Unwind the Untouched

In the year 2022, we still cherish the concept of “working women/mother”. The fact that there is no introduction of the concept of “working men/father” speaks volume of the ecosystem we should develop. The culture, the society, the work environment, all define gender first and role later. Skills and knowledge are not gender specific instead depends how they are unwound and made use of. The unspoken responsibilities which are expected to be delivered from a working woman on a personal front makes her go on silent mode even professionally.

Women are taught and trained to accept what comes to them and adjust, compromise and be understanding. These qualities are deep routed in our personality that we forget to look at our job from a career perspective. Career is meant to grow but, job is meant to stay. Just like Darwin’s theory says: “Survival of the fittest”, every job has a theory which says: “flexibility is the key to career growth”. This key in combination with Darwin’s theory is used to not always support growth but also to curb the willingness to grow.

Women are held responsible for their role at personal and professional life with the same integrity, but they are always given an option to choose and prioritize between the two. Life is made out of relationships. What we have personally cannot be substituted with something new like we do when we change jobs, nor can we quit. So, when asked to prioritize, most of the women are bound to choose family which is the societal norm. A job and associated career give us what we achieve in life but expecting us to sacrifice life to attain what we want in career is something which professionally has to change. Maintaining a balance among the two is personal capacity which has to be respected and rewarded instead of pushing them to the brim to prove themselves at every step of the journey.

Teaching women to express themselves, their needs, aspirations by being vocal is one of the sides of the coin. Until we don’t prepare the other side of the coin, it is never a complete process. The other side is the world listening to them when they speak. When a man speaks, it is never questioned because even today he is associated as the bread earner of the family. Head of the family has all the liberty to draw boundaries to a woman in his life. This is the background in which we grow and develop our personality. So, when a woman is strong, vocal, and straight forward with an ambitious and an aspiring career goal, it is the personal values and thought process that becomes the judge to the situation and not always professional facts and statistics.

When we interview a female applicant, there is always a thought about her future in the interviewer’s mind which is his/her own imagination. It includes various factors which are natural and imbibed within us as part of our upbringing. An unmarried applicant will be associated with the risk of marriage, married applicant with the risk of maternity, married with kids is associated with risk of dependency and personal priority. All these are never associated with men. A man is just an applicant, but a woman is always associated with risk. This is our society which is moving towards change but at a very slow pace and hence we are still discussing on bespoke skills for women. 

The ecosystem we must develop here is not to enhance skill of women to speak but to build the skill of others to listen to them without judgement. When I put forward the risk of delivery of a project, my manager might think, “she doesn’t want to stretch working hours, so she is finding excuses”, but when a male employee presents the same, the possibility of overcoming the risk is being discussed. This is just an example out of many such scenarios which every woman faces on a daily basis. When your credibility is questioned implicitly or explicitly based on your gender, over a period of time you tend to silence your voice. Instead of focusing only on empowering women if we start focusing on teaching the rest of the world to accept this empowerment with grace, we need not enforce bespoke skills only to women in future.

Time shows us where we were and where we are. We grew with time which changed how we look at time too. Technology has always been an instrument for growth. We whole heartedly accept evolution of technology but fail to embrace change in society. The struggle to place your mark starts with every first step and it can reach its goal only when it is supported by everyone who matters. We can draw boundaries between our personal and professional lives, but these boundaries are fenced within the same area. What we are in one region is how we build the other.

Life doesn’t start when we aspire a career
Life doesn’t stop when we ignore our priorities
Life builds around our choices
Life grows within our fenced boundaries
Embracing every change and empowering every stage makes the difference which we are all looking forward to. Spoken and unspoken both makes the difference. But when we unwind the untouched, we are unaware of how to judge, and it is then we learn to listen and not conclude which is yet to be spoken.