Opinion Beyond the mommy wars

For Indian women,the work-life debate,while relevant,is overshadowed by more fundamental issues

July 26, 2012 03:34 AM IST First published on: Jul 26, 2012 at 03:34 AM IST

Reverberating beyond the confines of Silicon Valley,the recent appointment of 37-year-old Marissa Mayer as Yahoos CEO gives hope and succour to working women around the world. Not only did Yahoo select a woman,they chose a pregnant one,puncturing the perforated but still formidable glass ceiling. The timing of Mayers elevation is especially poignant given the spirited feminist debate currently raging in the US,ignited by former state department official Anne Marie Slaughter,on whether working women with families cant have it all. Slaughters opinion,aired in an article last month in The Atlantic,countered that of high profile Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg,who over the past two years has been extolling women to stick to their career paths and not give up for personal reasons. And while this specific discussion may be far from Indias shores,it has resonated here among educated,professional women. Just like their Western counterparts,qualified working Indian women face similarly fraught compulsions in work-life balance this despite our stronger family support structures and the presence of affordable household help.

The irony is that even as privileged Indian women relate to the Slaughter/ Sandberg debate,feminist discussions here are focusing on far more fundamental issues,ones that,in an ideal world,would have been put to bed ages ago. Personal safety,for example,as the appalling incident in Guwahati demonstrated. Media reports of women being stripped and paraded naked are frequent enough to elicit a collective gasp of national shame. The journalist Nilanjana S. Roy cites the National Crime Records Bureau to point out that rape and sexual assault are among the fastest growing reported crimes in India. Also familiar is the refrain of some city-based public officials,who despair over the growing freedom of women,from their attire to their frequenting bars and nightclubs (Vasant Dhoble,anyone?). Top that up with retrograde diktats from rural India,like the one by the Aasra khap in UPs Baghpat district,restricting women from using cell phones or going out in the evening,and one cant help but think that Indian women are an embattled lot,serving as a default cultural battleground upon whom injustices are perpetuated by a society struggling with modernity.

Lest I be accused of hyperbole or worse,playing the victim card here are some sobering facts. Women comprise less than 11 per cent of our elected representatives in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Worldwide,the average is about 19 per cent. Add to that the fact that many of our female representatives are elected on the strength of their familial (read male) ties,and not necessarily on their own steam,and even that 11 per cent looks grim. In corporate India,the situation isnt great either. Women constitute 40 per cent of the workforce in India,but only 11 per cent of Indias CEOs are women,according to the consulting firm Bain. A 2010 McKinsey report,Women Matter, showed that just 5 per cent of corporate boards in India had female representation,compared to 15 per cent in the US. Only 2 per cent of executive committees in Indian corporations had women representatives. To be sure,Indian women have scaled heights in certain industries like financial services,consumer goods,textiles and the media. But a number of sectors continue to remain out of our reach.

Its not hard to see why. Right from inception,the scales are tipped against girls. Social mores are evolving,but slowly. Rampant abortion of female foetuses continues,a menace that can only be eradicated through a shift in mindset. Female education is an oft cited government goal,and while female literacy went up to 54 per cent,according to the 2001 census,its nowhere near where it needs to be to emancipate women. Sadly,of the 1.29 million elementary schools in India,only about half have bathroom facilities for girls. The figures arent much better for secondary schools,the level at which most girls tend to drop out.

These basic facts need to be addressed. But so do some of the broader questions posed by the Sandberg/ Slaughter mommy wars debate. Framing the argument as they do,both illuminate the inherent complexities of being a woman,regardless of the degree of privilege how to deal with being an individual versus juggling social demands and expectations,how to create as supportive a family environment,how to negotiate and say no,how to balance a career with the desire to have a family,how to deal with that gnawing sense of guilt that every woman,whether working or not,faces (guilt that youve left the house to go to work versus guilt that you arent leaving the house to do something),how to demonstrate ambition without being insufferable,and yes,how to balance tradition with the demands of living in the 21st century.

The writer is a Mumbai-based journalist

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