A while back, the hashtag, No Bindi No Business, started trending on Twitter. Actor Divyanka Tripathi Dahiya, who was irked by the hashtag, called out the gender inequality prevalent in our society. Responding to the Twitter user promoting the campaign, she wrote, “No bindi no business? It should be a woman’s choice what she wants to wear! Hinduism is about respecting choices! Next you’ll want purda-system and then Satipratha back? Why should any culture be measured by women’s dressing? I’m further shocked when women propagate such concepts.”

Opening up about what outraged her, Dahiya tells us that she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of “questioning women’s choices”. But she clarifies that she “has not spoken on religious but on humanitarian grounds”.

She says that such hashtags highlight deep-rooted gender bias in our society .

“When living in a metro (metropolitan), we start feeling that the world is fair, but when you peep into the lesser developed pockets (of the country/society), you realise the large difference in the status of men vs women,” says the 36-year-old.

The Yeh Hai Mohabbatein actor fears that these trends might end up having an impact on women’s psychology. “More caustic it is when women succumb to these demands and think it is their duty,” she reasons. For her, the existing gender disparity is cause for worry. “It is an unfortunate observation...When one has to assert cultural values, it’s depicted through how the women of that society dress or behave,” she ends.