Speaking at a forum on women’s rights at the Sime Darby Convention Centre here today, Faridah said the performing arts was one business where both men and women are treated equally.

“In performing arts we work side by side and a person is judged based on the quality of his or her work and his or her merit. Not his or her sex,” said Faridah, who is the co-founder of The Actor’s Studio..

On the question of whether or not a person’s appearance had anything to do with how far a theatre actor could go, Faridah denied this as well.

“It is not even the beauty of a person’s face that concerns us. It may be that way for television and film, which is sad, but we are very pleased with the way the Malaysian performing arts scene is going.”

She said the only issue with the performing arts currently was the segregation in terms of races.

“There is the Malay theatre, the Chinese theatre, and we don’t even see a Tamil theatre anywhere,” she said.

She also said it was disappointing that the audience was more frequently made up of women than men.

“We now have this job of getting menfolk to appreciate the arts. Usually it’s the wife who will invite their husbands to see the show, which he will reject because apparently he’s too ‘busy’.

“This must change. It’s sad when you hear from the women that they’ve come alone because their husbands couldn’t make it.”