Sensitivity is not male or female: Prakash Jha

Prakash Jha said it is an unfair notion that a female director does a better job at handling women's stories as sensitivity is not gender-specific.
The 65-year-old filmmaker said male directors can also do a fair job in narrating stories from a female point of view, without falling prey to the male gaze.
"Sensitivity is not male or female. It's not possible to create a society without men. If men are sensitive, they can see things from the female perspective too. I made 'Mrityudand', which was a story of three women fighting out struggles on their own," Jha told reporters in a group interview here.

The producer was recently in the capital to promote his film "Lipstick Under My Burkha".
According to Jha, the Alankrita Shrivastava-directed film is special because of its ability to hook the audience and how she manages to depict the reality in the movie, without any inhibition.
"'Lipstick Under My Burkha' is slightly deeper than feminism. It doesn't talk about it at all. But the story hits you like mad. The film has been praised all over the world at international film festivals because women associated with the story," he said.

The National Award-winning director said even the smallest decision taken by a woman is influenced by the males related to her.

Jha said the society prepares the women right from their childhood so that they grow up to become obedient and well- behaved. Their situation is quite similar to the pets in a family.
"From beginning, we train our girls so that they turn out to be good, disciplined, 'sanskari', tolerant... She should just like we prepare our pets. We train them so that they don't sit on the beds or come in the kitchen.
"The whole society functions on a mentality of how to make our girls more subservient, well-mannered. If she earns, good. If she can juggle both her house and work, that's great. But she should not speak. This is how we try to rein in women in our society," he said.

Starring Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sensharma, Ahana Kumra, Plabita Borthakur, Sushant Singh, Vikrant Massey, Shashank Arora and Vaibhav Tatwawaadi, the movie will hit the screens on July 21.