A little off topic but I needed to write this. I had been disturbed by this fact from a very long time. I have seen this happen in atleast 80%-90% of the case especially in India and still have no clue of it. No, I am not talking about woman cheating or being cheated or the most common topic -menstruation or feminism. I am talking about the career life of a woman in India. According to the experts, the proportion of the working age female population stands distressingly low at 23.4 per cent (2019)[1]. Let me share with you the journey of some of the woman I personally met and the experience I had on regard to the subject matter. I will not name any woman in the paper.
My first encounter with the subject on ‘why woman do not work after getting married’ or ‘leave the job she enjoyed after getting married’ was seen in my own house. For the former part, I will set the example of my mother. Every time I use to ask her the question, she would tell that although she wanted to get a Ph degree in the subject she studied during her graduation days, after getting married, many more responsibilities were attached ( being a typical Indian woman). “Times have changed,” I said to her during the 2nd wave of the lockdown in the city of Calcutta.
I told her that she can still get her Ph degree as now everything has gone online and while I was writing articles/ papers for law school, I said to her that I can even help her to write a good paper/ article on her subject and get it published since I was already doing mine. Once or twice she even agreed but then it never progressed. Few days ago, I decided to have a talk with her again on the matter and the answer was a bit puzzling ; she said that it as of no use since she was getting old and sitting in front of the screen for a long time is not a good option for her eyes & body( she gets a little headache after spending some time on her phone). The 2nd reason she gave me was that since she was not from the same city ( my mom is from U.P), it was difficult for her to understand the language after she shifted to Calcutta. I replied that now nothing is difficult since the courses now can be done even in the language of one’s preference. There were no further talks in the matter.
My 2nd encounter on the subject happened when I heard that one of my school batchmate got married at the peak of her career and left her job. I was shocked at this. My first reaction was that why did she leave her job ( she had a very descent job in a reputed C.A firm)? I had no contact with her ever since she got married but exactly a year later she replied me on my facebook. Her answer was that she got a good experience in a reputed firm and her spouse earned enough to feed the family. A week before, two of my batchmates married each other and they worked in the same company, but the girl said that she would leave the job after her man would get promotion since it would be enough for him to feed both of them. I was taken aback at this. Times are changing. It is the corona time and uncertainty is there. No one knows who will survive or be thrown out from the company. At this time, leaving an existing job or finding a new one is not recommended from my end. I feel that both the spouses should not leave their jobs at this uncertain period. Due to the pandemic, there is an advantage of working from home which can be easily done by the married woman. They can manage home & gain work experience at the same time without loosing anything.
The 3rd incidence was on 12th July, 2021 with one of my law school batchmate. Both of us were talking about finding a job in this pandemic uncertain situation with only few internship experiences. When I asked her what she will do as she had a good C.V and securing a job( of an in-house advocate) she replied that she wanted to get married and “live a happily -after life”. This got me thinking. I asked her then why was she looking for a job if her ultimate aim was to get married, to which she replied that in case her spouse lost his job, she would be able to find one using her experience. Now, there have been instance where woman who got married continued her job and were doing well when they had to stop as soon as they got pregnant. Even many of them did comeback after maternity leave, but was short lived as some of them wanted to raise their children and be content.
At first, I thought that the woman were more intelligent than men by securing good marks in school & college exams plus securing a good job in a reputed company, but then it also got me thinking that the woman also eat up the man’s spot. The same man goes back to his spot only when the woman leaves it on her will or she is forced by circumstances. This in-turn affects the work force which I think is not good for the economy.
There have been theories that woman can work more efficiently than men but the ratio of working woman in India to men is much less. I do not need to repeat the situations and according to me, if as per the feminist “equal pay for equal work” should exist, then, there should be equal opportunity for woman to work and only those woman should work who really wants to work and not those who only wants the degree ( & great C.V) and support their spouse!!
[1] Chitvan Singh Dhillion and Navdeep Singh-Disappearing through the cracks, Economic Survey 2020: 60 per cent of women in India in the productive age bracket of 15-59 years are engaged in full-time housework – Telegraph India, visited on 13-07-2021 at 13:12hrs.
Aishwarya Says:
I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.
If you are interested in participating in the same, do let me know.
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