Why are these good times for women at work?

It’s that time of the year again. Television, newspapers, magazines, internet, and all, will be looking back, looking back at the year that was. At first glance, it would seem that all went wrong with this world in 2014. There would be mishaps and tragedies of the past, mournful squalls, wrapped bodies, hassled helpers, and indifferent authorities, filling the pages and the screens, making us relive the horrors.

Then there will be reports about the increasing violence against women and the ‘grim picture of women’s negligible participation in workforce’. It would look like we are still living in that bygone era when women knew nothing more than cooking for their men whether fathers, brothers or husbands, when the husband reprimanded her wife for standing in the balcony which overlooked a busy marketplace, when the matrimonial advertisements had no mention about ‘working brides’  or ‘MBA brides’.

You may say ‘So? We are still living there! Women’s worth is still gauged by how well they can cook and keep the house, and manage children, and that would be regardless of their professional achievements. How is 2014, then, any different from 1994?’

Well, it is different. More parents are talking about giving a good education to their daughters ‘so that they can get a good job.’ I have heard people say that more parents do this to improve their daughters’ matrimonial prospects. Better degree would attract a better groom. Okay. Let’s buy your argument for a while. Even in that scenario, more young women are getting an opportunity to go out and explore. That exposure, at that age, is what makes all the difference.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), at 1 lakh and counting, has recently become the top employer of women. Naysayers have rejected this as a desperate bid by companies to hog limelight in times when women empowerment is the newsmaker.

For once, even if it’s that way, the positive aspect is that companies are going to previously untouched territories to meet their targets of hiring women. For instance, TCS organizes campus recruitments at engineering and other colleges in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Youngsters from these places get an opportunity to move out to bigger cities once TCS has hired them. Women, particularly, benefit from this as parents don’t object to their shifting to bigger cities if they have a job in hand.

I agree that women are crowding the entry level space and leave as soon as they reach the mid-level management. Even at TCS, while 40% of women employees are fresh recruits or at junior level, just 11% are in the senior management. But you can’t let the deluge at the junior level be overshadowed by this. We have come far from when we had less than 11%, and even less, women at new recruit and junior levels. It’s only going to get better from here. We can’t go back. We don’t need a law of physics to explain this forward movement. It’s practical. It’s happening all around us. Someone must be pathetically ignorant not to notice this ubiquitous phenomenon.

A Frenchman, who requested to share my table at Dunkin Donuts in Connaught Place during lunch time sometime in February, explained to me a Mayan theory according to which, he said, ‘it’s women’s time here on. The future belongs to women.’ He had to rush through the whole thing as he was flying back to Paris that night and I had just 45 minutes to talk to him on my way to a meeting. I don’t know how much to believe a hurriedly explained, random theory introduced to me by a random tourist from another part of the world but the way things are I feel we may very well be on our way already.

Consider this. In another time in the past, ordinary citizens of India may have bolted their doors and distanced themselves from the gang rape of a stranger. But in these times, the whole world rose, together, poured on the streets forcing authorities to reform sexual violence and harassment laws.

In another time from the past, participation of women in workforce may have gone completely unnoticed. But in these times, every second company is conducting surveys and creating reports about it encouraging more women to join in.

In another time from the past, you would not be reading this column because I would have been a Mrs Richie Rich flaunting my chic wardrobe before a set of many more Mrs Richie Richs, or I would have been a Mrs Middle Class trying to learn new recipes to delight my Mr Middle Class’s taste buds in a bid to win his heart all over again… every day, every moment err every meal. I would be living to please him, to please the world so that they accept me.

But in these times, I am here, writing this…to please me, to inspire you. In these times, I am me.

In another time from the past, you would not be reading this column because there would be no SHEROES. But in these times, here we are!

Picture Courtesy.