Career Aspiration of Women after Marriage is a ‘?’

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts…” - Shakespeare

[JUSTIFY]
Be it a Men or Women, starting from the day they born till the day they leave this earth, they play numerous number of roles during their course of life. Being a women, on the personal front – She is a Daughter, Sister, Mother, Wife, Daughter –in-law, Sister-in-Law, Grand Mother, etc. On the non-personal front, she plays any role equivalent to a male say a student, an employee, social worker, politician, etc. Momentarily, as everyone would agree “Mother” is the best ever role amongst every other role she plays. Rest of the role she plays may have some ups and downs, despite that the life will go with little compromises and conflicts with good amount of happiness. A separate blog can be written on each of the role she plays, but I would like to give more focus on the other side of a Woman i.e. the non-personal front.

One of the areas where we see the betterment of women life is accepting and encouraging the birth of a girl child. Certain Asian countries were attributed to sex-selective abortions and infanticide due to strong preference for males. It may affect the future marriage patterns and fertility patterns. Eventually it could cause unrest among young adult males who are unable to find partners. Later due to many initiatives people slowly understood the truth and fact behind killing female kids. According to CIA World Factbook as on Dec 31, 2010, the sex ratio of India is as follows:

At birth: 1.12 male(s)/female
< 15 years: 1.13 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1.07 male(s)/female
> 65 years: 0.91 male(s)/female
Total population: 1.08 male(s)/female

Seeing above, we feel that we have started reaping the fruit.

The other area where we see the improvement for women is Education. Though the earth or rivers or whatever for that sake holds the names of women, in the olden days, there was a perception that women were born to be at home for doing house hold activities and bringing up the children. Even the basic education was denied. Couple of kind hearted men broke the barrier and brought them to the outside world. Slowly women peeped into the schools and smelled the fragrance of education. But still as per the census taken in 2001, Men literacy Rate is 75.26% and Women Literacy Rate is 53.67% which was comparatively less. And from the recent surveys, still there is minimum 10% of difference in the literacy rate between men and women, where women stand behind. Though we travel behind, when compared to the olden days, there were no path and now that we have laid a road to follow. We have lots and lots of awareness been created among people on the importance of education and we hope that women literacy will get increased in future.

Since the education of women gets better, they slowly crawled and then stepped into almost in all the fields. But number of women in the active work force is less because they face several social, traditional and cultural barriers that prevent them for going for a job and prevent them to refrain themselves in many activities, even if they want to. Until marriage, we can see women so career oriented. Though parents would caution them to return home on time and caution them on certain jobs, still they had the liberty of going to great extent in fulfilling their job aspirations. They were able to shine equally to any male employees. But after marriage, the priority of career came down drastically. Any working women can stand as an example for what I’m stating now. Even, I was very much career oriented once upon a time i.e. before marriage and bit compromised after marriage and later after having my kid now almost has to give up my career aspirations.

Though we are capable of doing it, various constraints crosses our road of career and from then on either we stop travelling or take the left most road killing all aspirations and never even cross slightly the yellow border. We often hear from our better half or from in laws that “do not stretch after 6 / close all your work by 6 and start for the day / if you have some unfinished work go and do it the next day…” Having that in mind, we avoid taking some new initiatives or propose some new solutions (obvious which will help us grow the ladder) because that might demand our involvement. If so, we need to stay at office late, put more effort and need commitment. Being a married woman or a mother of a kid, the situation never allows them to take any challenges. Couple of other people explicitly says “leave your entire career **** and just get a 9 to 6 kind of job, I do not want any increase in salary… Just continue and get the same salary and that will do…family should be your priority”.

I do not blame the people who say that way. Real fact is, because of our culture women are needed at home to run the family. Of course, women are better managing home and bringing up the child. No doubt about that. But…indeed they lose their career dreams, despite of their potentiality.

On the other hand, if they do a smart work in completing the work on time, certain managers or bosses have a wrong perception that a person who stays long hours in office is the one who works better. That may not be true always. Even if it comes to appraisal, they quote this point “she leaves office sharp by 6.30…but he stretches and works for the company…” Considering the family and the career, certain women are smarter enough to balance both. But that is left unnoticed. And when it comes to promotion, we can hardly find women in higher and decision making points. For every 20 male managers we can see 1 female one. She stands the least chance to get promoted despite outstanding qualifications and experience. Couple of other managers says “We will give her promotion, in couple of months she will go for delivery…what is the use man…instead if we give it to a guy, we can make him stay and get the work done…” Whatever the performance she gave left unrecognized. Where to go and say this?

Family issues add oil to the overall fire. A working woman had to face lot of hardships. She is often burdened with responsibilities with the male earning members of the family become reluctant to share the responsibilities with her. So neither she gets applause from people at home nor from the managers at office though she renders herself between work and personal stuff.

Finally in simple terms, we as women had to sacrifice our career aspirations due to various constraints and the fact behind is we cannot point out only because of so and so we are forced to sacrifice. At last it becomes a ‘?’. And beyond that, if we try to work smarter, that is been left unnoticed and not been recognized. For the former one, we can compromise to some extent. But the later one, nation has to think beyond the circle. Last but not the least; family has to stand as a support for the women who work and let her shine and showcase her potential. We have exceptions everywhere!!!
[/JUSTIFY]
Tagging the below non IL bloggers to show their presence here:
1. Ramya (http://ramyawrites.com/)
2. Jane Degross (www.justplainjane-jane.blogspot.com)
3. Padmini (http://padmininatarajan.sulekha.com/)

 

Hats off Satchi dear...Good analysis...After going through your analysis, even I felt the same. Thanks for your interest.

 

Yeah...though women get education that does not suffice her betterment much!!! Thanks for your voice friend...

 

Sorry for that Anjali. It happens that way in most of the IT industry :drowning