Rima Kallingal
Rima KallingalRima Kallingal/Facebook

Mollywood actress Rima Kallingal, who never shies away from speaking her mind, has lashed out at the gender discrimination in the film industry. The actress has always tried to expose the pay disparity between male and female film artists while slamming the typecasting of actresses in films. The video of her latest speech, in which she explains how she became a feminist, has gone viral.

Rima Kallingal took the stage at TEDx Talks at Thiruvananthapuram recently where she spoke at length on the issues that plagued Malayalam film industry since its inception. The actress begins her speech from an incident that she experienced at her home when she was 12. "I am a feminist, and my feminism started with a fish fry," she said. 

"My mom is serving food and never in her entire life has it occurred to her that she can actually sit down along with us and we can all serve our own food. But that story is for another day. And today she does three fish fries and she makes sure that the oldest one at the table and the two men at the table get one each. The 12-year-old me sees this and weeps.

I am deeply hurt and I demand to know why I am not considered deserving of the fish fry. My family is shocked but my mom is flabbergasted. She could not fathom why I was overreacting because she probably never got fish fries in her entire life. But then that's how my journey of questions began,"

The actress also recalled the incident when she was banned by theatre owners' union for anchoring a TV show. "... And they banned me. No conversation. No discussion. They just banned me. I got to know about it only on the evening news. No kidding. Nevertheless, I persisted. I questioned the ban then I flout the ban and I am still here," she adds.

The actress claims that she was greeted with words like "shelf-life, adjust, compromise, smile more" when she entered film industry and was asked to dumb down on many occasions. As a result, every year the industry witnesses about ten actors working with 150 actresses!

The 33-year-old veers the conversation into the comments that actresses get on social media sites. "Social media abuse on women is alarming right now but if any of you want to feel any better, please listen to the comments section of an actress's Facebook profile. They kind of have our whole life figured out because they tell us what to wear, what to do, how to act, how to behave as a woman, a daughter in law, a wife. The life lessons that you want, come to a comments section and you will also get to know all the different sexual positions that they would like to rape us in."

Rima Kallingal points out that female actors receive only a third of the remuneration that their male colleagues get and wonders why Vishaka guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court against workplace sexual harassment was not implemented in an industry that pays 40 percent of entertainment tax to the government.

Watch the Remaining Part of her Her Speech