Problems of UrbanWorking Women in India
Saumitra Mohan
India's odyssey to be a developed and modern democratic entity began in 1947 and since then it has covered a long distance on its way to the coveted status. Much has changed in these forty-eight years, but change in the status of women is one of the remarkable ones. Today, to compete with men, to assert themselves for their rights, to carve out a niche for themselves in the social hierarchy and to get their desired place in the sun, the women of India have come out in the open and are sweating their guts out to achieve the same.
But in the skewed, still largely conservative and male-dominated society, to unfold the chemistry of problems of urban working women in India, it is necessary to have a total savvy of the obtaining situation and an in-depth analysis thereof.
The problems of an urban working woman start with her decision to go out of the confines of the house either to share the family burden or to assert her economic independence. Whatever the reason, her decision comes very much as a challenge to male chauvinism and antediluvian societal stipulations about a woman's role and duties prescribed in the scriptures jotted down centuries ago. She faces the stiff opposition from her parents and in-laws who do not want her to challenge the status-quo. The doubting Thomases even in the assumed modern urban atmosphere shower every criticism on her to preempt every possibility of the future break-up of the extant structure. And if she, after all these bottlenecks, is able to persist with her decision, she wins her first battle only to fight many others.
A working woman is seen as a largely independent creature, but in most of the cases it is the other way round. Even after having attained the status of a working woman, she is not economically independent and has to give every account of her earnings to her kindreds. Many urban youth wish to marry a working woman knowing fully well they are going to marry as their wife a goose with golden eggs-laying capacity. Many cases have come to be known where in-laws inquire even about her pre-marriage earnings. So even for her petty expenses, sometimes she has to cool her heel for long to get the mandatory imprimatur let alone splurging money out on friends.
An urban working woman has often to cope with a tight schedule of duties as she has to maintain a funambulist balance between her outside and inside roles. In comparison to men, women have generally to work on two fronts, i.e. domestic as well as official fronts. Coming home after a tiring inning in offices, a woman has to undergo all the usual household chores as even today these works are considered preserve of women. So, even after sharing an additional responsibility, women still have not been able to manumit themselves from their earlier responsibilities or at least to lessen them. And if working women giving preference to their outside role at the expense of her inside role, this usually leads to the family break-up.
Moreover, another crucial problem of working women is their lack of time for their own wards for their proper upbringing. And when left to the care of crèche or servants, the children become highly exposed to the bad world quite often leading astray towards drug addiction or juvenile delinquencies. Long working hours and travel in city buses for hours hardly leave an urban working woman with enough time to take care of her children.
In India, the urban working women are easy prey to inurbane criticisms and invectives. Male chauvinism does not want to allow her enough leeway to seek parity with men. Right from the beginning, it is ingrained in their mind that any work except the traditional ones should not be their cup of tea. It is really a pity that urban India which boasts of its modern outlook fails to appreciate the gutsy women who dare to do something on their own. Even in the mega cities to do something on their own. Even in the mega cities and towns, the working women are often deemed immoral. The doubting fingers keep her chasing incessantly. A bit of delay in office, customary visits to male colleagues, a group picnic or any such extra official adventure invite penetrating eyes of relatives in general and husband in particular. The problem is more aggravated when the woman is a steno or a secretary or works in a private firm. This particular problem of social infamy exercises severe stress on her mind and health causing psychosomatic problems like gastrointestinal problems, migraine, headaches, neurosis et cetra.
Sexual exploitation of women is their biggest problem and the urban working women are no exception to that. Crossing the barrier of a sober smile, if a woman enjoys a hearty laugh with her colleague, then many eyes start understanding her. God forbid, but if any how advertently or inadvertently a woman gets more free and gets physically more rear to an extra hubby person, then her doomsday is reached. She is forced to put a righteous veneer round her, not allowing herself to receive even friendly or venerable smile or touch of others. And if when goes beyond this Lakshman Rekha, she has to confront the wrath of fundamentalists and obscurantist forces. The cause celebre of Nelson Mandela's kiss to Shabana Azami is a case in point. This blunts the natural flair and talent of women which is also a big problem of urban working women.
Again, it would not be out of place to mention the behaviour of boss with their subordinate women staff which has got a particular notoriety. Though government women staff are a bit secured, those in extra-governmental jobs, i.e., in private firms are often under threat from their boss and in their bid to save their job most often they are not able to save their grace. Even the employment advertisements of such private firms require smart, beautiful and modern women sidetracking the question of efficiency which is the very hallmark of these private firms. Today if the combined virtue of smartness, beauty and modernity are able to steal a march over efficiency, then it is nothing but symbolic o sick mentality.
Costumes or dress is yet another problem. A little more make up and she is greeted with catcalls and wolf-whistles. Many smutty sobriquets such as immoral, coquette, hussy, tart and chappan churi (sic) are hurled at her. Quite opposite if she wears plain and simple dress then again wits at large would say that she is not a woman of good breeding and does not know how to dress oneself properly. Thus, in both situations, it is she who is at the receiving end. Here one is compelled to remember what Joseph Conrad has said: "Being a woman is very difficult at it consist in dealing with man."
The step-motherly treatment of society and sometime even government also becomes a problem with her. Despite constitutional provision and appropriate legislation, urban working women are highly underpaid lot, more particularly in unorganized sector where sometime with the connivance of government officials and sometime due to loopholes in laws, women are often discriminated against in matters of wages and leisure-enjoyment. Only a few years back have air-hostesses got the right to be a mother, which was earlier not available to them. Even now, they are struggling for promotional opportunities and salary-raise.
The inevitable official tours and visits are also a problem for her as due to domestic responsibility, concerns for chastity, grace and affection for children and husband more often than not she is not able to undertake. This sometimes deprives her of the valuable experience necessary to reach the highest rung of hierarchy.
The working women are often in an unenviable position when they have to work at night. First, is difficult to get the patriarch’s permission for night duty and when she gets such permission then the penetrating eyes of Casanovas and Don Juans get after her. One often comes across the news about the misbehavior with nurses and hotel receptionists’ night duty. Such problems could be solved only who the special protection provided to working women at deterrence against such crimes by draconian legislation coupled with prompt implementation.
The problems of an urban working woman more multiplied when she is a navvy. To mitigate huger, she has to first mitigate the lust of contract their favorites and sons and police officials. With permanent residence to live these women labour are often a nomadic life. They are not paid the same wages as their male counterparts and faced with threat of ejection, they meekly thumb on the dotted line. Such women have also to confront the bad behaviour of their husbands which often leave them when they are quite unable to work.
Again if anyhow a woman is able to be a higher than her husband whether in salary position, she becomes the victim of her husband inferiority complex often resulting in divorce resignation. A man thinks it macho to keep the woman always subservient to him be it his wife, sister or daughter. A man often casts about only such for marriage whose educational qualification is to him or who is not any how superior to him parents despite their urban outlook scarcely to educate their daughters beyond a limit. Sometimes it seems that a grand conspiracy has been fabricated against urban working women to keep them at feet. The male dominated Indian society is very much perceptible in its discrimination with urban working women wanting them always to play the second fiddle.
The break up of joint family and the subsequent emergence of nuclear family with its new found popularity has only increased the number of problems for urban working women in India. Now the support base available to her in the joint family stands eroded in nuclear family to relieve her of domestic responsibility or any tension.
But in spite of numerous hurdles before her, the urban working woman with an indefatigable zeal still goes on and is still rubbing shoulders with men to get her cherished place in the Sun. Even today her contribution remains highly unacknowledged. Despite a National Commission for Women, promises made by 74th Constitutional Amendment and several other laws, urban working women remain at the receiving end. She also shares some common problems with other women, e.g., foeticide, female infanticide, dowry deaths, molestations and rapes, eve-teasing, et al.
Towns and cities with mammoth industries and development centres in their belly are said to be the engines of progress and development which could be run smoothly only with the active cooperation of both the gender groups. But keeping urban working women totally aloof from modern developments and by fettering them in various way, we cannot expect to transform India into a modern and developed body politic, So, we would have to recognize and appreciate women's talent and potential. The male society would have to replace its present mental-matrix with a new one more favourable towards urban working women. A man must help a woman in her domestic chores as men in the West do. The bottom line is this, unless women are organised and assert themselves more forcefully and male society liberalize its closed mind set, there can be no reduction in the urban working women's problems. In this context the positive government contribution can play a catalytic and propulsive role in changing the gloomy scenario besides implementing the already existing laws and legislate some other. Lastly in the sanguine words of Cato the Censor; "Suffer women to arrive at a equality with you, and they will from that moment become your superiors."
(1993)
Saumitra Mohan
India's odyssey to be a developed and modern democratic entity began in 1947 and since then it has covered a long distance on its way to the coveted status. Much has changed in these forty-eight years, but change in the status of women is one of the remarkable ones. Today, to compete with men, to assert themselves for their rights, to carve out a niche for themselves in the social hierarchy and to get their desired place in the sun, the women of India have come out in the open and are sweating their guts out to achieve the same.
But in the skewed, still largely conservative and male-dominated society, to unfold the chemistry of problems of urban working women in India, it is necessary to have a total savvy of the obtaining situation and an in-depth analysis thereof.
The problems of an urban working woman start with her decision to go out of the confines of the house either to share the family burden or to assert her economic independence. Whatever the reason, her decision comes very much as a challenge to male chauvinism and antediluvian societal stipulations about a woman's role and duties prescribed in the scriptures jotted down centuries ago. She faces the stiff opposition from her parents and in-laws who do not want her to challenge the status-quo. The doubting Thomases even in the assumed modern urban atmosphere shower every criticism on her to preempt every possibility of the future break-up of the extant structure. And if she, after all these bottlenecks, is able to persist with her decision, she wins her first battle only to fight many others.
A working woman is seen as a largely independent creature, but in most of the cases it is the other way round. Even after having attained the status of a working woman, she is not economically independent and has to give every account of her earnings to her kindreds. Many urban youth wish to marry a working woman knowing fully well they are going to marry as their wife a goose with golden eggs-laying capacity. Many cases have come to be known where in-laws inquire even about her pre-marriage earnings. So even for her petty expenses, sometimes she has to cool her heel for long to get the mandatory imprimatur let alone splurging money out on friends.
An urban working woman has often to cope with a tight schedule of duties as she has to maintain a funambulist balance between her outside and inside roles. In comparison to men, women have generally to work on two fronts, i.e. domestic as well as official fronts. Coming home after a tiring inning in offices, a woman has to undergo all the usual household chores as even today these works are considered preserve of women. So, even after sharing an additional responsibility, women still have not been able to manumit themselves from their earlier responsibilities or at least to lessen them. And if working women giving preference to their outside role at the expense of her inside role, this usually leads to the family break-up.
Moreover, another crucial problem of working women is their lack of time for their own wards for their proper upbringing. And when left to the care of crèche or servants, the children become highly exposed to the bad world quite often leading astray towards drug addiction or juvenile delinquencies. Long working hours and travel in city buses for hours hardly leave an urban working woman with enough time to take care of her children.
In India, the urban working women are easy prey to inurbane criticisms and invectives. Male chauvinism does not want to allow her enough leeway to seek parity with men. Right from the beginning, it is ingrained in their mind that any work except the traditional ones should not be their cup of tea. It is really a pity that urban India which boasts of its modern outlook fails to appreciate the gutsy women who dare to do something on their own. Even in the mega cities to do something on their own. Even in the mega cities and towns, the working women are often deemed immoral. The doubting fingers keep her chasing incessantly. A bit of delay in office, customary visits to male colleagues, a group picnic or any such extra official adventure invite penetrating eyes of relatives in general and husband in particular. The problem is more aggravated when the woman is a steno or a secretary or works in a private firm. This particular problem of social infamy exercises severe stress on her mind and health causing psychosomatic problems like gastrointestinal problems, migraine, headaches, neurosis et cetra.
Sexual exploitation of women is their biggest problem and the urban working women are no exception to that. Crossing the barrier of a sober smile, if a woman enjoys a hearty laugh with her colleague, then many eyes start understanding her. God forbid, but if any how advertently or inadvertently a woman gets more free and gets physically more rear to an extra hubby person, then her doomsday is reached. She is forced to put a righteous veneer round her, not allowing herself to receive even friendly or venerable smile or touch of others. And if when goes beyond this Lakshman Rekha, she has to confront the wrath of fundamentalists and obscurantist forces. The cause celebre of Nelson Mandela's kiss to Shabana Azami is a case in point. This blunts the natural flair and talent of women which is also a big problem of urban working women.
Again, it would not be out of place to mention the behaviour of boss with their subordinate women staff which has got a particular notoriety. Though government women staff are a bit secured, those in extra-governmental jobs, i.e., in private firms are often under threat from their boss and in their bid to save their job most often they are not able to save their grace. Even the employment advertisements of such private firms require smart, beautiful and modern women sidetracking the question of efficiency which is the very hallmark of these private firms. Today if the combined virtue of smartness, beauty and modernity are able to steal a march over efficiency, then it is nothing but symbolic o sick mentality.
Costumes or dress is yet another problem. A little more make up and she is greeted with catcalls and wolf-whistles. Many smutty sobriquets such as immoral, coquette, hussy, tart and chappan churi (sic) are hurled at her. Quite opposite if she wears plain and simple dress then again wits at large would say that she is not a woman of good breeding and does not know how to dress oneself properly. Thus, in both situations, it is she who is at the receiving end. Here one is compelled to remember what Joseph Conrad has said: "Being a woman is very difficult at it consist in dealing with man."
The step-motherly treatment of society and sometime even government also becomes a problem with her. Despite constitutional provision and appropriate legislation, urban working women are highly underpaid lot, more particularly in unorganized sector where sometime with the connivance of government officials and sometime due to loopholes in laws, women are often discriminated against in matters of wages and leisure-enjoyment. Only a few years back have air-hostesses got the right to be a mother, which was earlier not available to them. Even now, they are struggling for promotional opportunities and salary-raise.
The inevitable official tours and visits are also a problem for her as due to domestic responsibility, concerns for chastity, grace and affection for children and husband more often than not she is not able to undertake. This sometimes deprives her of the valuable experience necessary to reach the highest rung of hierarchy.
The working women are often in an unenviable position when they have to work at night. First, is difficult to get the patriarch’s permission for night duty and when she gets such permission then the penetrating eyes of Casanovas and Don Juans get after her. One often comes across the news about the misbehavior with nurses and hotel receptionists’ night duty. Such problems could be solved only who the special protection provided to working women at deterrence against such crimes by draconian legislation coupled with prompt implementation.
The problems of an urban working woman more multiplied when she is a navvy. To mitigate huger, she has to first mitigate the lust of contract their favorites and sons and police officials. With permanent residence to live these women labour are often a nomadic life. They are not paid the same wages as their male counterparts and faced with threat of ejection, they meekly thumb on the dotted line. Such women have also to confront the bad behaviour of their husbands which often leave them when they are quite unable to work.
Again if anyhow a woman is able to be a higher than her husband whether in salary position, she becomes the victim of her husband inferiority complex often resulting in divorce resignation. A man thinks it macho to keep the woman always subservient to him be it his wife, sister or daughter. A man often casts about only such for marriage whose educational qualification is to him or who is not any how superior to him parents despite their urban outlook scarcely to educate their daughters beyond a limit. Sometimes it seems that a grand conspiracy has been fabricated against urban working women to keep them at feet. The male dominated Indian society is very much perceptible in its discrimination with urban working women wanting them always to play the second fiddle.
The break up of joint family and the subsequent emergence of nuclear family with its new found popularity has only increased the number of problems for urban working women in India. Now the support base available to her in the joint family stands eroded in nuclear family to relieve her of domestic responsibility or any tension.
But in spite of numerous hurdles before her, the urban working woman with an indefatigable zeal still goes on and is still rubbing shoulders with men to get her cherished place in the Sun. Even today her contribution remains highly unacknowledged. Despite a National Commission for Women, promises made by 74th Constitutional Amendment and several other laws, urban working women remain at the receiving end. She also shares some common problems with other women, e.g., foeticide, female infanticide, dowry deaths, molestations and rapes, eve-teasing, et al.
Towns and cities with mammoth industries and development centres in their belly are said to be the engines of progress and development which could be run smoothly only with the active cooperation of both the gender groups. But keeping urban working women totally aloof from modern developments and by fettering them in various way, we cannot expect to transform India into a modern and developed body politic, So, we would have to recognize and appreciate women's talent and potential. The male society would have to replace its present mental-matrix with a new one more favourable towards urban working women. A man must help a woman in her domestic chores as men in the West do. The bottom line is this, unless women are organised and assert themselves more forcefully and male society liberalize its closed mind set, there can be no reduction in the urban working women's problems. In this context the positive government contribution can play a catalytic and propulsive role in changing the gloomy scenario besides implementing the already existing laws and legislate some other. Lastly in the sanguine words of Cato the Censor; "Suffer women to arrive at a equality with you, and they will from that moment become your superiors."
(1993)
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