After I joined my current firm, as a chemical engineer, gender equality became one of my favorite reads. Essentially because, my firm has very few female engineers and I bet the entire world on what an underutilized bunch we are! Our job involves a lot of “co-ordination” and “spending a lot of time in Plants” and everyone knows of the clichéd rationale that “women are not meant for such things”.
Disproving clichés is not my job. As a matter of fact ,I don’t really care for people who can’t think beyond cliches!!I took up the job, because I was tired of reading books about how reactors work and was terrified of having to limit my technical exposure to a 250 hectare engineering institute.
I was in fact ready to spend time in sticky plants, understand the convoluted activity flows and all the associated messy things. However what I was not prepared for was the kind of resistance I received.
I was, honestly put off by the collective disconcertion of other engineers (mostly men) working with me- I was initially asked to leave early by a regular bus service instead of taking the company cab, so that the other men engineers may get their “own space”. I never really got to know some of the most important details of the project because I consciously feel that information was bypassed either because it was thought I could not handle it or because of some kind of a feigned reticent attitude towards women. On the whole, I had to give 200% of physical and mental effort to get and learn what I wanted. In my place, a male engineer with ¾ th competency and enthusiasm would have had to give a maximum of 100% (or may be less than that).
So, with this entire hullabaloo about 33% reservation for women in the Indian Parliament and my companies grandiose plans to improve the gender ratio, I wonder if the grim reality can be changed. I doubt, if our men would be truly welcoming of equally competent women in their workspace and would be ready to offer more than just glib talk about a “Equalism” and “Women-sensitive workspace”. (For eg. Mentorship) . I am given into greater skepticism about our women, who have self-limited their energy and intellect - to live and work in stereotypical worlds. I wonder how much all these policies (my firm’s initiative included) will truly serve their purpose.
I don’t want to be a pessimist; but Change may not be a “definite certainty” as it usually is for most other issues!!Prove me wrong. I shall only be happy!
