The comeback woman: Why equality of treatment isn’t enough

It was early days yet, when the United Nations enshrined the Equality of Rights of both men and women as a cornerstone of its founding principles. The very idea of equal rights accorded to women through legislation was a new concept at the time.

As author Devaki Jain writes in her book, Women, Development and the UN, “The United Nations broke new ground by inscribing equality between the sexes, however it was much later that the UN learned that it is not the ‘equality of treatment’ but the ‘equality of outcomes’ that is crucial to ensuring women’s equality with men.”

To elaborate a little on the equality of outcomes, we start with the basic premise that all factors remaining the same (socio-economic background, education, health etc) men and women experience different outcomes in life.

For example, in India, once their careers are set to take off at the age of 23-25 years, men and women face different societal attitudes and expectations. At an age when the youth get set to concentrate on working towards a promising career, the women are already being subtly nudged into settling down with a suitable boy and bring in the stork.

We can safely say that it is a case of the society ensuring biology takes precedence. In comparison, most young men are left undisturbed to pursue their ambitions. We can identify the exact age at which women begin their role as a ‘nurturer’ or ‘a care-giver’ or simply put, become mums —- 20-30 years.

The pre-dominant patriarchal image of women in India is that of wife and mother. These roles are perceived to be completely satisfying in themselves, leaving little room for a woman to achieve other personal goals. Women have to resort to nurturance to keep men in their unique positions. They have to give up their own journey to create the female identity as constructed within the patriarchal culture.

Dr Benjamin Spock’s widely read book on childcare explicitly mentions that “The important thing for a mother to realise is that the younger the child, the more necessary it is for him to have a steady, loving person taking care of him… If a mother realises clearly how vital this kind of care is to a small child, it may be easier for her to decide that the extra money she might earn, or the satisfaction she might receive from an outside job is not important at all.”

However, in recent years, despite the strength of social norms, there have been tremendous attitudinal changes in the society. The modern educated woman feels discontented with the role of being a homemaker alone. Women speak of the constant feeling of being dominated and taken over by the demands, which the family makes on her.

Although in the initial stages she had enjoyed being immersed in the experiences of wifehood and motherhood, she starts feeling the need to reassert herself and search for an identity of her own. Engaging in a profession gives her a social identity.
Sociologists note that a trend has started where educated, skilled and professionally qualified women are trying to come back to the mainstream in a conscious and concerted effort. Sylvia Rimin calls it a ‘late bloomer model’.

Most women who are on the path of a second stint have taken a break of anywhere between two and eight years, sometimes even more. The return, even a couple of years back was a challenging prospect. However many changes have been made at the policy level both within the government as well as in the corporate sector.

To give an example, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has introduced a fellowship programme where financial assistance is provided to qualified women who have left the mainstream to attend to the domestic front, and were waiting for an opportunity to come back into the academic arena again. Women can apply for projects on a part-time basis by being attached to a university department. The UGC is thus trying to bring back ‘the invisible women’ into the workforce by providing this unique opportunity.

Also, a few weeks back, the Tata group brought out ads in newspapers calling upon educated and qualified women who were on career breaks to come back and join their workforce. The company called it the Tata Second Career Internship Programme. Reportedly, about 3,000 women from various parts of India responded in the first few days of the ad campaign.

Most corporate groups who are hiring women have, however, put a ceiling on the number of years they have been away to about 2-8 years. Beyond this, they see a woman’s ability to enter their portals and seamlessly assimilate as diminished. In comparison,
entering academics is less of a challenge.

The essential point that we are making is that women have started thinking of returning as a viable workforce in different fields, in India. This has also been made possible by the infinite options available to women by the opening up of the Indian economy.

It may be suggested that self-introspection helps in an exploration of ideas, skills and the need for upgradation of capabilities when one is trying to re-enter the job market. The level of self-confidence needs to be assessed, too. These factors do not, of course, account for the fact that a woman re-entering the job market may face stiff opposition from her family whose comfort zone she is about to disturb.

Thus, we see that the equality of treatment being the same, the equality of outcomes requires a structural adjustment. Attitudinal changes from within the society and policy changes from the government are but the beginnings of a long process for “the invisible better half” to return.