When Aditi Rao Hydari spoke about pay disparity in Bollywood

Pay disparity unfortunately still exists in every field and Bollywood is no exception. Male actors aka Heroes always get the bigger paycheques when compared to the female colleagues as producers believe that they enjoy a bigger star power. And even though recent films have definitely proved that this is not the case, it still is a bitter truth of the industry.

During an interview with a leading daily, Aditi Rao Hydari shared her experience of the same. She said, “I didn’t think to question why the male actor in exactly the same position as me got paid twice as much. The other thing I remember is that he received his entire cheque, whereas I [still] have not been paid what I was promised. We’re not saying we’re better than the other sex, we are saying that we are all together in this business. It’s about the quality of work we bring to the table . . . These decisions need to be professional, not gender based. It’s about opening people’s minds to something that’s almost been a habit. There are enough female actors who are speaking about pay parity, and who want to be creatively valued as actors in the projects they work on and not be treated as replaceable objects.”The actress also added saying that this is the reason several actresses have decided to turn producer. She said, “They are saying, ‘OK, people are not making the kind of stuff I want to make, so I create the stuff that I want to create.’ This is all happening, but it’s one step at a time.”