Actress Taapsee Pannu is gearing up for the release of her sports drama 'Shabaash Mithu' in which she'll be seen portraying legendary Indian cricketer Mithali Raj. Apart from Mithali's personal journey to become a world class cricketer, the film also deals with the idea of women empowerment. Sharing an example of how difficult it is for women to have a unique identity, Taapsee revealed how disappointed she was to know that Mithali is referred as female Sachin Tendulkar.

The actress recently told News18, “I also feel it is sad that Mithali Raj is referred to as Lady Tendulkar. But that’s how it is. Time and again, people call me a female version of some male actor for different reasons. The benchmark has always been a man. But that’s why we say that we are in a patriarchal society. You have to keep making your way through, keep seizing these opportunities time and again to make the difference.”

Taapsee then talked about how representation of women in Bollywood is slowly improving but there's still a long way to go. She said, "The change has happened for sure. Ten years back I never thought that I’ll be headlining films and there will be people backing it and there’ll be a good amount of money spent on it. But still, we are far away from equality. We have to be honest with that fact. My entire film’s budget is equal to a male actor’s salary. So the disparity is still huge. We have a marathon to run, but I’m glad that we are moving in the right direction and we have at least taken a few steps towards equality.”

'Shabaash Mithu' is set to release on 15th of July.