By-Two Kaapi in an oilfield

About 56 seconds before I began to type this in, I put on the song "With Arms wide open" by Creed in the background. I realised that the topic I am about to write about can so closely be related to the title of the song! That's coincidence!

Last night, just before going to bed, I began reading the cover story of this week's BW "Gender at the workplace". Interesting topic and I was glued to the mag for about 20 minutes, though my eyes were crying for sleep after writing 2 tests in a single day. Though the article was very restricted in its scope, and disappointed me a lot, it did lend in a whole new perspective to the issue of "Motherhood and career life".

The article blamed motherhood for women failing to make it big in the workplace. I remember when Anita Sakuru, CEO, KenPeople speaking here at BITS Pilani that as a woman, it is lonely at the top. Thats been pretty obvious. How many women do we see attending Board room meetings? Another issue that the article mentioned was a quote from "My Fair Lady" wherein it is quoted

Why cant women be more like men?

. Interesting! Though I dont classify myself as a feminist or an anti-feminist; the quote amuses me. First off, I feel `Yeah! Why cant they?' and when senses sink in, I ask `Why should they?'. What is it that makes a woman different from a man in the workplace? Many feminists will start yelling at the top of their voice that there are no differences, but everything is discrimination against women. Let me come back to these mindless thoughts later.

One thing is pretty certain. To climb up the management ladder in any company, one needs both skill and effort. I believe that there is absolutely no difference between men and women in terms of skill. But when it comes to effort, there is a slight imbalance. Though men and women put in the same efforts to complete the tasks at hand, men take that extra step to do everything that is required to climb up (be it licking somebody at the top, travelling places, spending money, working overtime........all these at the expense of the family). Women tend to give a higher priority to family than company. What I see here is probably a system that needs change. This is probably an instance of discrimination against women (though discrimination is a harsh word!). It should not be expected of women to fit into the system that was built basically for men. As Bijapurkar (one of my fav women columnists) says `Women need new roles'. The best part is that many companies across the globe are introducing such changes like flexi-working hours for women. Womanhood in a sense is divine as it creates life. Let motherhood not be an impediment towards a woman making it big in her career.

Coming back to the mindless shouts by feminists which go about like `Men treat women as slaves', `Men are dogs', `Women are not given equal opportunity'. Please, gimme a break! Just dont yell something mindlessly. Think! Work out a solution without hurting anybody's ego. When women shout that they are being discriminated against, the first thought that comes in a man's mind is "Bullshit!". Thats because a male perceives it as an attack on his ego. When people stop being baseless , look at things in a calm and composed manner, I see no reason why this confict of gender at the workplace cant be sorted out. Lets embrace each other `with arms wide open'