Kanika Dhillon on how men doubt a woman’s success: ‘First thing that they’ll say is oh, has she slept her way up?’

Screenwriter Kanika Dhillon says that she was harassed and propositioned early in her career. The writer of acclaimed films such as Manmarziyaan, Judgementall Hai Kya and more recently, Netflix’s Guilty, says she ‘wanted to leave this industry and go.’

Kanika talked to News18 about the inequality she faced in the industry when she was starting off. “Forget the paycheck, there were times when I started out that I wanted to leave this industry and go. I was harassed; I was propositioned; I was made to feel that the only way I’m good enough is to have a happy face around; I was made to feel that I’m being kept around because I was easy on the eyes,” she said. “Since I have been made to feel so unworthy because of my sex, I hit back harder, and today, I want to charge the maximum that I can. Today, I’m amongst the highest paid writers in the industry because that’s where I wanted to be. And that is something I promised myself because I was made to feel victimised, harassed and not good enough,” she added.

 

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Kanika also talked about how men refuse to attribute a woman’s success to her talent. “Across the world and especially in India, men refuse to acknowledge that a woman is doing well in her life because of her talent. Somehow the first thing that they’ll say is, ‘Oh, has she slept her way up?’ I feel that the men who gossip like this, they actually do it in real life. They think that sleeping their way up is a great way to do it, hence you are projecting it on other people’s success and validating the other person’s position,” she said. “So next time when you hear a man of this industry, cracking a joke that ‘I think this woman is sleeping her way up,’ immediately know that this man is a predator. And, this judgment is something that women face across the world. Men judge them more because they get very insecure and scared,” she added.

Also read: Dhaakad shelved because Manikarnika was a flop, says Ahmed Khan, apologises after Rangoli Chandel calls him ‘atrocious filmmaker’

In another interview with IANS, Kanika talked about how men and women are both equally responsible propagating rape culture. “The rape culture is prevalent in our country because, after committing the heinous crime, the criminal feels protected and women teach other women to practice the culture of silence. So, men and women are collectively responsible for every rape that happens everywhere — women who protect a man who has committed the crime and shame the victim, and men who think rape is the way to control women who break the norms of patriarchy,” she said.

Kanika, along with Atika Chohan and director Ruchi Narain, wrote the story of Guilty around the central character Nanki, played by Kiara Advani. In the film, Nanki’s boyfriend is accused of rape.

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