bollywood

Updated: Nov 25, 2017 18:13 IST

Actor Richa Chadha has never minced her words when it comes to addressing socially relevant issues. This time, she spills the beans on why Bollywood actors are afraid to complain about cases of sexual harassment, unlike Hollywood’s film fraternity (case in point: Harvey Weinstein scandal).

“You have to understand why people in Bollywood don’t speak up. They will lose their livelihood. How many powerful women has it taken for people to conclusively decide that Harvey Wienstine was a predator. That is how the case has become huge. If anyone, who didn’t have a career, had said it, people would’ve trashed her. In India, when there is a rape, what we hear first is, ‘what was she wearing?’ The culture of victim shaming is so strong here,” says Richa, who also wrote a blog to share her thought on the same case.

Talking about the campaign of #me too, where women spoke about their experience of harassment on social media, Richa says, “ We live in a culture of victim shaming. It’s like they will lose work. Who will take the responsibility of protecting them? Slowly we have to shift to a culture where it is from Me too to Him too, where people will have the strength to complain about others.”

The actor also feels that issues such as these take time to get resolved. “It won’t get over because it is not a temporary problem. It is an ecosystem which favours men who are in position as power. This is a very difficult situation to deal with and the ripple effect touches all other aspects of your career. This is also really difficult thing to deal with because it effects your current relationship, your relation with your sexuality and how people look at you,” says the actor.

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