Stop Making Irresponsible Statements Glorifying Long Hours Spent At Work!

[First published in Women's Web]

Anjali joined an investment bank after completing her MBA. She was living in a shared flat with two other women. They all worked hard and partied harder. This was the life she had dreamt of since her parents enrolled her in the IIT coaching classes, and she loved it. Two years later, she married her batchmate. They moved into their own 2 BHK, but nothing else changed for them. They had a housekeeper who would come in during the day and a cook who took care of dinner. Saturdays were reserved for grocery shopping and other odd jobs, and they had Sundays to themselves. Anjali never understood why some women complained about work-life balance. As far as she was concerned, women could have it all. Wasn’t she proof of it?

But… can women really have it all?

Once she turned 30, Anjali, who till them had ignored all the aunties who kept asking her when she was going to give “good news” became acutely conscious of the ticking of the bio clock. She worked through the first two trimesters of her pregnancy, and kept working almost till her due date. Once the baby came, she engaged a full-time nanny and focussed on training her so she could get back to work at the end of her maternity leave.

Things went well for during the first week. She gradually eased back into her role. Since she was still breast feeding, she used a breast pump to express milk twice during the work day. She left on time, and managed to beat the traffic and return home in time for the late evening feed.

Her commitment to work questioned, her time and labour taken for granted

But the good times didn’t last.

Soon Anjali started hearing comments like “so you are leaving early today, are you?” and “have you taken a half day today?” when she was logging off after completing all her pending jobs. She held back from reminding them that unlike them, she hadn’t taken multiple coffee breaks- she had just worked more productively than they had, and finished on time.

“Anjali, there is a team meeting scheduled for 7 pm. You will have to stay back for it”, her line manager informed her when she was getting ready to leave. The meeting could have been easily scheduled during working hours, but she couldn’t say much since she was the only one who was affected. Gradually, she saw that the plum assignments were going to other people. Though productivity had never been an issue, the organization had decided that she was less “committed” after she became a mother.

She also realised that in the few months that she had been on maternity leave, the dynamics with her husband had changed. She had taken on more domestic responsibilities since she “was at home”, and he stopped doing some of his jobs because there was “full-time help” at home. Her husband doted on their child, but she was clearly “primary parent”, and that she would be the one who would be expected to prioritise the child over all else. Anjali loved her job and didn’t want to drop out, but she recognised that things were no longer what they were before. Without her intending it to be that way, she would forever be thrown into situations where she would be forced to choose between home and work. Women could not have it all!

We all know the Anjalis in our lives

If Anjali’s story sounds familiar, it is because each of us know several Anjalis. It is extremely hard for employees to find a work-life balance in organizations which place a disproportionate emphasis on “commitment” defined in terms of the number of hours spent at the workplace. This affects all employees, but takes a greater toll on women since society expects women to bear the primary responsibility for housekeeping, childrearing and caregiving.

In general, when men return home after a 12 or 14 hour workday (including commuting time), they can expect to have a warm dinner waiting for them; women would have to cook/ heat the dinner, feed the kids, supervise homework and plan for the next day before eating. Is it any wonder that women consciously or unconsciously slow down their careers because they cannot do it all?

Women drop off the workforce as they go up in seniority

A few years back, I had analysed the gender data for my team. We had nearly 50% representation of women at the entry level, but the percentage dropped to 33% at the next level, and it kept dropping till we had only one woman at the managerial level. This is the case across industries. Though the percentage of women at entry level may be high, the number keeps dropping, and there are barely any women in the corner offices.

This is certainly not because women are less competent than men- they aren’t. But one of the determining reasons is that women are not able to balance the insane time demands of the workplace with the personal responsibilities placed on them (there are many other systemic reasons for women dropping out, but this is certainly one of them).

Irresponsible statements by industry leaders make things worse for women

It is in light of this that statements like the one made by Narayana Murthy about ‘youngsters having to work 70 hours a week’ are so problematic. Male or female, expecting people to work 70 hours a week is moronic. Assuming 2 hours per day to commute to work, and 6 hours of sleep every day, you are left with 6 hours a day for everything else. Eating, attending to personal hygiene, dressing, paying bills, everything in just 6 hours a day. Even assuming you have a full-time housekeeper cum cook who takes care of all your requirements, you are left with virtually no time for exercise, friends, hobbies or even watching and discussing cricket. Yes, Narayana Murthy specified that this is only in the initial years while a person is establishing their career, but is such a lifestyle sustainable, much less desirable?

And what about the women whose lives will be made worse by these expectations?

Women face so many barriers while seeking a professional education and a career- will that not become worse if parents know that their daughters are expected to work 70 hours a week? Men have the privilege to focus on their career, because even if they get married, nothing will change for them. However, women will be subject to intense parental pressure to quit their jobs because a 70 hour work week would make them undesirable in the marriage market. Even if women fend off the pressure and work those 70 hour work weeks, will they be able to enjoy the benefit of that investment after they get married and have children?

There are people who say that women can choose to focus on the careers by not getting married/ having babies. While this is certainly possible, is it fair that only women are confronted with this choice? Even men who are fully focussed on their career get married and have children- neither of those life events disrupts their career progression. Why then should only women be expected to choose one or the other?

Long hours do not necessarily mean better productivity

What is needed to redress the gender balance is a two pronged strategy- companies realising that long hours do not necessarily imply greater productivity, and societal acceptance that caregiving, housekeeping and childrearing are gender agnostic.

Countries like the Netherlands and other Scandinavian and West European countries have shown that the introduction of flexible work hours has not resulted in a dip in productivity. Instead, if the focus remains on the output rather than the hours spent at work, productivity has gone up because there is an incentive to complete the job in the least possible time. These are also the countries where both partners share housekeeping, caregiving and childrearing in a more equitable manner, leaving both men and women with more time for leisure.

Countries like India where “hard work” is prioritised and where young people are brought up on the mantra of “work hard now so you reap rewards later”, are also countries which have low labour force participation by women and are extremely low on the happiness index. If we want the nation to progress, instead of glorifying 70 hour work weeks, we should be seeking greater productivity in white collar industries.

[Disclaimer: these are “first world” problems, and are largely restricted to the urban professional worker in corporate and in service industries. However many of these issues would similarly translate into other settings.]

Book Review: Anandibai Joshee: A Life in Poems

 

We have all heard about Dr. Anandibai Joshi, the first Indian woman to cross the Atlantic and to study medicine at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Married off to a widower many years a senior, she was 12 or 14 when she gave birth to a son who died even before his naming ceremony could be performed. It was this tragedy that drove home the fact that Indian women didn’t have access to modern medical care, and led to Anandibai defying tradition and going to the United States to become a “lady doctor”. Sadly, she died soon after she returned to India, which ensured that her husband directed the telling of her legacy.

According to the popular narrative, it was Anandibai’s husband who was a progressive zealot obsessed with ensuring she became a doctor. He was, apparently a controlling husband, who didn’t shy away from inflicting physical violence on his young wife to ensure she studied well. Her success, according to this narrative, was entirely scripted by her husband.

But who was Anandibai Joshee?
However, is that the truth? Was Anandibai merely a puppet who was directed by her husband? Could a woman completely lacking in agency have managed to survive (and even thrive) two years in a completely alien environment without giving up her identity? Did Anandibai have dreams and aspirations of her own, or did she merely do whatever her husband directed her to do?

These are the questions that Shikha Malaviya attempts to address in ‘Anandibai Joshee: A Life in Poems’. In this poetic biography, the narrative is centred around Anandibai, and the picture that emerges is of a strong young woman who knows exactly what she wants, and who is willing to make small compromises without losing the essence of who she is.

The book traces the development of Anandibai through poetry
Through this collection of poems, the poet, story traces the development of Anandibai from the time when she was a young girl to her last days.

The eight year old who sits on a swing and says:

“pumping my legs furiously
to see how high I could go
braids flying, skirt rippling, sun winking
toes trying to touch the sky
my only witness a green pigeon
whose wings I conspired to steal”

The nine year old who looks her 26 year old prospective groom in the eye and says, “Majhe nav Yamuna Ganpatrao Joshee aahe”.

The young woman who’s leaking breasts remind her of the baby she lost even before the 11th day when they were to name him, and to whom she says:

“through your loss I find purpose
my son with no name birthing a dream
and I volunteer myself to my countrywomen
as I take the oath of Hippocrates
to heal and heal, to do no harm, to don
the white coat only men have worn”

The Anandibai who emerges from the pages of the book is not a woman in need of a saviour. Her husband may have wanted her to become the first lady doctor in India, but it was a dream she dreamt too, and she was the only one who made it happen.

The book dwells deep into who the person behind the legend was
The conflict between the fears and ambitions of Anandibai’s husband and her are brought out beautifully in the poem “LOVE ACROSS BLACK WATERS”, written in the form of letters crossing before they reach. While the first letters are of a proud husband and a wife who misses him, his tone soon changes:

“What I was afraid of has happened
all I taught you undone like a knot
style of saree altered, and what next?
Will the next photograph be of you in Western dress?”

In the letter that crosses this, she writes:

“my integrity greatly measured from such a long distance
under your able guidance I thrive in this new land
I never tire of upholding my native
all during the day a saree draped on my person.”

The contrast between the two cannot be starker. He is jealous and fearful of losing control over her. She is full of hope. She knows she made compromises where she had to, but also knows she remains true to who she is. He was not, however, able to tolerate the woman she was growing into when far away from him. This is not the tale of a young girl moulded by her husband; this is the story of a woman who grabs whatever opportunities she can without losing a sense of who she is.

The book is rooted in feminism
This is an unabashedly feminist retelling of the story of Dr. Anandibai Joshi, and the very first poem sets the tone for what is to follow:

OUTSIDE THE CHAUKAT
Kalyan, Maharashtra, Nineteenth Century

If you want to know what happens in this bustling town by the sea, Kalyan, which in Sanskrit means well-being but whose shores have thrice been plundered by the Mughals, the Portuguese, and the British, despite the shade of a fortress and a long city wall with four gates and eleven towers, whose welfare is erased and renamed Kallian and Cullian
-ask the men, for they are the ones who wear shoes that take them outside the chaukat. They are the lucky ones, who, donning their turbans, smell the dung of many homes, hear the hum of horses hooves, darken their hands with the ink of newsprint, read the khabar of the day while sitting on a jhopala in the courtyard, dragging a puff from a gurgling hookah
- whereas the women tiptoe softly, their bare soles hardened walking from kitchen-to-cowshed-to well, fingertips charred from stoking the chulha, thoughts spilling over like water from vessels balanced on their heads, of what lies beyond a door frame, that make a splash and then evaporate

When she moves to Philadelphia, she encounters other kinds of inequities. She wonders if the people around her see her as a person or as a curiosity. She muses about whether she is fundamentally different from the freaks she saw in a circus. When she visits the boarding school at Carlisle where Native Americans were sent to so their traditional ways could be replaced by modern European thoughts, she cherishes the fact that she was able to hold onto her apparel, her food and her spiritual views, even while getting a modern education.

‘Anandibai Joshee: A Life in Poems’ is an important book to read, because it goes beyond the bare facts of the life of one of India’s pioneering women. While it draws on letters, journals, articles and old photographs, by using Anandibai’s voice and the medium of poetry, the book centres the narrative on the woman, her thoughts, her challenges, and how she reacts to the environment of her times. This is certainly a book I will be recommending to many of my friends.

Claudia Goldin’s Nobel Prize in Economics highlights gender inequity in the labour market

 

“There are still large differences between women and men in terms of what they do, how they’re remunerated and so on. And the question is, why is this the case? And that’s what the work is about.”

- Claudia Goldin

Claudia Goldin became the third woman, after Elinor Ostrom and Esther Duflo to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and the first woman to be an individual winner. This takes the percentage of women awardees (in Economics) up from 2.17% to 3.23%, which is nearly a 50% increase. But that is the not the only reason we should be celebrating the win of the 77 year old economic historian and labour economist from Harvard University. We should be celebrating because Claudia Goldin was awarded the Prize for “having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes’.

Globally, labour force participation of women is about 50% while that of men is closer to 80%. Even when women work, they are often paid less than men performing an equivalent job. Claudia Goldin’s research examines the source of these gender differences and throws up insights into the role of women in the labour market.

Historical data shows patterns of inequity in labour markets

By looking at available historical data, it was assumed that female participation in the labour force started going up in the 20th century and it was assumed that there was a positive co-relation between economic growth and female participation in the workplace. By studying the historical data in greater detail, Goldin concluded that the participation of women in the work force was grossly underreported, especially for married women where the occupation was simply captured as ‘wife’. She also found that when workplaces shifted from home/ near home to a factory after the Industrial Revolution, the participation of women in the labour force went down drastically, and it started picking up only after the rise of the service industry.

By studying the female participation in the labour market for different cohorts, Goldin confirmed what was already known- that even if women entered the labour market, they dropped out after marriage and childbirth. Her research, however, threw up an additional insight- when women tried to re-enter the labour market after their children were grown up, their options were restricted by the educational choices they had made 2 decades ago. This was a vicious cycle, because the educational decisions had been taken at a time when women did not expect to continue working after marriage and childbirth, and the fact that they were have desirable educational qualifications later proved to be an impediment to their participation in the labour force market.

The power of contraceptive pills in improving participation of women in the workplace

From the 1960s onwards, the relatively easier availability of contraceptive pills ensured that women were able to delay marriage and childbirth, which ensured that more women entered the workforce, particularly in fields like medicine, law and economics which involved an extended professional training. However, despite the entry of professionally qualified women the wage gap between men and women remained. Goldin looked at data from a range of sources, and found that the gender pay gap could not be explained by factors like age, education or productivity. Her research showed what we now take as common knowledge- that employees with long and uninterrupted careers tend to get higher wages, and that salaries are often decided based on the perception of how long a particular employee will work with the firm. Goldin’s research clearly showed that, in the United States, the difference in income starts out being fairly small, but that both earnings and rate of growth of earnings fall after women have their first child.

Goldin’s work both highlights causes of inequity and offers a framework for solutions

It is largely because of the pioneering work of Claudia Goldin that we are able to understand the demands of the contemporary labour markets. When employees are expected to be constantly available and flexible to the demands of the employer, women who have greater responsibilities at home lose out on both career progression and earnings.

Goldin provided the background against which policymakers can try to create legislation to remove/ reduce these institutional barriers. It is because of her work that we now know that educational attainment alone doesn’t do much to reduce the earning gap- what is of greater importance is the opportunity to plan and finance a return to the labour force after having children, or to have greater flexibility at work.

By awarding the Nobel Prize to Claudia Goldin, and acknowledging her work on ‘advancing our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes’, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has put the gender inequity in the labour market in the spotlight. This should, hopefully, start more conversations on what policy makers and corporates can do to ensure that women’s labour is acknowledged and rewarded.

Book Review: Tiger Season, Gargi Rawat

 

Sunaina Joshi is a reporter with a news channel covering urban centric health related issues, but her heart is with the great outdoors and she keeps submitting proposal after proposal for reporting on wildlife and environmental related issues. She gets a great opportunity when her news channel is commissioned to run a campaign on tiger conservation, featuring a Bollywood actor trying to resurrect his image after a scandal.

There are clear parallels between the protagonist and the author, Gargi Rawat, who has been reporting on the environment and wildlife conversation for many years, and she uses the novel to create awareness about wildlife conservation, the role of the forest department (especially the forest guards), responsible wildlife tourism and the need to understand the the nature of man-tiger conflict before commenting on it. Many animal lovers (me included) have signed petition, retweeted hashtags and otherwise agitated for saving individual tigers, without understanding of the backdrop against which most of these conversations play out. By integrating it into the storyline of the novel and using that to develop the story arc, the author personalises the issue and ensures that we understand it in a manner which we might otherwise not have.

While wildlife conservation the soul of the novel, the author also touches on several other issues- the fickleness of social media, activism for sale, the intrusive nature of media, even expectations from and guilt of children!

There is also a romance- the character starts out as a Mr. Darcy, but it is impossible not to love someone who apologises as often and as honestly as he does. The protagonist is entirely believable and loveable- that she is fuelled by her passion and coffee makes her a firm favourite of mine. There is a large cast of characters, but they are all so human that it is impossible to dislike any of them.

Overall, it was an enjoyable book- an entirely “unpreachy” one.