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OP I N I ON Gender Balance
physically harass women. Colleagues offer unwanted attention which can still be shaken off but a woman is placed in a difficult situation if the higher officer demands sexual favours, if refused the boss can easily take it out on the woman in other ways to make life miserable for her. There have been several cases of sexual harassment recently involving even the senior women officials. On the other hand if a woman is praised for her work or promoted on merit, her colleagues do not hesitate to attribute it to sexual favours. The psychological pressure of all this can easily lead to a woman quitting her job. Most of the problems that beset working women are in reality rooted in the social perspective of the position of women. Traditionally men are seen as the bread winner and women as the housekeepers, child bearers and rearers. This typecast role model continues to put obstacles before the working women. A fundamental change is required in the attitudes of the employers, policy makers, family members and other relatives and the public at large. Not getting equal pay, being denied opportunities for growth and promotion are some examples of the kind of economic exploitation that women are subjected to in certain sectors. In spite of legislation in place (Equal Remuneration Act, 1976) it is widely observed that women are usually underpaid as compared to their male counterparts performing the same job. Delhi High Court in 2005 in its ruling in The Cooperative Store Ltd. (Super Bazar) v. Bimla Devi and other laid down that unequal pay is not only a violation of the said act but also, of Article 14 of the Constitution, Right to Equality. Furthermore, India is a signatory to the International Labour Organisation Convention for the Elimination of All
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Forms of Discrimination Against Women, to which India is a signatory, specifically to Article 11 that deals with the elimination of discrimination in the field of employment. Moreover, in spite of allegiance to an International Convention, having a specific legislation in force and a High Court ruling declaring equal pay to be incorporated in fundamental rights, the stark reality of the situation is different. Women still get underpaid. However, this problem in the organized specialized sector is guised and more subtle. Women are discriminated when it comes to promotion opportunities and not the blatant discrimination on the basis of pay for equal work. It is well established in the minds even today that in a family it is the husband who engages in social production, and brings home the wage that is just sufficient to feed and clothe him, his wife and his children. But the job of transforming the wage into consumable substances of returning the fed, washed, rested and sexually satisfied worker to the factory everyday, and of bringing up the children who will form the next generation of workers, is carried out by the housewife. It is propagated in a way that this is indeed the natural function of the women and makes sure that the opportunities made available to work for a wage on her own are restricted in number, and as far as possible, to those jobs which are a socialized version of her domestic function. Thus instead of bringing increasing number of women into social production, modern society has institutionalized the subjugation of women in its own way and defined her work even outside the domestic sphere, by low status and dependence on men. In an increasingly commercialized economy, women are becoming further
Vol. 3, Issue 12
marginalized, due to the very limited job options permitted to them both by their own families and by the ways in which labour markets are structured. Women's access to both education and paid employment has remained far less than men's–even though the gaps between the sexes are slowly narrowing. Thus the positive indications noted are rather misleading, because improvement in the relative access of women to education and jobscompared to men has been very limited. Comparing male and female indicators reveals that huge sex based disparities remain. For socio-cultural reasons, most women's families restrict or obstruct their equal access to education and choice of jobs, resulting in the vast majority of Indian women reaching adulthood severely handicapped in relation to the male dominated labour market. Very little has been done to reduce women's traditional disadvantages in the labour market, with the consequence that most women remain confined to the lower rungs of the labour hierarchy. Even India's switch over to the policies of globalization, liberalization and privatization under the shield of development has done little to expand women's job opportunities. This is because of the women's socialization as mother, housewives. With the spread of global market economy in India there has been a strengthening of male biased (patriarchal) norms and values. It is suggested to the IAF Vice chief Marshal and other recruiting agencies to augment their dogmatic, conservative, traditional and patriarchal engrossed judgements. Women are the claimers of half of the opportunities. Women should be provided equal opportunities in respect of the jobs, promotions, status and reverence.
Epilogue, December 2009