Kriti Sanon On Patriarchy And Women’s Safety: Why Are Women Conditioned To Police Themselves And Each Other?

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Women often learn the rules of staying safe long before they understand where those rules come from. "Don't come home late." "Don't go out alone." "Be careful around men." "Watch what you wear." "Let someone know where you are." While some of this advice may come from genuine concern, repeated warnings can also shape the way girls understand freedom, risk and their own behaviour.

Photo Credit: Instagram@kritisanon/tellyreporter/AI-generated

That tension has come into focus again after actor Kriti Sanon shared an Instagram Story post challenging the idea that the gender debate is simply "Men vs Women" and pointing to patriarchal attitudes that can also be internalised by women. On Daughter's Day, she followed it with a multi-slide Instagram post about the everyday precautions women take to feel safe, including sharing live locations, carrying pepper spray, booking a cab instead of walking home and staying on a phone call while travelling.

But when does practical safety advice become a set of rules that women begin imposing on themselves?

When Safety Advice Becomes An Invisible Checklist

"We teach girls to be careful. Then we wonder why they are afraid of freedom," explains Dr. Munia Bhattacharya, Sr. Consultant, Clinical Psychology, Marengo Asia Hospitals, Gurugram.

"That is the piece that we need to talk about. In my clinical conversations with women, I often hear the same invisible checklist: Is it too late? Who knows where I am? Should I share my location? Should I change my plans? Who should I call? These may look like small precautions, but when they become a daily habit, a woman can start policing herself without even realising it," Dr. Munia explains.

She points out that gender conditioning often begins with familiar phrases: "Don't come home late." "Don't wear that." "Sit properly." "Be careful around men." While these words are often spoken with love and concern, repeated messages can lead a girl to absorb the idea that there are certain ways she must dress, behave and live to be accepted and protected.

How Fear Of Judgement Gets Built In Childhood

For Asha from Thiruvananthapuram, some of those messages began in childhood.

"In childhood, we are taught things like never go out alone or don't go out with a guy friend to watch a movie. As we grow up, that fear of 'What will people think?' gets built into us. We are also sometimes told that because we are girls, we shouldn't answer back even when an elder says something wrong. It is a kind of suppression that happens in an affectionate way, but as adults, we may start wondering, 'Should I express my opinion? Will there be a problem if I say something?' That thought can become deeply set in our minds."

Dr. Munia points out that once these rules become internalised, women may also begin applying them to other women.

"And once those rules become part of you, you may start applying them to other women too. In my clinical experience, women who judge another woman's clothes, relationships or choices are not always trying to be cruel. Sometimes they are simply repeating what they were taught. We often defend rules that we were never given the freedom to question," she remarks.

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Not Every Woman Experiences The Same Conditioning

This is why gender conditioning is not always easy to identify. It does not necessarily sound like an outright restriction. It can sound like concern, advice or an attempt to protect someone. Over time, however, repeated messages can become beliefs that women carry forward themselves.

Sherlin, an entrepreneur from Bengaluru, offers a different perspective. She says she has not personally been advised about what to wear, where to go or what time to return home. For her, dressing is a matter of personal choice, while confidence and the ability to speak up are important.

"I believe dressing is a personal choice, but everyone should dress according to the occasion and one should be very confident and comfortable in whatever they wear. When it comes to behaviour, she should raise her voice where it matters, put across whatever you have to say in a dignified manner."

When Women Become Their Own Monitors

Dr. Munia explains that the effects can extend beyond individual decisions.

"The psychological cost is that a woman can become her own monitor. She starts thinking about how she looks, where she is, what others will say and whether she is making the 'right' choice. Over time, this can affect confidence, spontaneity and the simple ability to live without constantly seeking approval," she explains.

There is an important distinction between taking sensible precautions and feeling that a woman must constantly modify herself to prevent something from happening to her. When safety becomes tied to how she dresses, where she goes or how she behaves, the responsibility can quietly shift onto the woman herself.

Questioning The Rules We Inherit

Dr. Munia suggests that recognising these patterns can begin with curiosity.

"The first step is to become curious about our own beliefs. Ask yourself: 'Do I really believe this, or was I taught to believe it?' And, 'Would I say the same thing to a man?'" she remarks.

The questions do not dismiss genuine safety concerns. Instead, they can help separate practical caution from expectations placed on women simply because they are women.

Can Women Feel Safe Without Carrying Constant Fear?

"We cannot remove every risk from a woman's life. But perhaps we can stop adding fear to her list of things she has to carry," Dr. Munia explains.

Perhaps that is also the larger question behind Kriti Sanon's posts: if women are constantly taught how to avoid danger, when do we start asking why freedom itself has come to feel dangerous for them? Her message puts the focus not only on the precautions women take, but on the fear and conditioning that made so many of those precautions feel necessary in the first place.