Sonam Kapoor: I Have Lost Out On Roles For Standing Up To The ‘Pay Gap’
Being a working woman makes one thing clear – that no matter how hard you work or no matter how good you are at your work, you’re never going to get paid as much as a man. Now, I’m not saying that things have not changed over the years, they have. But the truth remains that the pay gap between a man and a woman is also changing and too for more. And this is the reality for every industry. In fact, actresses like Sonam Kapoor, Taapsee Pannu, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, etc, have also come out and spoken about pay gap-based issues in the film industry.
Recently, in an interview, Sonam Kapoor came out and spoke about how she doesn’t get the roles for which she has asked for just pay. She also spoke about how the reason she can afford to miss such opportunities is that she is ‘privileged’.
She even went ahead and spoke about how she is not in a position to judge anybody else regarding their choices. When speaking to Vogue, Sonam Kapoor said, “The pay gap is ridiculous. I can stand up to it, but then I don’t get those roles, and I’m okay with that. I can afford to do that. I realized over the past two or three years that I have no right to judge anybody. I’m privileged, so making difficult choices isn’t really f**king difficult.”
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And Sonam Kapoor is not the only one that spoke about it. In fact, she commented on the pay gap right after Taapsee Pannu went on record to talk about the same issue she faced. Taapsee Pannu claimed that the male actors that had started out with her earn 3-4 times more than what she is currently earning. In her interview with The National Bulletin, she stated that “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 the higher star category.”
Taapsee Pannu even spoke about the latest trolls Kareena Kapoor Khan was facing on social media because she had reportedly asked for more pay for a project that was to be a reimagination of Ramayana from Sita’s perspective.
The problem is that we don’t recognize a woman’s work and her commitment. We make women-centric movies and talk about empowering our women but we don’t give them the due credit – in whatever form that might be – when the time comes. We need to recognize the fact that the pay gap is not just a film industry issue but is an issue in every industry. And even though we think that things are not the way they used to be, the fact remains that they are still not the way that they need to be.
