Today I read two articles in TOI. First, the front-page story of TCS claiming to the biggest women employer in India and second Chetan Bhagat (my-oh-sooo –favorite-writer) about his views after watching the movie Mary Kom. Both the articles are inflicting for me.
Firstly, my reaction on the TCS article was I was almost disgusted to see the top most women employing company in India has JUST “one- third” female employees. Out of 3.06 lakhs of employees only 1 lakh is female employees. Majority is still held by the male employees. Now ironically lets look at some of the birth ratio figure in India (944 females for every 1000 males).
Starting with primary and “compulsory” education itself the female ratio vs male ratio starts dropping. By the time it reaches the higher education it has come to close proximity of negligible female presence in higher education.
Now, if we just look at the top metros the higher education ratio of female vs male is pretty healthy. Every time we see top SSLC or HSC scorer it’s mostly a girl who has topped. Most of the girls pass their exams vs boys. I am not trying to be a feminist here. These are crude figures from my analysis done. And the reason is plain and simple – “The Great Indian Hypocrisy” – I call is TGIH syndrome.
From the beginning when girl child is born in the family starts planning for her marriage. When a boy is born they decide his career. In our educated society as well, a girl child is brought up with the feeling – 'if you don’t study you will get a husband to earn for you' – Please note, this is an absolutely accepted norm in this society. That feeling is not given to a boy child. He knows he has to earn his living and if he doesn’t he clearly becomes the not-so-good-for-anything in the society.
Being a recruiter in Retail industry I know whenever we approach a girl candidate with the best of the caliber and resume – the reply is "I can’t do sales job". And the reason numorous
– I cannot travel
- I cannot stay back long hours at work
- most ridiculous one being – “I cannot meet strange people so often”.
Sadly, I never hear the reasons like “ I don’t like number” or rather “ I love creative field more and that’s my strong point”
TGIH syndrome doesn’t end here, once the marriage and pregnancy happens. It’s a life changer for a woman. She has to go through turmoil of body change, mindset change, career change and ability change. They become stay-at-home mothers. Forget about the career they were doing so good at and “sacrifice” for the family. Nobody really bothers to dig what has gone with her mind with all these sudden changes. I have seen many get away saying it’s the “postpartum depression”. I call it the TGIH syndrome SIMPLY. Yes, my dear ladies – you too have the same syndrome that your family, husband, in laws, parents and your social circle has got.
Lets look at basic few things – who is the first one to raise hands of dropping the career and looking after the baby – its you my lady. The reasons are thousands for that – one of my new father friend said – “I could have dropped my career but biologically it’s not possible for me to feed the child”. Well! Then do you wake up with her at night during her night feeds? Do you stay supportive and say I take equal responsibility of changing the diaper at night? Your wife is anyways waking up to feed your kid, right? The answer to that is –“I have to make sure I sleep well as I go to work next morning”. Reality Check loving husbands– the amount of work a new mother – with her aching body does with the baby- she deserves much more sleep than you do with your office work sitting in your chair.
Taking care of child is physically and mentally exhaustive. If given an opportunity to switch roles for a day, thousands of stay-at-home-mothers would love doing that with their husbands and would successfully and happily finish it. If the same option is given to the husbands (even the most “supportive” of them) not many takers would be there. If there are any they would end their day exhaustive and with a - 'I can’t do this'
The TGIH syndrome is in all of us. Its been deeply rooted in the society. We need to get out of this and see men and women, as equals- as HUMANS, be it at home, at school, at work or even at public places. The TGIH has to die first within YOU. Understand yourself and see how you can cure this- it may solve the large overall problems of the women empowerment of the society too.
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