When men make decisions, they forget that their way of life isn’t the only way of life! I had read somewhere that most policies that exist at workplaces had been created with the male way of life as the default. Whether it is the belief that longer hours mean a dedicated employee or that pantsuits make what is called work wear, the office space you know today, a huge aspect of it at least, is male or male-derived. Hear me out before you go on the defensive.
“The truth is that around the world, women continue to be disadvantaged by a working culture that is based on the ideological belief that male needs are universal.”
― Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Post-COVID, all bosses and their uncles are eager to get people back to work from offices, inferring working from home is not work. Or, how people should commute 2 to 3 hours a day to work, rather than have a chance at a life without that stress. The reason? Well, apparently, in today’s age of the internet and all things virtual, you can’t collaborate until you are physically near your colleagues. Now, bear in mind, that I’m talking about the corporate space, where most calls happen over Teams or emails or some such applications. You could have team members in different parts of the world. But, hey, what do I know, I’m a minion, after all. I do not belong to the boys’ club that walks the power corridors at work, and neither do most women. So, decisions like working from the office are made by men who probably can and do waltz in at the office at 11 am, go on chai sutta breaks and don’t have to rush back home because well, wives are there to multitask.
Why does this eagerness to work from the office bother me?
Well, not only me. Most women I have spoken to echo this sentiment. There are valid reasons as well for that. Let me give you a glimpse into the life of a working woman. Say, it’s a nuclear family. There isn’t a daycare conveniently located near her home. Or that her child is now at a post-daycare age. She wants to keep working, so she needs to balance both. She needs to send her kid off to school but needs to come back before the kid is back. There are calls to be attended in between and late into the day and deadlines to be met. Since both she and her husband are working, if there is no flexibility to be at home to balance both, who do you think will bow out of the race? More often than not, the woman, because in most cases, she would be the one whose salary would be a minuscule percentage of her husband’s.
The only way she can manage this juggling act is to keep running from home to work and back home. Until one day, she burns out. This struggle is what men do not understand. Just like they can never comprehend how painful and inconvenient periods are, they can’t grasp what it is to be a woman who wants both a career and children. What is ironic is that the same men who mandated working from the office in the first place would be trying to discuss on a Teams meeting how to increase gender parity in the organisation before going for their 5th sutta break of the day. But that would be too late, wouldn’t you think?
Let’s be clear: Women aren’t saying they don’t want to work.
It is okay if men do not understand the female experience, but when men make decisions, the least they can do is factor in the employees who are not men. Let’s be clear: Women aren’t saying they don’t want to work. They only ask to make the environment conducive to sustaining their careers. The only ask is to come out of the regressive 80s mindset of slaving inside the walls of the office for it to be considered work.
’38 per cent of mothers with young children say that without workplace flexibility, they would have had to leave their company or reduce their work hours.’ – Women in the Workplace by McKinsey
Every year on Women’s Day, the HRs of every organisation send across write-ups and make lofty claims of women’s inclusion, parity and whatnot, but how would any of that work? How is working from the office for 2 or 3 or 5 days better than working from home as long as work is being done? What is the point of all the schemes of getting women back to work after career breaks, if everything is done to make it impossible for the ones still within the organisation to thrive?
For women, hybrid or remote work is about a lot more than flexibility. When women work remotely, they face fewer microaggressions and have higher levels of psychological safety. – Women in the workplace by McKinsey
There is a reason women are deciding against having children or even getting married. If every ounce of our will to work is to be squeezed out of us with policies which make it impossible to balance work, home and children, then why should women put themselves through all the hardship?
I sometimes wish the tables were turned! How? A world where women earn more than men. Women get the promotions they deserve without having to beg for them. And then the best part, men have to run between home and office, balancing a career and kids. Men asked if they could manage work after their kids were born. Men have to plan every hour of their day because they do not have the gift of time. If that happened, I guarantee you everyone would be working from home. Or, the choice would be on the employee and not some middle-aged men with nothing to offer at home.
What irks me is that due to the male majority in the upper echelons of power at work, the women’s perspective is not taken into account. How is that acceptable? The voice of the other half of the spectrum, the spectrum that does the bulk of the unpaid work at these very men’s homes, isn’t factored in.
“It’s not always easy to convince someone a need exists, if they don’t have that need themselves.”
― Caroline Criado Perez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
To be honest with you, it is a fight every single day. You find yourself wondering if the trade-off is worth it. You plod on as long as you possibly can, but there is always a threshold. I have been a working mom for some time now. Initially, I would get annoyed at the stifling policies. But I have become numb now. I have stopped caring. Maybe, I will go on as long as I can until I become another statistic of women dropping out of the race because it is skewed in favour of the male way of life, and I’m not one. Sad but true.
Well, that was heavy but look at that, I wrote a lot today. And it is a Monday as well. A Feminist Monday at that and after a long time too. That ought to count for something.
Do share your thoughts!
Ciao!