Ashok Sharma
Traditionally, men have been considered as the bread winners and women,the house keepers and child bearers and rearers in the society but with the improvement in socioeconomic life and rise in the social status of women as a result of expansion of educational facilities coupled with the sky rocketting prices even of essential commodities,more and more girls and women are taking jobs in Government and private sector as officers and employees to supplement the family income and also to prove that women in no way lag behind men in any field, be it education, administration,business, social work etc..But they are faced with many problems in discharging their duties.
On the one side,our mindset is such as expects every Indian lady to do all the household chores herself.On the other hand,women at workplaces have to pass through horrific trauma of mental and physical abuse as well as gender bias.In recent times, there have been many cases where women serving in colleges,hospitals,police and even Armed Forces have complained of being sexually harassed by their colleagues and senior officers.They are,in most cases,compelled to grant sexual favours and on denial, are harassed on one pretext or the other to make their life miserable.Even on buses and other transport services, unscruplous elements try to take advantage of the overcrowding and try to tease them whereas they are expected to be modest and chaste by their family members and society.Women working in night shifts are more vulnerable to molestation and sexual harassment.Consequently, they develop serious mental and psychological problems which often force them to quit their jobs. Service conditions of women working in unorganised sector are even worse.They are paid less wages than their male counterparts on the pretext that they are physically less strong than the men and hence do less work.
Even at home, women are expected to do all the household work such as cooking,washing clothes,sweeping,preparing children for school etc with little support and appreciation from their husbands and other members of their family.They reserve even their weekends for doing heavy household work.They have also to adjust their personalities to please each member of the family-husband,children,parents in laws etc.,besides doing work in offices.
They have less sleep as they have to wake up early to cook food for the family, prepare children for school and themselves get ready for work.The tragedy is that they are rarely praised or appreciated by the members of their family for the hard work that they do at their workplace on tn the one hand and to run their households on the other hand .Instead,they are compelled to priortize their household work over their official work.So,they find it difficult to balance their domestic life with their official work and are always under tremendous strain to perform their dual role efficiently and labouriously to the satisfaction of their employers on the one hand and family members on the other. But ironically,they are rarely consulted in economic matters of the family with the result that they feel ignored and neglected.In most cases ,women are not allowed to spend their income at their own will and compelled to hand over their salaries to their fathers or husbands as the case may be and then live at the their mercy.The extra load of household work and work in offices take a heavy toll of their health and they fall victim to such lifestyle ailments, as depression, obesity,anxiety etc .
Though the Government has enacted and implemented various laws for the welfare and protection of women at workplaces, these have hardly any impact unless we change our deeprooted outlook and mindset towards them. There is no doubt that the status of women has shown a steep rise over the last few years and as a result of globalisation, more and more women are taking jobs in spheres such as Railways,Belt Forces,Armed Forces etc.hitherto considered inaccessible for them.Today we have women on the topmost places in administration and,banks, business enterprises and everywhere. Yet their working conditions in offices and other places need to be improved to enable them to perform and assert their role in an effective manner. The Government ought to make separate arrangements of transport to ferry women employees to and fro the venue of their work.Those found guilty of molesting women on buses, trains, roadside or elsewhere need to be awarded severe punishment to check molestation and harassment of women at work.The launching of the Himmat scheme by the Home Minister is a big step in curbing crime against women.It is a mobile application of Delhi police that will enable women to send distress call to the police control room and their relatives.This scheme needs to be extended to the other states, especially,in metropolitan cities where crime rate against the women is often high.Massive awareness needs to be created in women about the use of this scheme so that more and more women avail themselves of this highly useful scheme.Last but not least,the policymakers,planners, parents, relatives and the public at large should jettison off conservative outlook towards women and work for providing them a safe and congenial atmosphere both at home and workplace and thus improve their lot as they form a sizeable part of our population.
(The writer is serving as lecturer in English, Govt. Hr. Sec. School (Boys), Udhampur).
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