Editorials

by Rajen Kumar

APEDA Rendering Lip Service

For over four years now, we have been making relentless efforts to fill information deficit that painfully exists in the country's Micro, Small and Medium Sector. Encouragingly enough,...

Special Reports

Jan 2012

Be Skeptical. Be very Skeptical. Mistake upon Mistake

In recent months, we've had a few slip-ups by the official statistical system in India: • Yesterday's IIP release was preceded by a mistake. Mint says: On Monday, the...

Features

Women, Family and Work

Dr. Abha Wadhwa
Jul 2010

The traditional picture of women as seen in times of yore is very much different from what it is today. Women have played a key and largely unrecognized role in the rapid economic and social development worldwide. Women have been entering workforce in record numbers, over the last four decades.

Although women are not a minority, in the world of work they have faced many handicaps. In fact, majority of women who wish to pursue a career face the problem. Domestic and outside work often causes imbalances. Gender discrimination is a common phenomenon. The situation in which a superior, who is usually a man, uses his power to grant or deny employment benefits results to a hostile working environment leading to harassment, in which the sexual nature of the conduct of co-workers and others causes a woman (or a man) to be very uncomfortable.

What constitutes discomfort is not easy to specify. Whether a work environment is hostile or offensive is not easily determined. Much depends on the attitudes of the employees involved and the response of management to employee concerns. When women has to make an even balance between her career and the concern for children it becomes a difficult equation. She cannot go to the supervisor and tell him that she needs to go home to take care for a sick or injured child.

Advancement Impeded

The advancement of women in the workplace has been impeded by at least three different factors:

First is the unalterable biological function of motherhood; as said, “ Maternity is not simply childbirth but a continuum that begins with an awareness of the ticking of biological clock, proceeds to the anticipation of motherhood, includes pregnancy, childbirth, physical recuperation, psychological adjustment and continues on to nursing, bonding and child rearing.”

Second, the responsibility of running a household falls primarily on women in our society, so that women more than men, find it difficult to be both a parent and a full time worker.

Third, are the stereotypes about why women work and what they want in a job? Even women who are fully committed to a career are often assumed to be working temporarily, until the time comes for motherhood; or if they have families they are frequently thought to be less committed than a man because of their dual role. As a result, they are often passed over for promotion or denied the experiences that would lead to advancement.

Motherhood can be accommodated- and historically has been accommodated- by women leaving and reentering the work force. The role of a homemaker can be similarly accommodated when women accept less- demanding jobs that allow flexibility and do not disrupts family life. Such accommodation rules put “fast track” jobs that involve long hours, unpredictable schedules and a willingness to relocate. The drawback to such solutions is that women pay a price in career advancement and earning potential. Limited career opportunities constitute a form of discrimination that reduces women’s choices and their freedom of action.

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