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Ramblings by Jaya Jha

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Women at Work

A genuine concern was raised in the panel discussion (on How technology transforms society) by one of the panelist - Technology is making more and more females come to the workforce. What will happen to the children? And I had the audacity to ask - When the work outside is no more exclusively men's domain, why does child-rearing have to remain exclusively in women's domain? Some ended up clapping at the question, others felt too awkward to react. The panelist who had raised the issue said even if all the responsibility are divided 50-50, how is the child going to be brought up if both the parents are out of home for 17 hours. Not much of cross questioning was possible. GM, Motorola India, picked up the mike at this point and quickly and jokingly started by saying that he would rather not touch this issue and moved onto something else.

This is where the problem lies. So long as GMs of Mororolas refuse to even talk about it, the issue will never get resolved. Today if a woman excuses herself for taking care of her child, it is perfectly acceptable socially (and equally harmful for career!!) at the work place, but imagine a man giving the same reason. What kind of a social taboo it will be!

A big responsibility is there on the organizations for bringing about this social change. Children are important, for everyone. Parents, society, nation and organizations (who will work for them in future if the children are not brought up well!). But why should that mean compromise by one particular gender? Why can't the two parents divide time? It would not be possible so long as work-places do not recognize the concern and its importance. The concept of flexible timing, which has come up with the Software industry, should be given a serious thought by all the industries. The implications and details of implementation would vary enormously across the industries and companies, but it must be brought about. For the good of one and all. And just a change in formal policy would not suffice. The social taboo associated with men taking care of children has to go away. The workplace dynamics has to accommodate this change.

Who will initiate the process though? GM of Motorola India feels safer in not discussing it. But possibly we have more daring characters around.


Categories:

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Since I am removing the Haloscan Comments, I am copy-pasting the comments I got on this post here.


Comments

Gravatar I agree with Jaya.

If there is an instance of GM, Motorola, who avoid this issue, we have another contrasting instance about a family of HRD manager , Cognizant Tech. where madam manager is going to office as usual and his husband, an executive in television company is taking care of their only son at home, you may call him the proud househusband.
(If u dislike it, you must read forward).....

Can't we men enjoy the pains of waking up at 2.00 am and change the nappy of our infant and arrange milk for him. Can't we take care of the child at least "9-months" after the child's birth,if we like to share the responsibilities 50-50, although we cannot enjoy the pain of 9 months of motherhood . Oh! we male failed again?

continued...
Prem Piyush | Email | Homepage | 11.23.04 - 7:31 pm | #

Gravatar My dear male friends,if we want at least pass marks, to experience a new world, you may share the waking nights with our child, getup before dawn, do necessary household works, prepare the morning tea and serve it to your sleeping wife and then request her to get up. Now if you see outside the window panels. The Sun will look brighter that day. Although the Sun may look same or dim for thousands of women who used to follow the same routine from centuries.

If someone thinks, I plan to be a househusband when i am married,it's upto the thinker. If an women can be called as a housewife, why not we feel proud to be called as househusband?
continued...
Prem Piyush | Email | Homepage | 11.23.04 - 7:34 pm | #

Gravatar Next comes the question of sharing the duties that women perform for the family? Are not these our(males) duties? Who made these rusty rules and duties? Answer is stereotyped women and men. Don't we need polish these rules on humanitarian ground?

There are some advantages and disadvantages of each sex,and luckily they are complements to each other. Do the males taking the proper advantage of their ability.I think we need not awake women for their rights and duties. They are already awake the longs nights as a mother ,wife and sister.
But most of our males are still asleep.
Sleeping in the role of so called rulemakers CEOs, GMs, PMs, DMs ,CMs,the list is long .. .
....and ,of course Pati Parmeshwar and Ghar ka Malik (Respected husband of the house).


Thanks for reading me .
Prem Piyush | Email | Homepage | 11.23.04 - 7:34 pm | #