EXCLUSIVE: Ridhi Dogra opens up about gender pay gap: Television is a sea-saw where male actors get a high pay and female actors get equally little

We all know about the gender pay gap that exists in Bollywood. Recently many actresses including Kangana Ranaut, Taapsee Pannu opened up about the pay discriminations kickstarting a fresh debate in the industry. However, we hardly hear a whisper about the same in the Television industry, which in fact is one of the biggest talent churning industry.

Taking the baton in her hand was Ridhi Dogra a well-known Television actress who took to Twitter to voice her opinion about her disagreement with the gender pay gap that exists in Television as well. The actor is currently being seen in the show Woh Apna Sa. 

In an interview with us, the actor spoke at length about the gender discrimination that female actors have to face in the industry and how production houses have been exploiting female talents. 

Here's an excerpt from the interview:

What's your take on the unfair gender pay gap in Television?

Ummm gender bias....You know it's absolutely correct to say that TV is women oriented and there is a lot of work for women and in that way, Television is great for female actors as you get to do a lot, unlike Bollywood. But something which is very very funny is that, instead of actually instead of giving actresses their due, Television to save their production cost what they do is they get one really popular male actor on board and they'll get an absolutely new actress to save cost.

In spite of Television revolving around women, it's the male actors that get paid way more than the female actors?

Basically, they do this kind of a see-saw, where if the male actor is getting paid a lot, then the female actor is getting equally little pay and it's really unfair. Mostly they pay the male actors more because they work less and I am not generalizing it. These are very specific stories that I know, I am married to a male actor, I know this really well and nobody can tell me that I am wrong because I know what happens.

And I don't know how that will change or you just have to go with the time or what. They play smart, I know of a lot of shows where as the main lead they get a new girl and they get a really popular male actor and they pay him so much money and the poor girl is getting nothing, and they will not get any of us established actors because we will also ask for that kind of money so instead they just go and get a new girl.

Have you ever let go of a show due to payment discrimination?

See as actors money is not the most important thing, there are other things that are important, you take up a project for a lot of things. If today some one is going to give me a lakh per episode and going to make me do something I hate doing I don't know if I'll be able to do it happily or for a long time. Maybe I'll do it and then go like dude I can't do this. Content is equally important. 

I don't know much about Bollywood but in Television the gender inequality scene is very different as there are a lot of people who are readily available for casting agents and channels and production houses. 

There are a lot of people who'll do anything to just be seen on Television. 'Acting aati hai ya nai aati hai 'that's really not important and that's very unfair'. 

In the first place what's really unfair is you make your actors sit at home and then get new people on board who don't even know acting. It's like you train people how to act and then you make them sit at home.

Do you think TV is exploring a little when it comes to content?

TV is not exploring, to be honest, It's just lazy with content I don't think they are exploring because exploring would really require you to work your brain cells and come up with something interesting, just like how we admire shows abroad and that's because abroad they really rack their brains on the content, the story telling etc. But here there are too many people with too many opinions and no body wants to give suggestions due to their ego issues or not wanting to make someone feel bad.

Recently, when Karan Wahi made a remark about the show (Pehredaar Piya Ki), a lot of people got upset with him. But why? If you can make a show that you can then you should be okay with what the people have to say about it.

Nobody wants to look at the quality of content, everybody is taking Television more like a business now that oh we have to come up with a new show, some content but unfortunately anywhere in the world if you go to see creativity needs time.