Free Market Feminism and Breaking Stereotypes: From Four More Shots to Kabir Singh

Abstract

The discourse of feminism is overpowered by breaking of stereotypes and is seldom rooted in the real empowerment. The free market feminism heavily relies on personal freedom and pleasures and ignore the larger aim of liberation of women. The paper seeks to establish that the media and market play a vital role in diverting the attention of women movement to breaking stereotypes and do little for achieving all round women empowerment. The undue attention to stereotypes lead to rise of gender based violence. It is illustrated through a mainstream Hindi film “Kabir Singh” and an online web series “Four More Shots Please”. The paper is divided into four parts, first part summarises the free market feminism, the second part discusses gender and stereotypes, third part discusses relationship between patriarchy and media and finally the last part concludes that the discourse need to shift to real women empowerment through addressing real gender problems.

 Keywords: gender, stereotypes, media, free market feminism, patriarchy.