Courage At Work Place
Time and again, the media industry brings to surface issues and social undercurrents that are becoming commonplace in today's booming India.
A recent debate that was brought in focus was the subject of sexual harassment at work for Indian women.
Complaints and lawsuits by women executives of corporate India have sparked discussions in multiple forums about the safety and comfort for working women in India.
I was recently drawn into one such discussion over a social dinner with some friends.
Eight of us, representing industries ranging from media to technology to manufacturing, were complaining about our slave driving bosses and twelve hour routines when the conversation, unintentionally, found itself being steered towards gender related work problems.
Having been brought up in a family run business with a 60-40 female to male ratio, my own professional career has been fairly protected when it comes to gender issues.
But as I listened to my friends around the table, almost all of them had a story or two about a colleague with a sexist sense of humor, or a boss who exploited the hierarchy to walk the fine line between authority and advantage.
At the other end of the spectrum, were cases of women not being given the kind of credit or opportunities that their male counterparts got, simply because they were, well, women! What I found most interesting was the ease and matter of fact-ness with which, some of the women voiced these 'inconvenient situations' and how, almost everyone, accepted 'harmless sexist jokes' as a part and parcel of today's work culture.
I remember certain senior executive from one of the big accounting firms who sued her entire top cadre for trivializing something that continuously offended and disrespected her personal integrity.
But the sad truth is, that very few women, even among the progressive and ambitious ones, stand up and take their innocent offenders to task.
Its a survival tactic, some people say, better to ride the wave than challenge it.
But that's probably, exactly the kind of thinking that sustains sexist jokes, comments and other gender specific biases within the average workplace.
My limited, inexperienced mind wonders why women are so averse to putting themselves in confrontational situations.
If every female professional nipped loose comments in the bud, would respect in the workplace continue to be so imbalanced? There are multiple ways to view and judge the subject at hand and enough arguments to blame both men and women for the acts they inflict and allow respectively.
But as I went home that night, I could not help but wonder how long it will take the average chauvinistic, to understand that a 'progressive and confident' woman is not necessarily an 'easy' one,and a quiet female worker, is not asking to be pushed over.
A recent debate that was brought in focus was the subject of sexual harassment at work for Indian women.
Complaints and lawsuits by women executives of corporate India have sparked discussions in multiple forums about the safety and comfort for working women in India.
I was recently drawn into one such discussion over a social dinner with some friends.
Eight of us, representing industries ranging from media to technology to manufacturing, were complaining about our slave driving bosses and twelve hour routines when the conversation, unintentionally, found itself being steered towards gender related work problems.
Having been brought up in a family run business with a 60-40 female to male ratio, my own professional career has been fairly protected when it comes to gender issues.
But as I listened to my friends around the table, almost all of them had a story or two about a colleague with a sexist sense of humor, or a boss who exploited the hierarchy to walk the fine line between authority and advantage.
At the other end of the spectrum, were cases of women not being given the kind of credit or opportunities that their male counterparts got, simply because they were, well, women! What I found most interesting was the ease and matter of fact-ness with which, some of the women voiced these 'inconvenient situations' and how, almost everyone, accepted 'harmless sexist jokes' as a part and parcel of today's work culture.
I remember certain senior executive from one of the big accounting firms who sued her entire top cadre for trivializing something that continuously offended and disrespected her personal integrity.
But the sad truth is, that very few women, even among the progressive and ambitious ones, stand up and take their innocent offenders to task.
Its a survival tactic, some people say, better to ride the wave than challenge it.
But that's probably, exactly the kind of thinking that sustains sexist jokes, comments and other gender specific biases within the average workplace.
My limited, inexperienced mind wonders why women are so averse to putting themselves in confrontational situations.
If every female professional nipped loose comments in the bud, would respect in the workplace continue to be so imbalanced? There are multiple ways to view and judge the subject at hand and enough arguments to blame both men and women for the acts they inflict and allow respectively.
But as I went home that night, I could not help but wonder how long it will take the average chauvinistic, to understand that a 'progressive and confident' woman is not necessarily an 'easy' one,and a quiet female worker, is not asking to be pushed over.
Source...