Parochial Society - The Original Pandemic
Parochialism stems from a lack of respect for, and understanding of cultures that differ from one’s own. A patriarchal society, steeped in its own past, is often to blame for the barriers it sets up in preventing women from their rightful free-choices : be it having a choice in what to do with their lives and lives around.
The gender bias that we see even today probably worked-out-alright, when the civil societies were still evolving. Presumably, for the sake of survival, labour needed to be divided among men and women, based on physical endurance, social context, and perceived mental agility. In past few decades, where education, common sense and literacy failed, mass cultural messaging formats like Bollywood has filled us with their stereotypes : negative portrayal of police, anyone south of Vindhyas being “Madrasis”, damsel in distress as a steady emotional state! (Or conversely they have showcased the happenings in the society and wider societal audience laps it up). The sad reality is that in the current ecosystem of our societal obsession with social media and even media at large, we have muddled up facts, fantasies, fallacies, and even our follies into what we want our narratives to be !
The mental conditioning that we received in our growing-up years, built our notion that there are certain responsibilities only a woman can take and which she has to take. The Indian Society at large, but for few exceptions, discriminates against women, in not valuing their housework - in efforts or monetary value or time-value of money. It is almost assumed that the lady has to do the housework and it is not uncommon for the society to celebrate when a male participates in it ! In our society, do women too, lend support to the narrative that some jobs are just not for women ?
Stereotypes & social context
There have been enough conversations about glass ceilings in corporate India for women to rise up the corporate ladders. Bias against women by women, is also not uncommon but not obvious or overt.
Cultural discourses have even influenced the jobs that women seek by gender stereotyping. Women are considered soft spoken, more caring and having maternal instincts. This “EQ” supposedly makes them ready as artists, teachers, doctors, nurses, etc. The Companies Act, 2013 (Act) has introduced a provision mandating a woman director on the board and it is time to move beyond tokenism. Appointing just one woman director might lead to being stereotyped as a tick-mark appointment, and also ignored by the majority of male directors. Ensuring that women reach a critical mass in the boards would change boardroom dynamics substantially and help create an environment to promote meritocracy for itself, and not just gender diversity.
It is only in the last 3-5 years that we see more women becoming police officers, airline pilots, locomotive operators etc. And it was only in 2021, that the Supreme Court of India mandated that the National Defence Academy has to admit women to its programs, thereby giving them the same opportunity afforded to men in joining the armed forces from the Academy. It is only now that we are seeing an acceleration of women joining these previously gender-defined roles. Hope Corporate India does more than it’s current affirmative actions about this topic.
In the Indian society, taking up such careers is seen as unfavorable in terms of “suitability for marriage”. The enforcers in many of such cases are more often than not women themselves. Sadly, most of these distill into a simple parochial mindset. In a recent Netflix program which covered the stories of three young women from different social classes and different locations in the country (arguably not a statistical representation of all women in India), it clearly showed how marriage is still viewed as a primary objective for a young woman irrespective of her qualification or ability to work as a professional. In one of the cases, it also showed the young woman who had to submit herself (seemingly willingly) to serve her husband’s family, instead of joining her husband in running the family business which was she wished to do.
Although the institution of arranged marriage has changed, the attitude towards marriage in general amongst the youth seems to remain within the boundaries of traditional thinking. Add to this layer, another complexity of India vs Bharat. The sense of caste, creed, social hierarchy, need to marry “higher and upward”, etc. Part of the decline of work-force participation at moderate levels of education may be due to an income-effect where women with more education marry into richer families, that in turn enables or forces them to turn “homemakers” (essentially withdrawing from the productive labour category/ workforce).
Ideally (& theoretically) with more education, women would acquire greater skills and their earnings would increase. But more educated women do not want to work in jobs that do not match their aspirations. In general, we have not yet built a social-framework for women to be work-ready.
Even in the space of entrepreneruship, most women encounter skepticism from the society at large and even family members that being an entrepreneur is an insecure pursuit. It is critical for friends and families to encourage and support women in their journey to pursue their dreams and help unlock the inner confidence and potential to be financially independent.
Covid & Women workforce
Covid or not, as a society, we do not measure the efforts and the tremendous output of women in domestic household activities. While many research papers have mooted the idea of measuring those impacts and adding it to the GDP, beyond the perfunctory lip-service, we have not progressed yet. The Covid impact should not make it further regressive now!
The Covid-19 pandemic has killed many thousands of people and destroyed economies all over the world. Sadly, more men have died leaving behind many Covid widows. Losing a loved one is heart-breaking at the best of times. But facing bereavement at such an early age can be more challenging than usual.
With Covid impact, we already have a huge count of Indian Covid-widows; most of them who never would have worked a single day in formal workforce to earn a living and who will now be forced to become the primary bread winner of their families. But without the necessary educational qualification, employability-skillsets, familial &/or social acceptance in our already cocooned parochial society, women will suddenly not just be bread-makers, but also bread-winners!
In a number of cases, the properties are listed in the name of the male family member and most women do not understand the legal complexities of succession and property rights to fight for what rightly belongs to them. Treating them as “bechaari” would only add to the social stigma and the raw emotional wound. If “empathy” were to be demonstrated, it is that time now; “sympathy” & “solace” are passé. Yes, affirmative action to help the cause would be tolerable, only if we balance it with impressive positive outcomes for these stakeholders.
COVID-19 is not just a challenge for our global health care systems, but also a time to introspect about our human spirit. It has highlighted and amplified all existing inequalities, with all its complexities. To level the playing field, the ongoing pandemic crisis has given a chance to revisit the engrained socio-historical patriarchal dominance. Changing mindsets would take much time. But it’s desperately needed now, more than ever before!
We need to accept and demonstrate that it’s not plain demographic-power, but rather ‘Nari Shakti’, that is India’s true soft-power!
