Women have always been treated as second-class citizens: Priyanka Chopra

Bollywood and now Holywood’s favourite Priyanka Chopra believes that women have “always been treated as second-class citizens” and unlike men, they are forced to adhere to certain standards of beauty.

According to the Quantico starlet, women should focus on loving themselves instead and being comfortable in their own skin rather than submitting to the societal norms.

“We’ve always been told that only one of us can win and only the best one will get the cutest boy and only the best one will get the job, that we spent so much time elbowing each other out of the way, pulling each other down,” Priyanka said in an interview with Allure magazine as she shunned  down various body stereotypes during the magazine shoot. 

“Can we, for a second, love ourselves and say, ‘I do not need all of these magazines to tell me how to lose the weight or how should I starve because I wanna please a man?’”, Priyanka added.

The 35-year-old actor stressed that “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”, adding that “everyone doesn’t look the same way, so the world needs to be trained to see beauty differently”.

“You see so many women, different sizes, modelling, acting, taking their strength, but it’s the mind-set that needs to change, of society, of men, of people, that view where a woman in a plus size should not be a check in the box. Or a woman of colour should not be a check in the box. Or a woman shouldn’t be a check in the box," stated Priyanka. 

She further advised, “Start with just recognizing what you’re doing. That’s called self-hate, self-doubt, you’re berating yourself. I mean, we have enough people doing that to us anyway. Why do we need to do it to ourselves?”

“Love yourself, ladies. You’re your best friend,” she added.