“I am a feminist and my feminism started with a fish fry,” that’s how Malayalam actress Rima Kallingal started her TEDx Talk on ‘Changing Gender Discrimination in the Movie Industry.’ The event was recently held in Thiruvananthapuram.
She recounted an incident from her childhood when her mother made fish fry but only to serve the male members of the family. It made her think about the role and importance given to women in a family and the society. She goes on to talk about the current work climate in the Malayalam film industry and the kind of hurdles that female artistes have to overcome in order to remain in the industry.
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“When I walked into this film industry I was greeted with words like shelf-life, adjust, compromise, smile more. But most often to dumb down,” she says. Kallingal pointed out that surviving the industry is very hard especially for women who question. She also talked about the pay gap, roles for older women, abuse on social media and how women are constantly suppressed.
She even talked about forming the Women Collective of Cinema and the controversy around Dileep and the abduction and sexual assault of the Malayalam actress. She concluded her speech with a quote from Sivaji Ganeshan’s Thevar Magan and said:
“We sow the seeds today and they will reap the fruits tomorrow and then it will be their daughters, and their daughters. We might not be around to see it, but we will be the one who sowed the seeds for them.”