WOMEN ON TOP - Part II

Now what about working women, I believe she is stronger physically and mentally as well. She also does all the above mentioned work but there is a little bit change in attitude and approach. In India after independence the women began participating in all activities such as education, civil science, social science, science and technology, art and culture, media and politics. Successful women like Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Sunita Williams, Kalpana Chawla must also have done all what is required to grow healthy relationship within the family. But the question here is are they dominant, well most of the men think working women try to dominate because they are financially independent and don’t have fear of dependence on their male partner, I say why not, they do everything a man does while at work and they do everything a man cannot do or never does at home. I have seen my neighbor who’s wife is working abroad and he is working here in India and growing his 2 daughters with his parents support as well, this may sound weird to many men but yes this is how the world is changing, this is how women are taking the front seat but of course if she gets support from her male partner which presently is not the case in most of the families. There is another perspective to this, “a study by Bupa UK Health Insurance, which claims that half of all women surveyed said that they were stressed at work, while only one in three men declared that they were stressed. Dr Babita Mathur, senior lecturer in organisational development, diversity management and gender studies, explains the shift in plain terms: "Nobody invited women into the workplace. They choose to participate for whatever reason and, given that women are not stupid, they have to accept that they need to work harder to compete. Today men and women's roles are parallel." While she concedes that some progressive international organisations have, in recent years, rolled out ‘family-friendly' programmes that integrate things like child care, breastfeeding and educational facilities, flexible work hours, and time off and special child-related leave into their workplaces and policies, the prevailing reality is that most workplaces do not widely support parenthood. Dr. Mathur’s evaluations are based upon the extensive work that has gone into developing USB training programmes on women in management, organisational change and renewal, and gender sensitivity. Her position supports a growing international belief that future social and family policies should be gender-blind - this, despite statistics that corroborate the fact that women are still the primary caregivers in families. The premise is that, while minimum maternity leave is necessary for the health and wellbeing of mother and infant, all other parental leave should be available to whichever parent chooses to take it. The notion is that this allows role-reversal couples, as well as women, to be full-time parents if they so choose. The days that women hoped for special treatment because of their traditional sex-based roles have, it seems, passed. Nowadays, women need to focus on their strengths, and understand that merit, and merit alone, will move them ahead”. (Dr. Mathur’s study From http://www.law24.com/) (To be continued)

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