‘The Male Feminist’: Zareen Khan Doesn’t Understand The ‘Tomboy’ Concept. Frankly, Can We Retire This Word Already?
Stop labelling women!
If there is one type of woman that society will accept (of course, with their apprehensions) then it is those who are ‘girly girls’. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with being that way, this becomes concerning when these ‘girly’ women become the norm. And any woman that doesn’t tick all the boxes automatically becomes a ‘tomboy’. In fact, you’d be surprised to know how many actresses were actually called tomboys when they were young. One of them was Zareen Khan. In a conversation on Hauterrfly’s The Male Feminist, Zareen Khan opens up about never fitting into the stereotype of being a ‘girly’ girl and how her family as well as her friends played a role in her being a tomboy-ish person.
While in conversation with Siddhaarth Aalambayan on The Male Feminist, Zareen Khan talks about how she never fit into the stereotype of being a ‘girly’ girl since she was a child. She spoke about how her family and friends never treated her differently because she was a girl and that made her a tomboy-ish person.
When asked about why she was labelled as a tomboy, Zareen Khan said that she has never understood the concept of this label. She goes on to say that in most Muslim families there is a clear distinction between how a girl should be and how a man should be. However, she was lucky enough to come from a background where there has never been any segregation based on gender.
To further emphasize what she means, Zareen Khan talks about how as a child they used to wrestle, played cricket, etc. She further said that her family never said that only because she is a girl, she shouldn’t be doing certain things.
Adding further, Zareen Khan says that because she was the eldest, she was expected to be responsible and protective – all the qualities that our society associates with men. And she has never understood why.
Zareen Khan says, “I never gave a damn about how I looked. Girls are expected to be in their hair and makeup and these particular kinds of clothes and all. But I have never been that. Never ever been that. I have been very brash as a girl.”
The 35-year-old actress went on to say that just like her family, even her friends never discriminated against her just because she was a girl. Zareen Khan said, “Most of my friends in my college have been boys and they never treated me as a girl… I don’t do the typical things expected from girls to do typically and that is why that whole term (tomboy) was given to me.”
Zareen Khan concludes by saying that she thinks that the reason why she is called a tomboy is that she gets it from her mother who also was labelled as a tomboy. Talking about her mother, the actress says that her mother has never been timid and always stood for what she believed in. And that is the same thing that has come in her.
Watch the entire conversation between Zareen Khan and Siddhaarth Aalambayan on The Male Feminist:
It is so refreshing to see a celebrity be so unapologetically herself. She is not afraid to admit that she doesn’t fit the stereotype and she doesn’t even want to. She accepts herself the way she is and is rather proud of it.
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