Why a movie with a central woman character is titled "Mardaani"?

The first time when I saw some news related to this movie called "Mardani," I thought this was some B or C-grade masala film. The news was about the first "A" rated film from Yashraj production and I was a little surprised that how come such a big production house like Yashraj is producing such a movie. I was wondering why some movies getting an "A" certificate (equivalent to the R rating in the US) is such a big deal. But then I came to know that this is a Rani Mukharjee starer film, that too produced by Yashraj so definitely it was going to be in the news for some reason. After reading some reviews I also came to know that Rani's character is based on a real-life police officer from the Mumbai crime branch who was instrumental in solving various child trafficking cases in the city. The title Mardaani means "manly" or "mannish." So, why a movie with the central character of a woman cop is titled "Mardaani"? Why do the makers of the movie feel the need to use a male-specific adjective to describe a brave lady? Why can't they use a female-specific word to describe a brave female cop or a brave woman? Actually, there is a dearth of female adjectives that describe qualities like bravery, even I can't think of any but I am not an expert in Hindi or English, I am interested in knowing if there are any such adjectives.

The issue is not what should be the title of the movie, the makers of this movie have the freedom to give their movie whatever name they want, it is their right to name their product. I am sure the reason they labeled this product like this is because they know that in popular culture there is no parallel world that can project the bravery of a woman, even the famous poem to praise the great queen of Jhansi Rani Lakshmi Bai goes something like this, 'Khoob ladi mardani, woh to Jhansi wali rani thi (खूब लड़ी मर्दानी, वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी). They know that our society associates bravery with adjectives that project masculinity. Somehow our society never bothered to invent words that can project the brave side of females. We have many words that describe female beauty, love, compassion, dedication, tolerance, obedience, but not bravery. I am sure no one can imagine that the movie with the title "Janani" (opposite of mardani, meaning feminine) would be associated with the bravery of a female or male character, they just cannot associate being feminine and brave together. This is the problem of stereotyping both genders and exclusively associating certain attributes with a particular gender. Because of years of brainwashing our minds have become so conditioned that we don't see anything wrong in associating particular characteristics only with a particular gender. The title of this movie specifically projects this mindset. This movie is a commercial project so of course they will follow the trend which allows them to market it well. But I am glad that at least a story of a brave woman police officer is shared in this movie. We need to have more female superheroes, and we need to have more stories where the princess also rescues the prince so that this concept of bravery associated exclusively with male characters goes away and bravery becomes gender-neutral. 

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. Mardaani: Packs a punch