There is no running
away from it. Every single person-regardless of economic or social class,
gender, designation-should examine their gender biases. There are far too many people
I know, who are widely read-conversant in science, politics, business and broad
feminist ideas, who themselves promulgate deeply sexist ideas. The source of
casual sexism that these social beings-well- read and seemingly broad-minded,
remains a mystery to me. Are we just too lazy to examine our beliefs? Or too
lazy to act on our beliefs? I’m not sure I’m asking the right questions here.
Here are common
examples of sexism at the workplace-said to me by employees spread across the
designation spectrum. I’m sure these examples are not uncommon. They’re also
not lazy jokes-i.e. they were said in seriousness.
- Women are becoming lazy these days and don’t want to enter the kitchen. That’s why I learnt how to cook(man to 8 men and me)
- Even if you’re working, you’re a girl, no, make some snacks and come for everyone (another man to me in the same audience as 1.)
- We don’t want to hire a newly-married girl. She’ll become pregnant and go on maternity leave.
- It is so nice to see two woman being friends-usually we don’t see it. (Said to two women by a man)
- Why are all the ladies sitting together? Is there a ladies club? (4 women sat together, all the men crowded around their own tables. Alright, this was a lazy joke, but I don’t remember walking up to men in the office and asking them if they were in a men’s club)
- What are you girls doing, sitting around? (I was standing) Go, mingle with the others (This, after we stopped by all tables to pay our respects to the men. No man was told to mingle with us)
- Girls shouldn’t be in the same team (my thought: in order to force diversity in the group, force the discomfort on the women)
- Why are you cutting the cake, the girls are there. They should do this(a man to another man cutting his birthday cake)
I’ll stop there. I’m
getting terribly riled up. And I hope you are too, if you’ve read some of those
bullet points above this paragraph. How awful it is, that I am in no position
to object against such crass sexism. Often, the people who choose to be violently insensitive get away with saying anything they want to, leaving the average receiver of insensitivity, stuttering in anger.
It is a right damn
shame-the conservative Indian industry is so strongly hierarchical that it has the
potential to snuff out creativity and positivity. A junior female is at the
bottom of the entire system. She is told not to say “No” to any kind of work,
because it is important that she learn. Game, she naively begins to say “Yes”
to everything-the classic problem-not at all as fun as the It's Always Sunny episode when
Charlie says “Yes” to everything.
So, she is asked to
sit the entire day-she is an engineer with over a year of work experience-to scan
cards. She says “yes” unwillingly. She is at fault here. So she tries to
communicate her discomfort to her manager. And he says-“it may be routine, but it’s your
job”. Then the manager’s boss finds out that you’ve been scanning cards and
decides to do something about it. Nearly in tears, she tries to tell him how
she gets through the day, and he can see her struggle. He decides to help her
and give her more challenging assignments, and also trains her in the basics of
business. But there is no work for her. Nobody in the office will take her
seriously, and will continue to pile on their mundane tasks on her. She is
again left stranded. Should she quit? She has spent over a year at the place,
and is still being told that she has no decision-making power. She has no path
to a future in the firm.
Around her, the men
who joined after her, are welcomed warmly into their teams, assigned
challenging work, dispatched to training programmes, taught ways to improve
their skills and are shown a path to a future in the firm.
Drifting, with no path
or set list of tasks, is a brain-sucking place to be in. I chose to listen to podcasts to cling to a last shred
of intelligence in me. I think I hung on to it.
To anyone reading
this-fight against drifting-young women, fight even harder. I didn’t. I still
haven’t worked up the energy or the courage to fight. I hope you do.
