Most of us start the day with a cup of coffee in various forms. I started drinking coffee fairly early, perhaps around the age of six or seven. I hated drinking milk and it used to be a huge production when I was young to make me drink my milk. I think my mum and grandma gave in around age six or seven and I started drinking coffee. The love affair with the drink started then and has not waned over the years. I’ve tried different variations and have now decided black coffee is my favourite, followed closely by the filter coffee made by my mum!
I wake up when the alarm rings And make my way to my kitchen Where my cup of steaming coffee awaits me
I sit and contemplate the dark drink Think about my day and how it will wing A cup of coffee is the perfect aid To contemplate my views about my world
To sort out how my day will fare To clear any kinks in the air A cup of coffee in the afternoon Is the best solution to the dreaded 3 pm slump
And then there’s the time A cup of coffee in your hand A friend by your side And the hours just slide away
As you can see, I love my coffee It can be any blend, but has to be black A cup of coffee makes my day and world Just seem a tad better, as we all know
This is a scene common across schools, colleges and universities around the world. A girl is most likely the topper of her cohort and more girls occupy the top positions than boys. Logical expectation would be that these same women who are so successful in school, would continue their successful run when they enter the workforce. But this does not really happen. You don’t see many women in the higher positions at work, there, it is the men who hold a staggering 95 percent of the top positions in the largest public companies.
I have always wondered why this happens. What happens to women that they are not able to replicate the success they have in school at work. Some weeks back, I happened to read an article in the newspaper, authored by Lisa Damour, a practising clinical psychologist and author of the forthcoming book, ‘Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls’ which tried to explain this phenomena and so I thought I should share this here in case there are others, parents with daughters who wonder why their daughter who was successful in school is not able to climb the corporate ladder just as fast.
A study by journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman on what deters professional advancement in women found that it was a shortage of confidence rather than a shortage of competence that was the reason for this lack of advancement.
When it comes to wok-related confidence, they found that men are far ahead. “Underqualified and underprepared men don’t think twice about leaning in,” they wrote. On the other hand, “Overqualified and over prepared, too many women still hold back. Women feel confident only when they are perfect.”
This is so true! I find myself constantly nagging at BB to study, while he is very nonchalant about the whole thing. He always assures me that what he is done should be enough to get through the exam. GG on the other hand, is always at her desk, writing notes, studying for a test or just revising previously studied topics. I have to force her to take breaks, while I have to do the exact opposite with BB.
In fact it’s a common refrain in our home that if BB needs an hour to study a certain topic, then GG takes at the very least double that time to study the same topic. For subjects where she is stronger, she will still take time to polish her work, while BB will just skate through.
According to the article I read, it is this experience of being successful in school with little to no effort is the probably the crux to helping our sons develop confidence because they can see that they can accomplish much by just relying on their wits and memory power. School for them, serves as a test track, one where they develop skills and build beliefs in their abilities and grow increasingly confident about relying on it. Our daughters on the other hand, miss the chance to gain confidence in their abilities if they always count on intellectual ability to get ahead in life.
So how do we get our hyper conscientious girls and boys (exceptions do happen across the norm) to build both confidence along with competence at school?
For starters, both parents and teachers can and should stop praising inefficient overwork, even if it results in good grades. I am really guilty of this as I think I am old school in thinking that the longer you spend studying, the better it is. According to the author, gendered approaches to learning set in early, so it’s never too soon to start working against them.
We should also encourage girls towards a different approach to school, one that’s more focused on economy of effort, rather than how many hours they out in.
One thing as parents we can do is to teach them to become more tactical in their studying, to get them to figure how to continue to learn and get the same grades, while at the same time do a bit less. This, they can do by taking a sample test before they start studying to see how much they know before they can figure out what else they need to do to get to the level they need to be for that topic.
Teachers can also help here. When a girl with high grades turns in extra work to be marked, the teacher should ask if this is because she still can’t really understand the topic, or if it is because it’s only for bragging rights or to become a teacher’s pet. If it’s the former, then that’s great, because she knows where she lacks and is working towards it. But if it’s the latter, then the teacher needs to let her know that it is unnecessary and that she should focus her time on things that really matter.
Finally, as parents and teachers, it is our duty to keep reaffirming to our daughters that it is normal and healthy to feel some anxiety about school. Too often girls are anxious about being anxious, so they turn to excessive studying for comfort. We should remind them that being nervous about school and tests is a good thing and it means they care about it, which is only right.
Not everyone wants to become a CEO, but even If that’s the case, as a parent, we worry that our daughters will be eventually crushed by the weight of her own academic habits. While a degree of stress is good and allows a person to grow, working hard all the time with no breaks is very unhealthy and unsustainable in the long run, even for the most academically dedicated student. There is a very severe case of burnout waiting to happen.
Actually a lack of confidence is not the only thing keeping women from top jobs. Women also face gender bias, sexual harassment and very powerful structural barriers in the workplace. I have written about the issues women face in the workplace earlier, here and here. But gaining confidence in the workplace is something we can address, starting from shoring up their confidence right from school.
Many professional men brim with confidence because they have spent years getting to know their abilities. Women should arrive at work with that same confidence, that’s the only way we can ensure equality in a world where women hold up half the sky.
I am the first grandchild in both my paternal and maternal families and hence have been quite pampered, atleast until my sister was born, around 18 months later.
They say children don’t really have memories until they are around 2 years old, and I am also not very sure if this is a genuine memory or the following memory is something that is there because it was told to me by people. This memory is of the time when my sister was born. I had an aunt who used to stay in New Delhi at that point in time as her husband was in the armed services and lived in a defence colony. My paternal grandparents took me with them when they went to visit her. I was, as I mentioned, around 18 months old at that time. I was extremely close to my paternal grandmother so it should not have been an issue for me to be away from my parents for a couple of months. My grandparents took me with them so my mother who was recruperating the birth of my sister at her mum’s place need not have the hassle of looking after an active toddler too.
It’s important in this story to note that the then Indian Prime Minister had declared a state of emergancy in the country during that period. Since we were living in a defence area, that place was highly regulated and strict. I have memories of Indira Gandhi coming on television nightly, probably talking about the situation in the country. For some reason I was very scared of her and this was excabated by them telling me that if I did something naughty, she will come and take me away! Imagine how terrified I was then, an 18-month old toddler, away from my parents for the very first time in my life. And I was in a situation where I could not even get to my mum if I wanted to until and unless I was taken back to Bombay.
This aunt of mine did not have any children and perhaps the way things worked back then was like this. But if something like this happened today, all hell would have broken loose. I also think women at that time were more conditioned to just accept what their elders tell them. I don’t condemn anyone in a similar situation, but it has to be a very excruciating situation before I would allow something like that to happen with me and my children.
My relationship with my paternal grandmother was very special. In tamil families, the oldest grandchild is given the paternal parent’s name (depending on gender), the next oldest, the maternal grandparents name, if of the same gender and so on. So by this naming convention, my grandmother’s name was bestowed upon me. But so that the younger generation don’t call a child by the same name as that of an elder, this was usually the formal name with another name being used at home and in casual settings. In mine and my sister’s case, though our grandmother’s names are mentioned in our birth certificates, it also includes our other name, which then became our formal name.
So in the light of the above paragraph, like I said, I had a very special connection with my paternal grandmother. She lived with us till I was around 6-7 years old, then moved to be with my paternal uncle who moved to another state for work as he was still unmarried then. I still remember all the stories she used to tell us and the yummy dishes she made for us. And when they would visit us during holidays, or we visited them when they decided to make Bangalore their retirement home, I would snuggle with her at night, because I missed her so much!
She passed away suddenly when I was 16 and I think I cried almost a week thinking about her. In fact, I had made plans to go alone to Bangalore after my grade 12 exams to stay an extra month with her before the rest of the family came, but that plan just remained that.
I really enjoyed writing this post, so much that I will share more childhood memories in the coming months. I should do this before I forget them, after all, oral memories much be written down before they are forgotten.
In case you want to know more about my paternal grandmother, here’s another post I wrote a few years back.
What are your memories about your grandmother? Do you have a favourite one?
The other day, I was texting with one of my aunts and she told me that my maternal grandmother who lives with her and another aunt alternately, has been having issues which come with old age.
My grandmother is almost 90 and one of my fears is that she will pass away before I get a chance to meet her one last time. She already has had a heart scare earlier in the year and as my only surviving grandparent, I am scared to lose her.
Another person I am worried about is my dad who turned 75 earlier in the year. He also has some medical issues which we thankfully spotted on time and has been in treatment for the past few years. But to see the once strong man slowly being reduced to being dependent on others, is fairly scary.
This poem is a reflection of my thoughts.
The Fear
I know that when a person gets old The fear of death starts to take hold I wonder when the ball will fall When someone you love will stop and stall
I fear the time when you can’t hear their voice You can’t see them, smell them, and know that you don’t have a choice This fear is all encompassing, it takes over your entire being But this dear also makes you stop living, start crying
That’s the wrong approach to take, life is meant to be lived, not to be in pain Because death is inevitable, birth and death are two sides of the same coin Live your life as best as you can, learn to embrace your loved ones Meet them, speak to them live with them without any fictions
Then when it is time, let them go on their terms Don’t hold them back, revel in their lives This is harder than it looks, I know But learn to go with the flow, to take that blow
For our lives will go on, irrespective of what happens That’s the circle of life, with birth comes death
A woman today is expected to ‘have it all’. We are expected to do well in school, be accomplished at work, bear children and also bear the bigger share of the household chores pie, which includes raising said children.
A long time ago, as a young fulltime working mother of toddlers, I remember telling a colleague that my job was my second shift and I still had one more shift to do after getting back home before I could finally rest for the day. At that time, I had no idea of the concept of second shift and what it means to a woman and a mother, but I did know that I was bearing up more than my share of both the chores at home, including cooking and cleaning as well as bringing up BB & GG.
In most societies, it is the woman who traditionally looked after the house and hearth while the man went out to work and earn for his family. When times changed and women started getting educated and getting into the workforce, this changed dynamics in the workforce. But in the homes, times have still stood still. Women are still expected to be the primary caregiver at home, the one who is still in charge of the household.
While times are changing and you do see exceptions to this rule, it is rare enough that when a father goes to a mum and baby class (another example of what I am talking, why can’t it be gender neutral), he is still looked at like something in a zoo.
The Second Shift, also known as the Double Burden refers to, “the workload of people who work to earn money, but who are also responsible for significant amounts of unpaid domestic labour.” The term Second Shift comes from Arlie Hochschild’s book of the same name.
This unpaid domestic labour largely falls upon the shoulders of women who work long hours outside of the home and are also expected to do the majority of household labour. These outdated ideals of women as domestic labourers are not solely influenced by tradition and sexism, but also capitalism. Capitalism inherently devalues domestic labour because it is not compensated, therefore placing it subsequent to work that is done outside the home. Not only this, but the false notion that unpaid domestic work is less valuable than paid labour creates a social climate that is that is not conducive to the equality of the sexes, rather, an atmosphere that does not allow women to readily overcome gender inequalities on account that domestic work is still largely seen as a “woman’s job.”
This idea that capitalism exacerbates social issues is easy to visualize. Imagine all the cleaning ads marketed towards women, all the cooking appliances marketed to female homemakers or advertisements about baby products that only feature women as caretakers. Capitalism markets sexist labour dichotomies because they sell, which in effect, only more deeply ingrains our beliefs about women in the home.
While this thought is evolving and has evolved over the years to include men into bearing an equal portion of the household chores and the raising of their children, in Asia, where traditional notions of gender norms still prevail, this is still more of a ‘work in progress’.
In Western and Southern Asia, women represent only a third of the work force. Many of them, even women in more modernized Asian countries, are involved in the informal sector, in traditional jobs for women, such as caring or teaching, without benefits such as employee health insurance or pension plans. The issue of the double burden is exacerbated in Asian countries due to the large cultural norm of women doing care work held by both men and women. In many developed countries, women drop out of work when they have children in order to have more time to take care of them.
In countries where women have to do paid work in order to feed their family, there is a lack of regulation and safety standards regarding female workers due to the large amount of informal work available. In Thailand for example, due to the severe economic crisis in 1997, many women have jobs in the informal industry, and often do home-based work so that they can do their domestic jobs concurrently with their paid jobs. This increases the work intensity by women doing more than one job at a time, and has been shown to have deteriorating effects on women’s health.
This second shift where women work unpaid at home, with nary a word of appreciation from their spouse, family members and even children, where all housework is still considered ‘mum’s work’, is something that young girls are exposed to since childhood. I read of a study in America where girls aged between 10 and 17 spend two hours more time doing chores at home compared to boys of the same age. At the same time, boys doing the same chores are 15% more likely to be paid for them as opposed to the girls who are expected to do it for free because ‘it is something that girls need to learn anyway’!
This could be the reason why there are so few women in the higher echelons of the corporate world. Because of all the additional work that women put in, they are probably too tired to schmooze and network their way to higher and more demanding positions.
This management gap has far-reaching implications, not just for a woman’s career development but for her salary growth and retirement security as well.
It’s not for lack of trying. According to a report, men and women lobby for promotions, ask for feedback, and negotiate salaries at the same rate. Yet employers and managers treat them differently: They punish women for being pushy, while showering men with tougher assignments, more training, and bigger pay checks. The study found that women who negotiate for a promotion or salary bump are 67% more likely than women who don’t to be labelled “bossy,” “too aggressive,” or “intimidating.” And they’re 30% more likely to hear that than men who negotiate. And women feel the disparity. 1 in 4 women feel they’ve missed out on a raise, promotion, or a chance to get ahead because of their gender.
So what can we do to mitigate this and make the world a more equal one for our daughters and granddaughters? The easiest way to change is to change thinking and the best way to do that is to educate our sons and grandsons and make them aware that the society they live in is one where women are just as equal as they are.
We also need to let our daughters and granddaughters know that they are in no way inferior to their male peers and there is no job which is meant specifically for each gender. This wat, we work towards developing a culture and society where equality is something that is taken for granted, just like breathing, where domestic work, rearing of their children is something that is shared between partners and no one person or gender takes on the lion’s share of what is supposed to be shared chores.
This is a long journey, but one in which we have to act today to see the results in the next generation.
Memories and Such 
