Why Do We Love To Hate Indian Aunties?

This week, we ask why everyone hates on the Indian aunty, and whether the way she's portrayed in pop culture pits women against each other.

Edited by: Neha Shekhawat
Presented by: Anahita Sachdev
Research: Quoyina Ghosh
Produced by: Shrishti Malhotra
Creative Supervisor: Karla Bookman

Want to learn more about the research in this video? Read this:

Chakravarti, Uma. "Conceptualising Brahmanical patriarchy in early India: Gender, caste, class and state." Economic and Political Weekly (1993): 579-585.

Tatar, Maria. Off with their heads!: Fairy tales and the culture of childhood. Princeton University Press, 1993.

Tincknell, Estella. "Monstrous Aunties: the Rabelaisian older Asian woman in British cinema and television comedy." Feminist Media Studies 20, no. 1 (2020): 135-150.

[nehashekhawat]

During my edit, it was really fun finding Bollywood aunties from the 80s and 90s. Is there an aunty from pop culture you identify with?

[hitankshee]

Everyone is gangsta until they reach middle age themselves.

[alitamarroquin]

Don't you think that every aunty was a girl that hated aunties once and so on 😭🤣

[nishthavashisht]

all teenagers hate aunties forgetting their own mothers are aunty to someone

[abhinavsharma]

Both aunty's and uncles are like this .
It's just that uncles are less loud about this and aunty's take the baton of sanskaar everywhere .That's why I hate such uncles and aunties equally who meddle in everyone's affairs aur khud ke bachhe ki khabar nahi rehti

[aakankshatiwari]

I m a 16 year old girl and this channel is really helping me out finding out my questions to world and makes me think a different way i m really glad that i found out this channel.

[ganeshprasad]

So truuue...In my case my mom herself is the biggest stereotypical 'aunty'🤣🤣

[girlontheedge]

i NEVER thought about that this way
we are blaming the victims of patriarchy

[Itsjustme]

I don't like to get Judged. That's why, I'll never judge Someone.
I hope we don't become these aunties someday.

[tamannajusta]

I love the topics you chose to cover and the way you explain them

[drnes]

Its not just aunties....but thats how its always depicted in our movies/shows...and it just shows the mentality of our society towards women...the fact being, both our indian uncles and aunties(whom we dont even know sometimes) are so interested in knowing others life. As a student, we all must be the victim of people eagerly waiting for our results, and i bet its not just aunties😄😄

[mehrajdin]

I think we should completely try to breakdown this stereotype otherwise the girls who are young today in future will become mothers and aunties and if this aunty stereotype will go on the way it is today, tomorrow they have to face the same problem, tomorrow they will become villains of someone's life and I think we should do this work from ourselves and our families, by making ourselves better, if we will become better than our society will also become better.
And I think movies and YouTube video's play a major role in this, by making videos and movies like this, there is little impact on us and which makes us do things like this and hate our aunties. If they won't show these kinds of movies and videos and sometimes try to change the character of aunty in good way and also the idea of how we depict them, there will still be a little change in our society. And these small, small changes leads to a huge change.

[harshshukla]

Because they love to poke their nose everywhere... Privacy kya hoti h, auntie ko nhi pta
And above all they dare to give all sort of suggestions, even if somebody is not asking them to do so

[vanshikagupta]

Whenever I get mad at any aunty for commenting on something which is not her business whatsoever, I like to remind myself that it's her conditioning and not her condition
Also, great video 👏👏

[surbhisingh]

It's a reflection of our cinema that depicted the Aunties as a villain and all women as a helpless, always trying to fit in this patriarchy society. So I think they should take initiative to change the way of portraying the women. After all cinema is the reflection of our society.

[达努佳]

The uncles are worst. I was 12 when he asked me to make him tea when he came to our house. "Women are housewives and need to learn how to make tea to serve their husbands" he said.

[SaruGautam]

My mom is like those typical aunties 😂

[bhavyjyotisharma]

I agree we should not generalise them as that makes us an aunty type too. Common not every aunty is an aunty type there are many who will be just like ur mother😊 but they will be aunty shamed too because of our generalisation so I guess we should not straightway come to a point that all auties are bad and if someone is either try to tell them n change them or just leave it to them but generalising will not solve the problem instead it will increase the gender gap.

[enthusiasticphilanthropist]

Thank goodness. I have always thought about the internalized misogyny in portraying aunties. And some one really said it. Thank you swaddle

[strikerron]

You still can't deny how older women shame younger women for the choices they take.