Few days back I was trying to collect some stats on unpaid work.
As I am moving up the ladder in my industry, I see women are getting rarer. In corporate sector the senior leadership shares the data along with some insight. We get to hear lot of women these days start their career but leave mid way. Only a few stay back. Even they stay happy with just a job and don’t try much to move up the ladder.
Recently many women opened up about the sexual harassments at work after the #MeToo movement tide hit the social media. In turn men in power openly issued instructions to avoid women at work as much as possible. In the name of segregation, this disturbing trend might end up in gender discrimination.
Industry wide data shows women don’t hop jobs frequently. In our country women are taught to accommodate family priorities first. They generally change or quit jobs in the events like marriage, child birth, spouse’s transfer etc. Industry can benefit from hiring women as they make loyal workers. Not only that, these days lots of researches suggest that diversity is good for business as it helps us see things from multiple perspectives. So we are observing diversity drives to improve gender ratio in the organizations. But even after all that we don’t see many women making it to senior positions.
To ensure safe workplace for women, we need some policy changes across the industry. In order to do that, we need loud female voice in the leadership. Due to very feeble presence of women there, we don’t see much change in the policies. Only a few women making to the top doesn’t make much difference in the life of the rest. Those few might feature in reputed magazines and spread superwoman vibes, leaving all of us feeling inferior.
Now let me talk about money. Women at all levels get paid much lower than their male peers. Why? Well, corporate houses say, we women don’t step out of our comfort zone, we don’t jump to take risks or additional responsibilities, we don’t want to stretch to learn new things etc. Bottom line women are not ambitious enough. Really?
I worked 21 days at a stretch during my pregnancy without any break, even in weekends. I topped competency exams in my vertical consistently, I participated in hackathons and got awarded. Back at home my family screamed, I am too ambitious to be a good wife and a good mother! At work I got to hear we are not ambitious enough!
At workplace I have been observing a few women from close. What I see is quite shocking. All of them are working way too hard beyond their professional responsibilities and hence they cannot stretch any further. They get exhausted draining all their energy and end of the day they are forced to kill all their dreams. For past ten years or so I have been working in teams where I am the only female employee. I see men come to work with their lunch boxes. They don’t mind staying back after office hours. Sometimes they go to smoke, drink or work out in gym after office hours. All the family responsibilities, including filling the lunch boxes, are taken care by their homemaker wives. Women like me take food at desk, if possible, to make it real quick. They rush to catch the office shuttle to reach home.
Everyday men get up, take shower and breakfast, pick up the filled lunch boxes and start for work. Women get up when it is still dark, they finish all the chores and cook for the family, fill lunch boxes and then rush to work. After work men reach home and get food ready, women go to kitchen and cook for the family. I have worked in south India for 12 long years. All my female colleagues shared the same story. In the office restroom I found women wearing lenses, combing hair as they don’t find time at home. Even after all that they are torn apart if they fail to meet family expectations.
When I first moved to south India, I saw almost 50% of the workforce consists of women. They are all highly qualified and they earn well to run the family on their own. Still they had no voice in the decision making, neither at home, nor at work. Their family decides the fate of their career. One of my colleagues was forced to go to onsite, leaving her one month old baby to earn extra cash. Another one was forced to quit after she gave birth to her second child.
In the matrimony market we see mostly Indian men seek academically qualified homemaker wives. Well, if you get a lot of cash as dowry and a free servant for life, you will be happy no doubt. Dominating and dictating an independent woman is obviously difficult. For the middle class, the inflation and recession being the pain in the ass, families these days are kind of ok to send the women to work. But hardly women receive any support and motivation to move ahead in career. Instead they are appreciated for their culinary skills. A homemaker woman, toiling day and night in kitchen to serve exotic dishes to her family, gets glorified, setting an inhuman benchmark for rest of the women.
Then come the superwomen. Remember the interview of Indra Nooyi in Forbes? She slept only 4 hours a day! Well, she might manage to stay up and glowing in a hectic schedule like that but we, average women, need food and sleep to run the show. She had her mom at her place to take care of her children and her spouse was also supporting her. How many working women in India are privileged to have the resources and support system like her? My family refused to stay with me to look after my child. There were days when I had brunch instead of breakfast and lunch just to reduce the number of dishes I had to wash.
The independent single or divorced women are obviously the eye sore to the society. Men at work keep telling me how nicely their wives enjoy the time watching tv after lunch while I toil at work. Even happily married homemaker women criticize working women. Stay at home moms are all noble and working moms are all very selfish. Even after I struggle a lot to balance work and family, I never regret my decision to choose this life.
Why women don’t want to work outside home? I found a few reasons. 1. Their husbands earn a lot that they can outsource the chores and enjoy doing nothing. 2. They cannot afford to work double shift. 3. Some women have lost the confidence that they can have a full time career of their own. 4. Men are paid more for the same job.
In India pay gap is 34% now and 75% women don’t work. We all know men will never want to leave the legacy of privilege to bridge the gap. But women? We are all suffering. For so many years now. How long shall we serve the selfish men and live in false glory of sacrifice?
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