Women at Work: Choice is a privilege
Women at Work: Choice is a privilege
More so in developing countries like India.
Photo via Pexels.com
Let me tell you a small story.
At the start of 2018, I quit my corporate job. By all standards, it paid exceedingly well. It allowed me opportunities to grow as a leader, to master skills needed in a technologically-driven world, it offered me a chance to see up close how Harvard CEOs work, build companies, become industry leaders. All good.
This journey from being a journalist to transitioning into a digital leadership role was a steep curve in terms of learning and money. There were stocks offered from the company. CEO’s appreciation for going beyond the call of duty came in the form of personal letters and fat bonuses. I was encouraged to invest in upskilling and company would pay for it. From being someone who just cared about the freedom to tell a good story, a corporate boardroom helped me begin to care about and ask for money.
It also taught me how to walk the talk. I was not the wallflower; I was the boss lady. I enjoyed it - both the mentoring that I needed to do to turbocharge a team fresh out of college; and the mentoring I received from the CEO. It reassured me that age is just a number in refreshingly new ways. Being merely few years older than the youngest in your team, and then going on to hiring men (Indian men!) well into their 50s is a steep scale - mentally and emotionally. It taught me to quickly devise hiring mantras of my own, collaborations with the HR to hire better, and walk into company interviews that made anyone wanting to work in my team feel reassured that they were in the right place. This is how I felt when I was hired.
Yet, I quit.
I am beginning to grasp the 'why' of this better now, but I wanted to finish what I had left unfinished. I didn't quit for more money. I kept quitting to get around to creating space for the work I wanted to do. It's not one thing, it's many things. It takes its own sweet time to realise that owning your time takes courage and a little bit of financial security. It also takes self-love. Above all, it comes from a place of privilege. Although that privilege can be hard-earned in a deeply networked world where I am at best a social recluse and an introverted anomaly, I am still privileged because I have had a choice (and a voice, and courage!).
#JacindaArdern doesn’t have enough in the tank to continue as New Zealand’s prime minister anymore. But she has a choice - to go back to a loving family and do what she wants to do next. This choice should be celebrated, but it shouldn’t skew our view of the world as it is - especially in developing countries, especially in deeply patriarchal cultures, especially in countries like India.
Ardern’s sudden resignation is a grim reminder that women may not have it all afterall. And if strong, powerful women like Ardern can find the going tough, an overwhelming majority of women around the world already have it tougher and many may not have a choice to quit.
I seriously don't appreciate the choice argument - that some may choose raising children over work - I reiterate, esp. in developing country context. Choice is a privilege, so please do not please fall for this arguemnt to generalise the women-at-work situation. If you are the one using this argument, please think for a moment.
Raising kids is unpaid work. It perpetuates the hierarchies and gender norms women are expected to follow but men are not. Some women may choose home above work, or find other work (not full time) to financially and emotionally sustain them, but before that is argued as choice of women to raise kids, stay home instead of embracing full time work, one has to remember that this is another kind of privilege in a world where an overwhelming majority don't have that choice.
This situation is deeply personal to me. My mother - who taught Biology in a college and wrote beautifully - quit her job to raise me and my two siblings. You don’t know her but her contribution to the world is enormous. Like all mothers. The anguish I feel over my mother’s life — which could have been everything she wanted and loved but couldn’t because she quit — is friggin’ intergenerational trauma. This lingers to the extent that I keep going against labels, usual impediments women face at work and elsewhere, sexism that permeates every corner of this world, patrarchies designed to keep women within homes or at workplaces. I have a privilege (because suffering can be relative and I graciously acknolwege it) but those peddling the choice argument tend to forget that Indian women have been quitting workforce worryingly. Motherhood penalty comes in social, economic and cultural contexts, and there is little institutional support.
In countries like India, an overwhelming majority of women do not go to work, or have never seen a school or haven't been educated / skilled for a job, or are restrained from working (either due to cultural norms or after the birth of a child) at all. For the majority, not working isn't a choice. An overwhelming number of women are in the informal sector (back-breaking agricultural labour, for instance) without real power over or acces to their finances / hard earned money. Many women sarpanches, for instance, with political power invested in their positions, end up as mere puppets for their husbands who shadow them and call the shots. I found this disturbing on my field repoting trips that helped me unravel what government policies aimed to encourage participation of women in politics look like on the ground.
Choice might be a privilege in this context, and that's often an argument used to counter uproar over working women quitting jobs or facing motherhood penalty. That's not a balanced view of the world. I am deeply saddened every time a woman finds she doesn't have "enough in the tank". #JacindaArdern's resignation is our collective moral failure with economic repercussions we aren't able to fathom yet but will see in the future. Women driven out of workforce is a catastrophe and we won't be any richer for it.
Lastly, if you are a woman: cheer for other women. If you are a man: stand by women. If you are a father: build an equal world for your children. If you are a mother: well, continue doing what you love.
Every young woman that starts work is a little girl who dreamt of a world where quitting something she loves won’t have to be an option. Let’s build that world.
Yours truly,
P.