WOMEN’S
Calculating woman
hours
I
t’s a subject most close to a woman’s heart. In fact,
she’s been dying to talk about it. How to calculate the
working hours for a working woman? Caught between
a capitalist economy that requires her as well as the
man to work and a social system where the burden of
child-rearing and house-keeping are entirely hers, what
exactly are her ‘working hours’ is indeed her foremost
concern. But that’s not her only problem. The structural
constraints placed on her due to her social role that remains unshared do not allow her a level playing field.
There are certain kinds of jobs that are considered out
of bounds for her, being exclusively in the male domain.
Where she is allowed
in, she is expected to
put in as many hours,
without time flexibility.
In both agriculture and
industry where women
work as labour, pregnancy, marriage and
children are considered a liability and,
therefore, women are
discriminated against
when it comes to wages. The attitudes are
replicated for white
collar women workers and continue up to the level of top CEOs. Women
who choose to work outside their homes are up against
a deluge of stereotypes. For a start, their work is considered ‘second grade ’, done solely to supplement the
family income while the man remains the principal earner. They are stereotyped both as ‘more’ conscientious
workers than men and ‘less’, though the latter impression obviously holds more attention. At the workplace,
they constantly face statements like “men work longer
hours than women” and that they the women are keen
to rush back home to sort out one problem or the other.
And then obviously there is work that “only men can do
and women can’t”. A woman civil servant in the district
management group explains how she reaches at work
on time in the morning and how eager she is to finish
her tasks during the entire day — to be able to reach
home in good time in the evening. Her male colleagues,
on the other hand, socialise the entire day in the name
of ‘meetings’ and start their actual work when it’s time for
her to leave and stay in the offices till late. “Somehow,
their networking exercises during the day also count as
work, and by managing long hours they are able to convince the bosses of how efficient they really are,” she
says.Paradoxically, this networking opportunity which
is unavailable to women affects their job prospects and
promotions. But they are helpless in the face of the multiple roles they have to assume and with men within the
family structure refusing to share their burden.With time,
more and more women are joining the workforce, defying the structural constraints and entering into all fields
possible. But this does not change their responsibilities
at home. With no day-care centres available, they depend on
women within the family, like
their mothers and sisters or paid
maids or both, to look after the
children. The stresses of a working woman are compounded in a
system where the children, the
homes and in many cases the
ageing parents are left into their
care alone. Their jobs that give
them a sense of purpose apart
from money often leave them
feeling guilty for stepping out of
the house, for not being with their
children. Ideally, in such a situation, one would expect the organisations to change their
work culture entirely. There is dire need for affirmative
action from the stage of hiring more women to giving
them flexible hours. The work needs to be output-oriented instead of being measured in terms of fixed hours
which are, in most cases, only wasted hours; and this is
true for both men and women. The workplaces need to
be made more women-friendly — by building day care
centres, instituting a transport facility and simply by inducting more women. Within the family, men need to understand that something must give way — for the sake
of equality or at least a sense of fairness. Because, the
way things are, a woman’s work never ends. She leaves
the chores at home to go do her day-job and returns to
another pile of responsibilities. And all of this comes at
the cost of her physical and mental health. A woman has
no concept of a “break” because she never gets any.
And yet you want to try calculating her working hours?
Go ahead and do it!
32 | BOOM