Navya Nanda on ingrained sexism at home: ‘My mother tells me to play the host when guests are over’

Navya Naveli Nanda, the granddaughter of actor Amitabh Bachchan, has said that even she isn’t immune to ingrained sexism. At home, she says, her mother unconsciously asks her to host guests, when her brother Agastya could be asked to do the same thing.
In an interview with SheThePeople, Navya said, “I have seen this happen at my home where if guests are over, my mother would always tell me to fetch something or the other. I have to play the host as opposed to my brother who could also be doing the same thing.”

She added, “So I think specially in homes where you live with joint families, that responsibility of learning how to run the house or learning how to take care of guests or learning how to play host is always somehow put on the daughter. And I have never seen that importance being given to my brother or a younger boy in the house. I think that itself is ingraining women into believing that it’s our responsibility to look after the house.”

Navya’s comments were applauded filmmaker Zoya Akhtar and actor Tillotama Shome in the comments section of the Instagram post.
In the past, she has spoken about how women in her own family do not prioritise themselves. She told Miss Malini in a chat about her initiatives, “Women inherently prioritise the health and well being of their family over themselves. I have seen that happen at my own home with my grandmother and my mother. They are the sole caregivers. Because of that, they are always taking care of the family, the husband and the children. I don’t think their own health, mental or physical is a priority. That stems from the gender roles we force as a society and that’s where the patriarchy and misogyny comes in where men have always been the head of the family and breadwinners, and the woman the caretaker. That, I think, has caused a big disparity in terms of how women even look at health and prioritise their own well being.”
Navya, a graduate of Fordham University, is the co-founder of Aara Health. She’s the daughter of Shweta Bachchan Nanda and Nikhil Nanda, and said in an interview with Vogue that she plans to join her father’s business.