How Close are we to a Gender Just Workplace?

 A couple of years back, when I reached office after attending an International Women’s Day event, my team surprised me with a huge bouquet of baby pink roses and a beautiful handmade card inscribed with thoughtful messages. I was thrilled- who wouldn’t be to receive such a token of affection from their team. But after the mandatory photographs were taken, and I sat back with my coffee, the subtle scent of the roses almost seemed to mock me.

Yes, I was leading an entire region. But was the fact that I was the only woman in the regional office really a matter of pride? At the entry level, nearly a third of the staff was female; why then were we so poorly represented at the managerial level?

I thought of the lady who had put in her papers two weeks earlier when her mother fell ill. Her brother couldn’t look after her, so she had to take a break to be a full time caregiver. Neither she nor I knew when she would be back in the formal workforce, and how long she would remain there before another family emergency demanded a sacrifice.

I though of the young lady who had dazzled me during the interview process. I really wanted to recruit her, but she had backed out when informed that she would need to travel for a week at a time once every quarter; she had young children and while she was willing to work long hours and on weekends, she couldn’t travel for more than a day or two at a time.

I thought of the young lady who would hop onto her two-wheeler and zip down district highways to monitor the rural programmes. Her parents worried about her safety and forced her to leave the job she loved and take up one in retail marketing instead.

I had tried really hard to bring more women into the management team, and the sweet smell of roses constantly reminded me of my failure.

But was the lack of gender diversity at my office my failing, or was it symptomatic of a larger problem? The latter, according to all the studies on employment in India. According to the NSS (National Sample Survey), for instance, as of January 2018, 77% of the Indian workforce is male. This figure includes not just formal and full-time employment, but also casual labourers, part time workers, self employed and even those helping in family enterprises with or without a formal contract.

The reason for this gap is simple. In India, housework, child care and elderly care is seen as the sole responsibility of the women, and Indian women put in as much as 3.29 billion hours of unpaid labour everyday. These activities are both unpaid and unrecognised, and after discharging these responsibilities, women simply do not have the time to seek paid employment elsewhere.* While young women certainly have aspirations of working and being financially independent, most women drop out of the formal workforce after they get married either because of societal expectations or because they are just not able to manage to balance full time work with housework and caregiving.

As in the case of my former colleague, elder care is automatically assumed to be the responsibility of the women, and women are forced to sacrifice their careers if either a parent or a parent-in-law falls ill.

Parenthood is the next barrier that working women have to cross. While many women continue to work well into the third trimester of the first pregnancy, in the absence of adequate childcare felicities at the workplace, and given the fact that child-rearing is still considered the prime responsibility of the mother, very few are able to get back to full-time paid employment. Since few workplaces allow flexible working hours, work from home options or part time employment, most women end up taking a career break after they give birth, and this break often ends up being a permanent one.

Women who do re-enter the workplace after childbirth are often forced to compromise on their career progression since they are unable to work long hours and travel extensively. The additional responsibility of child rearing also limits the choices available to women, particularly mothers of younger children.

Workplace safety is another factor that affects women’s participation in the workplace. Women are discouraged from entering many fields, or taking up certain roles that are deemed unsuitable for them. Engineering is one such field. Though almost a third of engineering graduates in India are women, very few take up engineering jobs and many of them drop out because working conditions are not conducive to women. Women are also discouraged from taking up jobs that involve travel, and this pushback comes both from their families and from prospective employers.

Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is a measure of the number of people who are employed and actively seeking employment. In 2018-19, in urban India, LFPR for men was 73.8%, and for women 21.1%. This implies that four out of every five women are not only not engaged in paid employment, they are not even actively seeking employment.

The situation in my office was not an aberration; it was clearly a reflection of prevailing norms. It is a very small percentage of women who join the formal workplace, and a smaller percentage who continue in the workplace.

One way to increase the gender diversity is for organizations to adopt policies that encourage women to remain in the workplace. This involves setting up childcare facilities in the office premises, offering flexitime, part time and work from home opportunities, and encouraging all employees (not just the women) to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Other measures like period leave, sick leave for illnesses of children will also make it easier to retain women in the workplace.

However, ultimately, it is societal expectations that need to change. Families need to realise that housework, caregiving and childrearing are not gendered roles, and that both partners should participate equally in both. It is only when men start taking on greater responsibility at home that the workforce participation of women will increase and they will be able to achieve their full potential.

In an ideal world, the roses I received on International Women’s Day should be distributed between all the employees, male and female, to celebrate a gender just workplace.

* According to reports, regardless of their professional qualifications and/ or experience, seven out of ten women in India aged between 25 to 35 are engaged solely in full-time unpaid housework, and 66% of an Indian woman’s labour is unpaid.

First published in Women's Web

Is Bismah Maroof Bringing Her Baby To The World Cup Really A Statement Of Gender Empowerment?

 [While praising Bismah Maroof for bringing her baby on tour, gender stereotypes are actually being reinforced. It's assumed that as the mother she is the primary parent, something we never assume for male sportspersons. First published in Women's Web]

Photographs of the Pakistani cricket captain Bismah Maroof arriving in New Zealand for the ICC Women’s World Cup with her six month old baby in her arms went viral on social media. People went crazy hailing it as a “powerful picture”, the “best picture of the day” and “powerful statement”. Some even expressed the desire that it be “normalised in sports”.

While one, without reservation, admires Bismah Maroof’s achievement of getting back to competitive sport so soon after pregnancy and childbirth, is the fact that the cricketer had to take her baby on tour with her really the statement of gender empowerment that it is made out to be?

While praising Bismah Maroof for bringing her baby on tour, gender stereotypes are actually being reinforced. It is being implicitly assumed that mother is the primary parent for a child, and that once she gives birth, anything else that a woman might want to do can only be taken up after fulfilling her role as a mother. This has always been the case at least in the subcontinent, and what she has done is merely in keeping with the old patriarchal traditions.

Playing international cricket, especially as captain is a full-time job. You have to practice for long hours, lead strategy sessions, play matches, give post-match press conferences and provide moral support to the rest of the team. To do all that, and also be a caregiver for a child is to demand too much from anyone. And that is exactly what Bismah Maroof will be forced to do.

In an ideal relationship, parenting will be gender agnostic. It would be a responsibility shared equally by both parents, and at any point, the one who is better placed to be the primary caregiver will take on that responsibility. In such a relationship, either the child would have been left home with the father, or if she is still breastfeeding, the father would accompany the baby, and be accountable for its well being. Here, however, the father is conspicuous by his absence, and it is Bismah Maroof and her mother who are taking on the entire responsibility of caring for the baby in an unknown location.

This is patently unfair on her. It is not the duty of the mother to take sole responsibility for parenting. While biology dictates that pregnancy and childbearing is the sole prerogative of women, child rearing is merely a role thrust on women by society. By expecting the women to be the primary caregiver, the father is effectively being let off the hook, which he should not be. It is his child also.

While praising Bismah Maroof, people are hailing her as someone who “has it all”- a woman who is leading her national cricket team, without compromising on her responsibilities as a mother. But does she really “have it all”? By praising her for being a hands on mother, she has effectively been guilt tripped into taking on much more than her fair share of the burden.

Let us try to gender reversal. Imagine MS Dhoni taking his daughter to a world cup tournament, without the mother of the child accompanying them. Imagine him gently rocking the child to sleep while explaining batting strategies to the team. Imagine him fielding, with half his mind on the child and whether she can wait a little longer to have her meal. Imagine him spending the lunch and tea break coaxing the child to eat something. Imagine him not partying or socialising with his teammates because he needs to give his child a bath, read a bedtime story and put her to bed. Imagine him waking up a couple of times at night because the child was restless, and yet waking up early in the morning to go to the nets for practice.

We struggle to imagine any of this. We know that even if his family accompanies him on tour, it is the mother who looks after the child while the father plays cricket, and all he does is occasionally play with the child and maybe carry her with him while going out for the toss.

Why then do we presume that there is nothing wrong in the mother being the primary caregiver for her child? When no male sportsperson at the international level has ever taken a child with him to a tournament without the presence of the mother, why do we take it for granted that a mother who wants to continue to play cricket will take the child along on tours?

Much has been made of the fact that she has often and publicly thanked her husband and his family for “supporting her ambition” to play cricket for the nation. But what is the nature of “support” that she has really got when neither her husband nor anyone from his family thought it fit to accompany her on tour to look after the child?

This can only be understood as a phenomenon unique to the subcontinent where a woman is conditioned into thinking that the sole responsibility of caregiving vests with her, and she is not supposed to work outside the home. If her husband and his family “allow” her to work outside the home without doing anything to reduce her workload at home, she should remain eternally grateful for the concession. Women in that position do everything it takes to ensure that there is no room for any complaints on the caregiving and housekeeping front, since that is the price that is to be paid for being allowed to work.

Yes, Bismah Maroof is lucky that she was granted maternity leave, and the Board allowed her to bring her mother and daughter along to the tournament.

But that throws up a different question- what if her employer was not supportive? Would her husband and his family have taken on the full burden of caregiving so she could leave the child at home and go on tour?

Most unlikely. In all probability, she would have either delayed having the child, or given up her job. Is this even something a man would consider? Becoming a parent doesn’t disrupt their lives as it does the lives of the women.

While we can, and must, hail Bismah Maroof for bringing her six month old baby on tour, we must also recognise the fact that this incident shines light on the fact that we in the subcontinent have a very long way to go before we achieve gender parity within the family. Child rearing is gender agnostic. Fathers should take on an equal share of parenting.

Social change comes, even if slowly

 When I was expecting my first child, my parents decided they wanted to do a Valaikaapu ceremony to protect me from the evil eye and to ensure the birth of a healthy child. Though I do not believe in rituals, I agreed to let them go ahead with it, because I knew it meant a lot to them, and who doesn’t want to do all they can to ensure a safe pregnancy and a healthy delivery? The only thing I was worried about was with the glass bangles breaking, but after someone assured me that broken bangles don’t bring bad luck, I even started looking forward to it.

The night before, I casually told my mother that I would like our neighbour to be the first to put the bangles on my wrist. I was totally unprepared for the outburst- she was a widow; while she could be on the fringes, she couldn’t participate in the ceremony.

I made it clear that it was not acceptable to me- since the ceremony was to prepare the way for an uneventful childbirth, who better to bless me than a lady who had given birth to three children, and had six grandchildren?

My mother tried hard to dissuade me, but I refused to relent. Our neighbour was then called in, and she appeared even more shocked at the prospect of participating in my Valaikaapu then my mother had been.

I stood firm. If she was not going to put bangles on my wrist and bless the child, I would not go through with the ceremony. She tried telling me that her participation is inauspicious, but I informed her since she had my good at heart, there was no way she could be anything except a blessing. After a lot of arguments, when they realised that I was not going to budge, our neighbour finally relented.

On the day of the Valaikaapu, she wasn’t the first to put the bangles on my wrist- that honour went to an older lady who had not just grandchildren but also a great grandchild- but she did slip a pair of bangles on my wrist and bless me. A couple of months later, when my baby was born, she was one of the first to know, and she celebrated the hardest.

I had not set out to bring about social change- all I wanted was that someone very dear to me be a part of a day celebrating me. But that brief rebellion clearly got people thinking. During Navratri that year, a few people invited the women who had lost their husbands to view the golu and participate in the celebrations. Though they were not given manjal kungumam, they got to wear their silk sarees and sit and chit-chat with the other women.

Over time, in the apartment complex where my mother lived, the participation of widows in social and religious ceremonies got normalised. Nobody battered an eyelid when the groom’s mother draped a bright silk saree and did the aarti to welcome the new bride into her marital home. It was no longer perceived as an act of rebellion when a mother put marutāṇi on her palms and gave her daughter away.

For centuries, women have been conditioned to withdrawing from social life after losing their husband. That attitude has now changed, at least in that small apartment complex, and women continue leading the same life as they did before their official status change from ‘wife’ to ‘widow’.

No, I did not set out to change society, or even a part of it. All I wanted was that someone I cared about be a part of what was an important day for me.

No, she was just not happy when I forced her to participate in the ceremony. Had something gone wrong, I know she would have blamed herself, though in reality it was I that her taken away her choice.

But what did happen was that the traditional way of doing things was questioned, and people gradually decided they wanted to do away with it. That is really the only way to bring about social change- not by forcing big changes, but by gradually chipping away till one day when you realise that without you being aware of it, change has come about.

Book Review: Children of the Hidden Land

 When you think YA, you think of a quick read. The best among them are perceptive, extremely well written, and draw attention to important issues. They linger long after you finish the book, but can normally be read in a couple of sittings. I started reading Mandira Shah's "Children of the Hidden Land" expecting to finish it fast, but after a single chapter, I realised it was a book that needed to be savoured.

In the first few pages, you meet Henthoiba, a tech whizz, who has built a drone that resembles an eagle to be used in wildlife conservation. While doing a test flight, he stumbles upon something so unexpected, he rushes to investigate… and disappears.

The story begins with his best friend April going through the contents of his bag hoping to find a clue that will lead her to him. April, who is from Manipur meets and befriends Shalini, the daughter of an army officer. Despite the ideological difference between the communities they come from, they form an strong partnership and complement the skills of each other as they gradually unravel the clues and make intuitive guesses in their investigation.

The book moves at a fast pace, with the two girls getting out of one situation only to fall into another. You are amazed at the tech skills of the teenagers, and how well they are able to leverage the internet to get what it takes to move ahead.

The book is set in Manipur, a state I know almost nothing about. By the end of the book, I learn a lot about the insurgency, of how the state falls in the route for smuggling drugs, of children kidnapped and trafficked, of how children forced to join the insurgents and the perception of the Indian Army among the locals. You realise how little of the situation in North-East is covered by mainstream media, and you are determined to read more about the place.

Perhaps what I loved about the book was the strong characterisation of the two girls. They come from very different backgrounds, have different attributes and skills, but they are essentially very similar people. Without saying so in as many words, the author draws attention to the intrinsic inequity of life- some people have to struggle to attain even a fraction of what others take as their due.

“Children of the Hidden Land” is a stunning debut, and I look forward to reading more from the author.