A lot of girls start working during their graduate studies, as interns, volunteers, part-time employees. Their lack of experience makes it easy for them to accept a slightly lower pay, knowing fully well that they don’t even have the credentials to ask for anything more than they’re getting.
Then they complete their education, and prepare themselves for an entire change in life, everything will get a lot more serious, a lot more concrete, a lot of responsibilities will be taken up and another step will be taken towards fulfilling their dreams.
They go for job interviews, and get judged based on not just their resume, but their appearance. A better looking woman will always get the job faster than the others. A man with the same degree (and maybe lesser marks) will get the job before the focused, efficient woman just because she might have a few more restrictions from home than the man. It’s everywhere, literally everywhere you go. Even the people who say “We aren’t being sexists, but there are a lot more restrictions on you because you’re a girl” are in fact being sexist. Why do these restrictions exist in the first place? (That’s an entire topic for another day)
The work place isn’t the only place where women face sexism and double standards, it starts right from home, where the girl would be expected to learn all household duties while the boy can get out whenever he wishes to and return as he pleases (exceptions not included). But it does start right here, where ‘log kya kahenge’ starts turning into an obstacle when the girl stays out working late for that extra money by working over time. She has to strike that balance between- being seen as a ‘sanskari’ girl and fulfilling her dreams. Because God forbid, if she starts staying out working at night and starts being seen with her male colleagues, she will be termed as a ‘characterless woman’.
Women are ‘apparently’ not looked at as a liability. Their work, no matter how efficient, doesn’t receive an equal pay under the excuse that they might have to deal with the ‘female restrictions’ that men don’t have to. Their obligations to the family, marriage, home-making, monthly cycles and emotions seem to be fair enough reasons to not give them as much money as their male counterparts.
But the society is changing, bit by bit. There are women receiving equal respect and recognition for the jobs that they do. Women leaders are a slightly more common sight to our sore eyes. They still have to struggle with all the societal expectations, log kya kahenge and ‘she needs to get married now’, but the struggle has become slightly easier now that there are a lot more women standing up to this.
There are companies that still favour unmarried women and women who don’t plan on having kids anytime soon so they can avoid giving maternity leaves; or companies that favour good looking women because their gender will do their job for them. But there is no denying that there are also a lot more companies that are actively trying to find a way around this sensitive topic.
The corporate section of the society is slowly yet steadily changing, unwinding the messy, tangled strings starting from the more recent Consequences and slowly moving to the Roots. The roots will hopefully be reached soon, where the people outside of the professional space start looking at women as simple humans with dreams and ambitions, instead of ‘womb-bearers and home-makers with too many ambitions’.
