Are we doing enough!

A few weeks back, I was at an entrepreneurship event where I met a woman. The discussion that I had with her has really raised questions in my mind whether we are doing enough for gender equality.

Let me start by giving a little background about the woman. This is important to understand the gravity of the situation. She was at an entrepreneurship event. She has travelled to many different countries around the world. She holds a top management position in the marketing field in one of the major global payers. She is about to shift to Canada on a long-term basis.

To come to the question that doing rounds in my head, I would like to first narrate the synopsis of our conversation that I had with her.

After our brief introduction, I informed her that I was in London. She said that she had also been in London but she doesn’t think that London is not a place to grow a career for a woman. This raised my curiosity as it might be the case with you as well. So I tried to drill down more on that.

Me: Why do you think so?

The woman:  London the hub for financial companies. It’s for men who want to build their career in finance.

Me: There are many women doing great in finance.

Her answer to thing had just stunned me.

The woman: Yes, but still women are not doing well in finance. A woman cannot do well in investment banking and such other fields.

It was really disturbing hearing the same from a woman that too in today world where everyone is talking about gender equality and trying to achieve the same by various means.

This incidence had cultivated many questions. Is this just one of a case or there are many more women thinking the same? If she, with her profile, thinks this way, I am sure there are many women struggling with the confidence that they can do whatever they want and achieve great heights. And the major question, ARE WE DOING ENOUGH to bring gender equality?

In today’s corporate culture, there are many initiatives in place to bring gender equality. Most of the companies take a good care that doesn’t do bias at any stage of employment. There are tons of movements going on for woman empowerment. The government has launched various schemes to provide better girl child education and there are numerous NGOs working towards the same. However, the main question remains, ARE WE DOING ENOUGH?

Today, we have many examples of a woman making at the top of corporates such as Indra Nooyi, Chandra Kochhar, Shikha Sharma and so on. There are many other instances of a woman performing great leadership in their own field such as Sushma Swaraj, Irom Chanu Sharmila, Ekta Kapoor and so on. Even in the past, there are woman role models such as Rani Laxmi Bai, Sarojini Naidu, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and  Mother Teresa. But then, these are the born leaders. They would not need anyone’s help to achieve what they have achieved. The real question is what we are doing at large scale to nurture the equality culture?

Are we doing enough to fundamentally change the way woman see themselves in the world? Are we doing enough to engross the sureness in every woman that they can do anything they want? Are we doing enough to make every girl confident to have dreams and that they can make them a reality?

In my opinion, the issue is with the upbringing of a girl child. There are still parts of the societies where girls are being told that there are few things that only boys can do. Still, many girls receive differential treatments right from their childhood. Even in the cities and so-called educated societies, where every girl is attending school, the schooling system itself is so concentrated towards teaching equations, making them remember formulas and comparing the grades with others that the essential life skills are being ignored that gives girls confidence to complete with boys equally. Till the time we will not make changes towards these basic things in the upbringing of the girl child, achieving the gender equality in the true sense is a distant dream.

But then this is purely my personal opinion. I would really like to learn what other people think about whether we are really doing enough for woman empowerment and gender equality. Please click on the # tags below and write your opinions. Look forward for healthy discussion.