Just like in every other sector in public life, a kind of force works against women in politics that males won’t ever face. This entrenched misogyny is persistent and present all the time, and it ranges from benign neglect to outright malevolence. The fact that India has had, and still has, powerful women in leadership positions hardly negates that truth. For, each one of them has faced it—from Indira Gandhi, to Jayalalithaa, to Mayawati now. And the worst humiliations come when women enter that rough and tumble of election campaigns. What apparently powerful women go through in public is no different from what anonymous women face on a daily basis.