Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam singer Chinmayi Sripada has never shied off in speaking her mind. She got talking to us on gender inequality and other issues faced by women artists in the film industry.
As a singer and a woman with a voice, how deeply troubled are you with the gender inequality in the entertainment industry? From pay parity to limited time span for leading ladies to female actors being half and quarter the age of their leading men?
I am not sure how to answer the question. But in general, across the board, across industries, women have always been paid lesser in the argument that women are not the ones drawing the audiences to the theatres, it's only the men. Therefore, they bring in the jobs and the money and etc, etc, etc. So, I don't think I am the right person to answer on that pay parity. As for female singers, it was only the Lata ji, the legendary Lataji who could demand and be paid one of the highest amounts. But that was once upon a time, but I don't think that can even be redone at any given point in time.
You have been raising your voice on gender issues repeatedly and fearlessly. Don’t you fear the online hatred could reach your home?
I think the online hatred reaching our home is a very real possibility. The social media is an extremely polarised space where I think people are constantly in a very angry space and they don't have the emotional maturity to just take an opinion as an opinion and just keep going ahead with, or to even debate in a normal healthy manner. At the drop of a hat, it is slurs, racist, cattiest, abuse or if it is gender then morphed images and more sexist slurs and abuse and then rape threats and acid attack threats and murder threats. This seems to be the standard response to anybody who has an opinion and they don't like it. It's no longer…okay, I don't like your opinion… it's just like, no, I need to chop your head off.
Why do you think the chasm between the rational and irrational voices has narrowed so dangerously?
I don't know what has led to this, whether it is the complete degeneration of any and all sort of critical thinking and basic empathy in the past ten years, because I definitely don't think there were people like this who existed or maybe it was always like this and it's finally, the people are finally getting exposed. So it is a real thought, but I don't know, I mean, the sort of hate reaching the home. My children recently got abused for an opinion that my husband had about wearing the Mangal Sutra. There were these couple of men on Twitter spaces who said that women like me shouldn't have children and if we do, our children must immediately die. So those are the kind of men that are occupying these spaces. So it is, it is tough.
My God! How do you survive this toxicity?
We are wondering as parents how best to safeguard our kids from this in the future.
The problem is whatever opinion that we have at this point will be taken as contempt of court. But considering the recent journalistic report that the verdict was leaked to the accused almost a week or ten days before the verdict was actually released, it is indeed shameful. And that is more or less the reason why these are the reasons why women are not in a position to speak up against powerful men, because they (the men) have the clout, they have the contacts, they have the political power, tie-ups, money to be able to buy out anything and everything.
So in a country like India, everything is up for sale. It all has a price. Everything has a price. Very few people are not bikao (for sale). So, I think we were having this discussion earlier today that everybody, I think all of these political parties and politicians, all of them, whatever side they seem to be arguing on, end of the day, I think they are all hand in glove with each other. It is only the electorate who are being made fools, thinking that, oh my God, we are voting for this party and they are going to be doing this.
So, politicians, according to you, provide no space for fairplay?
No, I think they are all just generally one cohesive whole, pretending to have different role play and characters. I don't think there is really anybody who is actually incorruptible in this country except maybe… I don't know, I don't even know. I don't even want to give any sort of moral certificates, but I really feel I'm in a highly disillusioned space and with the people and how everybody is, it's really, really sad space to be in, which is why I think these days I don't really encourage or actively encourage women to take the legal route.
That’s a very strong statement
I will tell you why. One, it is time-consuming, second, it is money-consuming, three, the entire process will wear you out. And four, the more powerful, the richer person will always, almost always win, unless and until the plaintiff is lucky to have somebody who is a great lawyer, who is not double-crossing their own client. So many things like that, so many things, it's the entire process from lodging a police complaint to actually getting justice, is such a long-drawn process in this country. So, the process is the punishment.
The process is the punishment. So well put! Do you feel women in the entertainment industry or any industry would be respected more if they stand up for themselves?
I think women standing up for themselves will only lead to a lot more social media abuse if they are active on social media. Secondly, such women are called problematic or troublemakers and based on that, I don't think no matter what women do, they are not going to be respected in this society. I don't think a lot of us at this point, at least people who are in my age and we have seen and experienced a lot of misogyny, I don't think we are even seeking respect from anybody at this point. We want to live life in our own terms and we are not looking for outward or outside sort of validation to what we do. So, I don't really care whether somebody respects me or not. I will do and live life on my own terms and thankfully I have the luxury to do that. There are scores of women who don’t.
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