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If you are a working woman, you acknowledge that workplaces aren't exactly fair all the time, but you may not be able to do anything about it.
If you are a working woman, you acknowledge that workplaces aren’t exactly fair all the time, but you may not be able to do anything about it.
Despite the best practices today on Diversity and Inclusion, we still see small numbers in the C-suite. Some may argue that it is because women are compelled to fall off the career trajectory when their families demand more of their time or even that women prioritize their personal lives over their careers out of their own choice.
But the woman that chooses to stay and grow in the workplace knows but cannot always point to an explicit bias.
This is not about being blindsided by the compensation paid to her peers or her having to wait longer for that promotion, as those are just consequences.
It is about the subtlety with which her boss gives that important and visible piece of work to her male colleague, who is available to work at midnight. Yes, she will not prioritize that because she chooses her sleep to be able to wake up and get her kids ready for school the next morning.
It may also be about the casual stand up meetings the guys have over a smoke outside the office or their sports chats over lunch that helps them build the working relationship that is required to get the job done. What choice does she have but to fit in to the boys club? What if she chooses not to? If she doesn’t want to fit in, does she make peace that its not a fair world? That the pace of her career is because of her personal choices?
Inclusion, to me, is not having to fit in at all. Diversity demands that opportunities are equitable, because resulting rewards are a function of opportunity.
So its the process that we need to focus on. When we continue to demand that companies publish their average salaries by gender or that companies have programs to hire more women, we continue to focus on the outcomes rather than the process that leads there.
Unless we have more men demanding to have the choices that women conveniently make, more men and women being sensitive to their unconscious biases, more organizational cultures wanting to change the the everyday work ethic, the opportunity divide will exist. Diversity and inclusion would remain a lip service.
Writing makes me happy, so does expressing my views. I am opinionated, optimistic and interested in influencing a change in mindset. read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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