Neena Gupta On Pay Disparity Between Male And Female Actors: ‘Like It Or Not, It’s A Man’s World’

The pay disparity issue in the film industry is not new. Many actresses have openly talked about it. While some of them have managed to get paid equal to their male counterparts, the majority of the actresses face this issue till today.

The veteran actress Neena Gupta is the recent one to give her opinion on the same. The actress opened up on a discussion of pay differences between male and female actors that exist in the industry. She feels it is useless to ponder over it as it’s always been a man-dominated world. She also shared how this pay parity thing is a myth and a fallacy.

According to Neena, women do get paid lower than men in not just the film industry but in every other profession. Without giving any hint of dissatisfaction, the Sach Kahun Toh author said, “I like this question about pay parity. Tell me something, when were women ever paid on a par with men in any profession? Look at the amount of work a housewife does. Does she ever get paid for it? No? Yeah, she gets money to buy household stuff. But when she needs something personal she has to ask her husband.”

Neena has accepted the fact that women are given a secondary place in most societies. “Like it or not, it’s a man’s world. So whether it is at home or an office the man is working all the time. A woman works far more than a man. You can say, ‘Oh the man has so much stress at work?’ But a woman’s work never ends, from cooking to cleaning to paying the rent…And it’s all thankless,” she added.

The actress, who began her second innings in Bollywood with Badhaai Ho feels that one should stop hoping for pay parity between the genders. “Yeh pay parity wali discussion ka toh koi matlab hi nahin hota. First, it’s men. Then women. That’s the way it has always been.”

The talented actress has no issues with it as by now, she has accepted it. “I am quite okay with it. First, hone ka matlab bahot sara responsibility hota hai. I know what I am worth. I know what I deserve. But I don’t think about it. Whatever has happened in my life I was never stuck in one mindset. I moved on. Life is never perfect for anyone. Whatever I got I made the most of it.”

Earlier in July, actress Taapsee Pannu also opened on the same issue. Speaking to The National Bulletin, Taapsee said, “If a female actor asks more, she is termed difficult and problematic and if a man asks more it’s a mark of his success. The difference is the men who started with me earn 3-5 times more than what I do. And the gap keeps increasing as we go in higher star category.”

Taapsee held the audience responsible for it. She said that viewers do not celebrate female actors as much as male actors, resulting in lower box office collections for women-centric films. “Even now we struggle with budgets. Everyone hears that since it’s a female-driven film budget will have to be slashed and that’s because our returns are always unfair in comparison to our male counterparts. And the audience is a big reason behind that,” she said.

Besides Neena and Taapsee, many actresses like Deepika Padukone, Anushka Sharma, Aditi Rao Hydari, etc. have also talked about the gender pay gap between male and female actors in the past.


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