and revealing anything else would spoil the plot. That's how many climaxes and turns the story packs. With a stunning performance by Vidya Balan, this movie is arguably one of her best till date.

Pink certainly managed to paint the box-office with its colour, within a week of its release. A tumultuous story of 3 single women and their fight to justice against a group of men...the movie shares its fair share of good and bad and makes one question their own morality.

A bunch of crazy, young girls meeting in Goa for their bachelorette party - who doesn't want to be a part of that? A liberating movie made with not one, but seven women in the cast as leads! While the movie didn't leave much of an impression in the box-office, it's sure worth a watch.

Rani Mukherjee has consistently blessed us with strong performances and Mardaani turns out to be no less. An edge-of-the-seat thriller made upon the child trade industry, the movie runs solely on Mukherjee's own shoulders and the frail ones of those being sold. A worthy watch and certainly an eye-opener.

Of course the list goes on, with strong female leads becoming the norm now with films like Mary Kom, 7 Khoon Maaf, Margarita, with a Straw B etc. Bollywood is finally opening up to gender stereotypes and more and more films are being made where the leads are paid equally despite their gender. In situations like this, it is also important for the audience to support such films - a Ranbir Kapoor starrer inadvertently rakes in more than a Priyanka Chopra starrer, leading to a dis-balance in their pay and ultimately creating a subtle rift. It's good to see Bollywood finally embrace feminism and make more films highlighting the sensitive issues our country needs to address.

Reactions for the movie have been highly polaried. You have the Times hailing it as the next big thing and the Huffington Post touting is as a misogynistic movie in the garb of feminism. We see a father, with best intentions forces his daughters to take up wrestling, when they themselves do not take any special interest in it. We see a man who uses hid daughters as a tool to achieve the fame that had eluded him. Yet, at the same time, we see him give them his time of the day, scrape together money for their training, and turn them into champions. The movie certainly deserves accolades for the realistic portrayal of the struggles of the Phogat sisters. But how much of it adheres to feminism is debatable.