The year 2017 is here with a bang. A few weeks ago we heard about the horrible incident of molestations that took place in Bangalore on New Year’s Eve. What seems like a sad reality is that no amount of words can describe just how much needs to be done to improve the state of women in this country. Year after year we move forward in various spheres, and year after year and incident after incident we also continue to take huge steps backward. As the modern woman has gained prominence in every home, a lot of change has taken place. There are many more women constituting the workforce than ever before and working women is a growing trend. Kudos to us all. This change was an honest start. Sadly, at the beginning is also where it ends.
Women today multitask better than ever before, a single woman can be a mother, wife, sister, CEO, humanitarian, superstar, fashionista, you name the hat and she can wear it. She is expected to do everything a man can do, but she’s expected to do it better. Why? Because hey, everywhere she goes, she’s got something to prove. Be it at home, behind the steering wheel of a car or in the boardroom, this woman needs to prove herself every step of the way. At home, when the mother of the home is ill, she isn’t given the same TLC she showers on the other members of her family when even a sniffle is heard. On the roads, even if the woman is a competent driver, there is always the odd comment about driving skills in relation to sex. And then, to the crux of this article… the workplace. Oh! The workplace is such a wonderful storehouse for all that can be written off. As a woman, working in any institution, business or company has its own list of issues. Of course, a wonderful opportunity to have a job in this day and age, it is actually communicated as such to the female employee - “you have a job, you should be grateful”.
In professions that are primarily male dominated, the woman is expected to do the work her male counterparts do. The only difference is; she’ll have to put in the extra effort. Sometimes, she may even suffer injustice in terms of her pay packet. The glass ceiling in corporate jargon is "the unseen, yet unbreachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of their qualifications or achievements”. This one definition captures what thousands of women around the world have been experiencing all their careers, except for a lucky few. Try as we might, the mind-set has been too rigid. I have actually heard lines about salary inequality been spoken as if it were a norm. The man has to run the family and hence it is only right that he be paid more. The woman on the other hand is a replaceable resource. The same goes for quality of work. No matter how much we put in, one step out of line is always questioned. The man, well he was to stressed out.
The home is no different. The son is always the one given the most understanding, the girls after all are such a burden. They need to suddenly be educated and then we have to find the right amount of education to give them. Too much and we’ll never get them out of our hair. Too little and we’ll have a problem getting them a good match. In this country, it is common place even to this day for the woman to leave her home and her individual identity post marriage and get enmeshed in the life of not only her husband but the entire clan. Why is it not a norm that they both leave their families and create a family of their own?
As I said earlier, women are expected to carry out every activity the man does. The man however, has no such obligations by which to live his life. Of course, the new trends coming in are a breath of fresh air, like stay at home dads. There are plenty of men out there who have been man enough to take such a big decision in support of their wives and it is to those men that we stand today in salute. It is to those men, who have been blessed with a guts to see women as their partners rather than inferiors who we hold up our feelings of respect to. For if there is revolution, there is improvement. We need to forget what ‘society’ says and allow ourselves to rise higher in every aspect for there is a man in every wo(man).
- Charlene Farrell is a counselling psychologist who works extensively with children and adolescents. She also counsels and works with individuals of all ages. Emotional well-being, to her, is of utmost importance to a fruitful existence
