I want to work

“Mujhe shaadi nahin karni hai, mujhe naukri karni hai…” (I do not want to get married, I want to work) – that’s the biggest dream several girls in this country have in their childhood. With time it lapses into obscurity for a large number of them. Some make it and today, on the first day at the first job (ignoring the internships), I can not help smiling over the feeling that how simplistic the dream was when it was first conceived. Nevertheless it feels good to find that it has been achieved (I am emphasizing on the second part of it, first part comes only from the context in which it was usually expressed . Do not blame me for inconsistency if I get married someday ) ).

“Mujhe shaadi nahin karni hai, mujhe naukri karni hai…” (I do not want to get married, I want to work) – that’s the biggest dream several girls in this country have in their childhood. With time it lapses into obscurity for a large number of them. Some make it and today, on the first day at the first job (ignoring the internships), I can not help smiling over the feeling that how simplistic the dream was when it was first conceived. Nevertheless it feels good to find that it has been achieved (I am emphasizing on the second part of it, first part comes only from the context in which it was usually expressed . Do not blame me for inconsistency if I get married someday ) ).

The circumstances are such that it does not look that big a dream and it did when conceived, but then that’s how the life is, right?

The last few days have generated a lot of things I would want to write about. Let me see how much can I really manage. The new life brings with itself new constraints. But one thing I want to strive for is that I do not stop writing… Let me hope I am successful.

Supporting Working Mothers

There has been one curious elements of some of the PPTs we have attended. One of the “selling-proposition” that many of the companies have put before us is that their lifestyle really supports working mothers. Sometimes, it has been in a wider context of the work-life balance. So, how should I take it?

Well, I take it as a policy which, even if unintentionally, is perpetuating gender stereotypes. Why did nobody talk of “working fathers”? Why isn’t there even a term like that in use? If we see more and more companies adopting these “work-life balance” policies, we’ll see the tendency of only females sacrificing their work for kids increasing instead of decreasing. And of course that will be in tandem with the business environment. After all you get all the “working mother” benefits, don’t you? If I think cynically, I feel that for the sake of being politically correct, corporations are letting the few women employees go, in order to keep the majority (men) working away from all those tensions that are creeping in because of women getting into the work. But since, I do not possess so cynical an attitude; I would not see it as an organized conspiracy against women. But then, it is leading towards that anyway.

And of course, this is not to say that bringing up children or spending time with them is not important. What I would like to see is for the companies to adopt policies for supporting “Working Parents”!! That’d be the real work-life balance dear Sirs and Ma’ms…

Technorati : Business, Feminism, HR

On Chivalry

http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-12-29_101

I absolutely do not have any comments to make on this piece. This says it all!!

Thanks to Apurva for sending the link.

Technorati : Chivalry, Feminism

A dose of feminism…

Found this on the net -

The Male Privilege Checklist

Of course, certain points will depend on the context, and some might be exaggerated. Still, overall a nice comparison. And there is a reply to the most common critiques too -

 

Since I first compiled it, the list has been posted several times on internet discussion groups. Very helpfully, many people have suggested additions to the checklist. More commonly, of course, critics (usually, but not always, male) have pointed out men have disadvantages too – being drafted into the army, being expected to suppress emotions, and so on. These are indeed bad things – but I never claimed that life for men is all ice cream sundaes. Pointing out that men are privileged in no way denies that sometimes bad things happen to men.

In the end, however, it is men and not women who make the most money; men and not women who dominate the government and the corporate boards; men and not women who dominate virtually all of the most powerful positions of society. And it is women and not men who suffer the most from intimate violence and rape; who are the most likely to be poor; who are, on the whole, given the short end of patriarchy’s stick. As Marilyn Frye has argued, while men are harmed by patriarchy, women are oppressed by it.

Some of my favourites –

• I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex – even though that might be true.
• If I am never promoted, it’s not because of my sex.
• If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won’t be seen as a black mark against my entire sex’s capabilities.
• If I have children and provide primary care for them, I’ll be praised for extraordinary parenting if I’m even marginally competent.
• If I have children and pursue a career, no one will think I’m selfish for not staying at home.
• If I’m careless with my financial affairs it won’t be attributed to my sex.
• If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex.
• I can speak in public to a large group without putting my sex on trial.
• I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called “crime” and is a general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called “domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.)
• The decision to hire me will never be based on assumptions about whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon.
• I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.

Once again – Nature vs. Nurture

Okay, I have been always advocating the importane of nurture in the observed differences between men and women.

The following, which is a descriptive research not going into underlying causes, would certainly delight the mars-venus proponents… (they ARE different!)

Key Website Research Highlights Gender Bias

But at the same time there is this, which highlight the role of nurturance –

Why more women aren’t “geeks”

It is not unknown to us as to how certain professions are considered more suited to specific genders. Arts and Biology (if it must be Science) for girls!! Many of us would be well acquainted with this line of thought. It is an interesting finding in the research as to how making maths and science compulsory till higher levels of education increases the proportion of girls in Computer Science. Probably it gives them enough time to see for themselves, whether or not they need to ocnfirm to the “subject stereotypes”, if I may call it so.

Where is the dear, dear husband?

Lot is being discussed in the “Imrana Case” these days. And I really do not know what to talk about it… Which age are we living in?

And the most surprising part of the whole incident is that nowhere do I hear what the husband has to say? Or have I missed something? Has he no stakes in his marriage whatsoever, not involvement emotional or otherwise? Is it of no concern to him that his wife is forced to separate from him and … Goodness!

Where on earth is he? And what does he want? Or is he also just a puppet in the hands of the bunch of pathetic idiots (I felt like using worse words – but I have maintain the sanctity of my blog!) who have taken it upon themselves to decide the destiny of individuals?

Again, have I missed something?

Feminism – Once Again

It *had* to come after Mars-Venus Saga(?), isn’t it?

Focus this time is “Feminism: Are we worse off?” at
http://blog.ccsindia.org/mt/archives/2005/06/feminism_are_we.html.

The idea presented is perfect. The whole idea is that one should have choice.

But what is problematic with the above view is its restriction to the women. Choice should be there for everyone – not just women. And not just in notional sense, but in real one, where no taboos are associated in choosing what is unconventional by current standards either by men or by women.

One argument that comes up is that women today have the choice for getting “freedom” in the real sense. Why not use it?

There are two objections – first one is assuming that this choice is going to be established in an ideal fashion in the society. In that case if the choice lies only with women, it is an injustice against the men…

Even if, as a woman, I keep this philanthropic consideration aside (when men do not mind, why must you!!), there is another practical one. Imagine next time there is a problem in looking after household and somebody needs to stay back, who would it be? “I do not have a choice, you have one – you see. Why do you not exercise it?!” Ahem! Where is the choice really?

Yep! A choice only for women would be unsustainable… If we talk of choice, it must be for everyone.

Mars-Venus

I have been terribly curious about this Mars-Venus stuff for quite some time now. Yeah, yeah – I mean that bestselling “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” by John Gray.

Given the reputation it has, I am not likely to agree with the philosophy of the book, but then it is even more important to hear out those who differ from you. At the same time I did not want to spend money buying this one! Today, in one of my rare trips to the library it occured to me that I could try to locate it there. Unfortunately, I did not find this particular title there, but found another one by the same author. I do not remember the title exactly, but it was something like “Mars and Venus forever together”.

I read only two chapters (since I thought I ran a risk of destroying any potential relationships of mine, if I started believing too much of the stuff there…).

Now, the good part of the book is that it identifies the problems people are facing these days correctly. The traditional gender roles are changing and hence the expectations and roles in relationships also have to change. When that does not happen, problems arise.

At a broad level, he identifies the solutions correctly too. That men and women have to understand each other better in terms of “what is going on in the other person’s mind”.

Problem comes when he suggests the solutions. This “what is going on” has been severely stereotyped in the process of suggesting how to understand each other. It is something like this. The traditional roles have been considered as the base; and the (unsaid) premise he works on is that the changing roles are abberrations. Without delving into the rationale of these abberations, however, (probably because he has not explicitly called them abberations) he takes them as given and then suggests the new role of relationships as something that needs to heal the wounds caused by these abberations.

It is this bias that stereotypes things…

But the curiosity to read the “big one” (Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus) still remains

Social Change?

Now, I am really not sure if anyone would review this movie from this point of view, but since I am not a good reviewer (yeah – that is what I have come to conclude recently), I just post bits and pieces which I feel there is something different to be talked about…

The movie I am talking of is “D” and at the cost of offending people who like it, I must accept that I sort of got bored with the movie. But one scene in the movie caught my attention. This was the scene when Deshmukh’s girl friend takes him to the new bungalow she had bought for the two of them. She says she had been saving money for last three years for this. And then she shows him around the place and describes each and every thing. It was obviously grand and costly. Through most of this showing around, the music was going on and there were no dialogues. At the end of it somehow I suspected that he would refuse to live in that place, which has been bought with her money and all that crap. And with whatever experience of Hindi Movies I have, I do not think I was terribly wrong, but as they say that biggest caveat of Time Series Analysis is that it tries to predict future with past data!! So, here is some change coming up. Of course, I felt good about it. I do hope that it does represent some social change, some changes in mentality, where the women need not be seen as only a ’second earning member’ and anything done with what she earns should not be something one feels uncomfortable with…

Women empowerment through taxes??!!

(Before I proceed let me announce to the world that it is my 305th post in this blog “80% Attendence” being the 300th one!)

Yesterday I read an article in ET, which talked of how the the taxation measures adopted in the recent budget would empower women. Budget and particularly Income Tax have been in the air of the country recently and so I believe most of you would know the measure it was talking about. Still for the uninitiated these measures basically ensure that women pay lesser Income Tax on their Income. As per the article this would ensure that more property is there in women’s name for tax-saving etc and would help in women empowerment.

Now, I would not criticize the intentions of our Finanace Minister, but would it not be little simplistic to put too much of hope on it (I am unable to locate the article on the online edition, else I would have given the link. The article seems to be putting all hopes of amelioreting women’s situation on this one tax-measure!).

Probably it will indeed help in transferring some property to the female members of the family, but there are several issues to it. Legal entitlements does not lead to empowerment by itself. In fact even now, to put certain kind of income out of tax-bracket such tricks are used (showing the income in the name of someone else in the family, who is paying income tax independently, but would not cross the tax-slab by inclusion of such income). It would not really ensure any benefit from the property flowing directly to the women, if it has not been happening already. The practical ownership will remain with men. It can at best help in the pathological situation if a women is thrown out, really needs the property and is even able to fight for it!

Secondly, showing some income in women’s name is all it can possibly encourage. Would it encourage the participation of women in workforce by itself? I doubt! I mean, how many women are not allowed to work because of what percentage of Income Tax is being charged??!!

Further what strata of women would it have any effect, whatsoever, on? Certainly not the poor people, who might very well be out of income tax bracket (and are still poor!).

Last but not the least, given above is it philosphically right to charge less income tax from women? In case of transfer of property it only gives a way to legitimately evade tax. If poor women were left with higher income, it would have helped, particularly those with say a drunkard husband! But they are most likely out of the income tax bracket. And for others, middle class women working in various jobs or women professionals, more often than not, their male counterparts have bigger responsibilities to handle. (As much as I would not have liked it to be so, it is still there. There might be deviations, still it is true of large population!) Is it fair to tax these men more (their families will be affected) than women, who are most likely the second earner in the family?

Or am I overlooking something?