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Working Women: The Modern Womaniya
Since time immemorial, men
and women have slogged it out
first for survival, then decent
living and finally for a
p r o s p e r o u s l i v i n g .
anthropological evolution with
the environmental conditions
Dr. Parikshit Mahankal being harsh & the natural
ability to give birth , the females were sociologically
considered close to the home with tasks like the
rearing of cattle, upbringing the kids in the
family,cooking food etc. slowly the social narrative
was warped into connotations of pride, religious
traditions and educational norms.
Women slowly got relegated into doing more work but
with less cognizance being taken, in essence when she
was a daughter, she was supposed to tend to the
younger siblings, learn to cook, tend cattle and uphold
family values and pride. As a daughter-in-law, the
responsibilities only multiplied; now she additionally
had to help her husband in business/agriculture,
produce & look after upbringing of children and also
manage the finances of the house.
The distribution of work even in post industrial
revolution remained heavily skewed in favour of the
males with shop floor conditions,lack of facilities and
tough working hour made the industrialists resort to
what is known as the differential wage system wherein
women commanded lesser wages than their male
counterparts due to this perception, same was the case
while working as a farm hand.
Towards the middle of the 21st century technology
took over things;and became a great gender equaliser.
The introduction of IT in late 90s opened up avenues
for women in services sector and offered them pays
compatible to their male peers.
Today, women are challenging the proverbial glass
ceiling and many are breaking it with aplomb too! The
current director of IMDR,Dr.Shikha Jain is IMDR’s
first female director in it’s 45 years history!
When I started to write this article, I had two persons
prominently in my mind,my mother and my wife; I am
going to try and narrate how they have shaped my
views about women in general and working women in
particular. Further, I will also present my views about
my organisation’s workforce.
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My Mom:
To begin with I would like to share with two unusual
thing,my mother was born on 29th February 1948,
that’s right her birthday came every four years as she
I n was born on the additional day of the year,I always said
you are only 25% of your real age, Secondly,I learnt
discipline from my mom & love from my dad; most of
the world relates to these two things the other way
round but in my house, my mom did the disciplining
part to a large extent, being in charge of two boys who
have disregard for instructions was a tough job, but
before we were born, my mother worked with
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and was a
valued employee there, but since dad was working in
Pune, she had to shift to Pune, later she picked up jobs
in Philips and TELCO ( now TATA Motors)
respectively.
I remember I was 6 months old when she re-joined and
for next 4 odd years, she worked.
In 1983, the untimely demise of her brother gave her a
terrible shock,he was the only brother and she had six
other sisters, she went into a coma and was in that state
for 21 days, my elder brother must have been about 5th
grade and I was in 1st grade. When she came out of
coma, we detected she had her entire left side of the
body, paralysed, so, she used to ask us kids to host her
in a chair which we slowly moved to kitchen and she
used to guide my elder brother on how to cook food.
She never gave up and eventually, with the help of
physiotherapy and self- determination she regained
mobility, but with limited movement, she decided that
she may not be able to travel and deftly work as she
was used to earlier, instead, she decided and started a
small time shop, a general store at my home itself, she
had never done business before, but I watched her
negotiate with salesman, convince salesmen who
wouldnot visit our shop earlier to come and deliver, we
didn’t have a shop for almost 1 km vicinity that time,
so it was tough, many people preferred shopping with
us because of trust and quality factors, We successfully
managed the shop for more than two decades and
eventually had to close it post her demise ,but she
taught me so many things, she used to repeat her
favourite lines to me all the time,”Duniya mein rehna
hai to kaam kar pyaare, haath jod sab ko salaam kar
pyaare”, I was in my teens then and in my youthful
exuberance, I sometimes came across as brash and