A 57y.o. Clearly Grey Aamir Was Celebrated — Would We Celebrate A 55y.o. Grey Haired Madhuri Similarly?

This article caught my eye yesterday, which celebrates and praises Aamir Khan, aged 57 for embracing his white hair and beard.

Wow! How brave of him to not only show up in his greys at an event but also to announce that he is going to take a year off from acting and focus on his family. Such a devoted family man.

What if we invert the genders and consider Madhuri Dixit?

Well, just for a minute, let’s reverse the situation and have Madhuri Dixit aged 55 appear in an event with grey hair, and announcing that she is going to take a further break from acting so she can spend time with her family.

In both cases, let’s think of a plausible scenario in 2024

Aamir Khan comes back with a huge budget movie starring a heroine in her early 20’s while Madhuri will be struggling to find even a low budget film for herself. She will most probably come back as a reality show judge or as a mother to Aamir Khan in that big budget film.

And this attitude where for the same thing men are celebrated and welcomed back whereas women are blacklisted or put on the back burner is across sectors and geography, as I quote another example.

Happens with women everywhere, no matter how high achieving!

As this tweet telling stated, Nancy Pelosi is 82. She just led House Democrats to an unexpectedly good midterms outcome. Media’s first question is when she’ll retire. Mitch McConnell is 80. He just led Senate Republicans to a humiliating defeat. Not one question about when he’ll step aside.

It is time we women rally with each other, support one another and start calling out this everyday in your face patriarchy.  The time is over where we sit meekly letting them go on hoping that someone will bring in the change. I think it is each of our responsibility to bring about that change, even if it is in that 1 person around us.

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