At present Team Choices is trying to kick off its first official project “Shiksha – Jodhpur”. So obviously it is common for us to revisit and discuss several social issues that might affect the success of our program. Under this program Choices will sponsor education of economically disadvantaged students in Jodhpur, Mount Abu and Ahmedabad (Country: India, States: Rajasthan and Gujarat). The conditions a student must fulfil to become a part of this program are:
1. Family income of the student must be less than $250
2. Student must be enrolled in a school already
3. Minimum attendance should be 70%
Once a student has been enrolled in the project then he/she must fulfil following conditions to stay in the program:
1. Maintain 80% attendance in school
2. Show an upward movement in his/her academic growth chart
3. Follow the rules of the school and refrain from any and all illegal acts.
As we work on launching the program and get it working some of our team members were of the opinion that we should only finance girl students as they face so many difficulties in getting educated. This began the discussion on attitudes towards girl child in India and gender roles.
Gender Role is truly nothing more than division of labour (DOL) in a family setup. Irrespective of whether DOL occurs within a family or in an organization the arguments in its favour are similar. People by virtue of who they are have strengths and weaknesses and it makes best practical sense for them to specialize in tasks that agree with their strengths and leave the tasks they are not best at to those who are best at doing them. The only difference is that while in an organization a team supervisor will ascertain strengths of workers working under him (ideally); in a family setup an individual is assumed to have certain strengths simply by virtue of being born a male or female. Also, while in an organization if a worker fails at a particular type of task proving thus that it is not agreeable with its strengths he has the liberty to shift to a task he is good at (either by moving within the organization or joining another organization) but in a family setup even though an individual may prove at every step of his/ her life that his/her strengths lie outside the “assumed strengths” or gender role stepping outside the gender role is seen as rebellious for women and feminine / weak for men.
The problem thus is not with division of labour within a family but with lack of choice in that division of labour. Each individual must have the liberty to choose the course of his/her life depending on his/her strengths. In today’s world when women are as ambitious as men and are serious about their careers gender roles have become the focal point of contest in most urban family households. Women are traditionally seen as the nurturer and home is seen as their responsibility. A woman is supposed to not only nurture her family emotionally but is also expected to keep and maintain the house using resources made available to her by her husband. Today as she steps out of the traditional role and builds her career the society has adapted to this new ambitious woman in a very interesting way. As she takes the role of the man logically one would expect her partner to take up the role of a nurturer but in an interesting twist as the woman is allowed to step out of her house and build her career instead of shedding her traditional role she takes on both the roles. The line of division of labour disappears as she is expected to earn as well as maintain the home. If you read the matrimonial columns in the Indian newspapers you will find people looking for a working woman as their son’s partner. Does this mean that they are willing to discount her responsibility towards tasks like keeping the house clean, cooking for the family, attending family functions and being there for the family every time they want her (not need but want her) or does it mean that the son or the prospective husband is ready to take up the traditional role of a woman and shoulder the glorified responsibility of maintaining the household? No. It merely means that the modern Indian family has erased the “division” from division of labour for the women. A woman must now fulfil both the roles (of a man and a woman – of the provider and the nurturer). The outcome of such a situation is the same as would be in a factory or office. As division of labour is eliminated and one group or one person is expected to multitask and shoulder various equally demanding responsibilities, productivity decreases. As the woman’s productivity decreases, the same family that allowed their daughter and/or daughter in law to pursue her career revert back to the traditional division of labour in which a woman must give priority to family and household matters. At the time when the family and/or the woman herself decides to revert back to the gender roles little or no thought is given to the wastage of resources that is suffered by a company and by society at large when talented, intelligent women take a back seat and restrict themselves to the household boundaries. Imagine for a moment if Indira Gandhi or Hillary Clinton did not have the support of her family and had resigned from politics what a huge loss society would have incurred!
So what then is the solution? Could it be a solution that career loving women must only look for men who are ready to stay home and take care of the house? Probably, in an ideal world it would be possible without any negative repercussions. But ours is not an ideal world and women over the centuries have been conditioned to be the nurturer and men have been conditioned to provide. Thus, it is extremely difficult to find men and women (more so men) who defy gender roles and are still well balanced in the society and comfortable in their own skin.
The practical solution then is to balance the scales, bring corporate principles to action in our households and apply Division of Labour as it is supposed to be applied. DOL is never set in stone in a corporate environment for an individual. It is set and defined for positions (still not set in stone) but never for individuals. As an individual moves from one role to another his/her duties and responsibilities change. This is what the modern Indian woman experiences today as she oscillates between her roles as an employee and family nurturer. However, in a corporate environment DOL is only possible when there are multiple people fulfilling different responsibilities at different times. Each individual in a particular role fulfils its set of duties in such a way that others in the “Team” are able to fulfil their set of duties efficiently. Division of Labour is effective when it is employed with Team Spirit. It is this Team Spirit that must be developed in the modern Indian households.
