When Kareena Kapoor Recently Spoke Of The Pay Gap; Demanded Payment Equal To Akshay Kumar…

The gender pay gap is very real, and it exists not just among ordinary women, but also celebrities. Not just in India, but everywhere. This must change.

India is a country with changing dynamics every second and is dealing with developing nation problems as well as Global issues. In these changing dynamics, there is one thing which is constant- Gender disparity.

Yes, 21-century women in India is still not considered at par with men, even if she proves herself with equal talent and brains. I recently read that top Bollywood actress, Kareena Kapoor demanded equal pay as her co-star Akshay Kumar is getting. I see no reason why this demand should not be made but I do feel it’s unfortunate that even Kareena had to demand this pay equality.

Some numbers to mull over

Let’s look into a few startling data, which might burst the empowered women bubble.

65% of women are literate as compared to 80% Men in India.

India has amongst the lowest female labour force participation rates in the world. Less than a third of women are working or actively looking for a job.

According to a recent Economic Times report, women in India earn 19% less than men, reflecting the high gender pay gap in the country, according to the latest Monster Salary Index the gap has narrowed merely by 1% in 2018 from 20% a year ago.

Get ready to gasp –

According to the latest survey men get paid Rs 242 every hour, women earn Rs 46 less!

Now, this is disturbing as well as disheartening.

A need to break the glass ceiling

What is needed to break the glass ceiling?

Women decide to get educated, though with a lot of struggle and handling the prejudices and judgements by the society on her thoughts and choice of career.

Oh! Before I forget, her timings and her attitude to life, length of her clothes, and how many male friends she has and how what and when she talks to them all deciding for her being sanskaari or a slut!

She finishes off her studies thanks to her grit as well as a subtle change in the thought process of parents too. (Ah, the well, educated matrimonial column too has something to contribute to it, but I don’t want to deviate from the topic!)

After all these, she reaches a place of her choice to work and make a difference in society, her life and of course GDP of the country for which she’s paid less as compared to her counterpart male.

Why this discrimination?

Many people might not agree with seeing the noise around how women are now more feminist owing to financial independence as major reason for this newfound voice!

Which in turn is making the social fabric a bit imbalanced (Ahem… quite imbalanced as women are not ready to take this nonsense, obviously).

I don’t know what exactly is “more feminist kind”. We are born with feminist traits, believe me. We are born with all the ‘Devi’ traits who was the earliest feminist.

So we are doing nothing new in asking equality. We never say we can get away without men, but the ratio of female foeticide clearly shows what society prefers. Now when we struggle with so many ifs and buts, and still reach to our dreams, this glass ceiling of paycheque disparity hurts real bad.

At one point we are busy talking of the arrival of ‘new-age women’, and on the other hand, we are still struggling with gender disparity even at the level when women have proven their worth to br equal to their male counterpart.

Yes, I know we are struggling with chances.

We are struggling for opportunities.

We are still struggling to raise our voice.

We are struggling with taking up issues which affects us directly.

But someone somewhere has to start!

No discrimination here.

Equal work, equal pay!

No dilemmas, please.

Sarita Nirjhra

Co-Founder KalaManthan "An Art Platform" An Equalist. Proud woman. Love to dwell upon the

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