“So what happens when you get married”, I asked the “not-so-comfortable-as-yet- and-still-tense” desi lass in her final year MBA whom we were interviewing as part of our recruitment of Management Trainees. Not quite expecting that question in the middle of an interview, she hesitantly replied “I am not marrying for another 5 years, sir”. I asked her “how are you so sure?” She thought for a while and said a bit more confidently this time - “this was what I had told my parents before joining the MBA course. That I need to make my career and so they should not pressurise me to get married soon after. Besides, I am quite clear in my mind that my life partner is going to be the one who will support my career first, so I don’t think my marriage would anyway affect my career plans, if that is what your question is all about!” Impressive, as one would tend to believe the Indian women as professionals have finally arrived to conquer the corporate fiefdom and would give all the men and boys a run for their money in the race to the top. Well, not quite - at least in my two decades of work experience in Industry (which is non-IT/ITES/BPO and typically B2B engineering related). You may disagree with me or differ with me, but this is sadly true. Despite my conscious and concerted efforts to promote higher percentage of younger women professionals into corporates, they have invariably disappointed me more often than not when it comes to settling down between life and career. All this initial “josh” or enthusiasm that we hear at the time of interviewing and subsequently during the first couple of years of the job, slowly give way to something else when that “more important guy” in their lives pops up that life altering question to them! Interestingly the exit interviews with those young ladies/girls when they are about to shadow their life partners in their journeys elsewhere, are full of fun. Many times I have faced anger and indignation from those ladies when I remind them about what they said during the interviews about their career. Some of the typical retorts are – “So you mean to say, I should not get married or should not have a family life?” or “Should I defy my parents and for how long?” or “Who says I am going to quit my career, just because I am quitting working here?” or sometimes even this “Why did you not marry a career woman yourself!”. Worse still, they don’t even care what happens to the male chauvinistic mind-sets among the higher management circles which will further discriminate against the remaining younger womenfolk when it comes to recruitments and promotions, by their actions. When you ask them this question, some of them blatantly replied to me – “So why the heck should I care about someone whom I don’t even know. It is her problem to manage her career or life!” Enough said. Before some of you or most of you are about to burst out with self-righteous fury, wait a minute. Let me assure you, of course this is not the case with ALL the career women, and that women do make fantastic careers and sometimes are more successful than their men and God bless them for that. Neither do I have any issues with those who willingly choose to be home makers, nor am I recommending them to remain single if they want to focus in their careers. Infact there are more successful women/wives doing start-up ventures, own business from home, freelance photography, whatever. I am talking about those (and I still believe that is a majority) who still grapple with this dilemma of how to manage life and career when marriage and further the burden of managing children stare at them in a patriarchal society like ours where from every corner the pressure or expectation is that it is the woman who is supposed to make the ultimate compromise with her career when it comes to settling down in life. In reality, if you are strong-willed and are serious about your career, these two are not conflicting priorities ever and sometimes are so beautifully exclusive to each other that with a bit of tact and good planning both can be well managed to make sure one does not come too much in the way of the other. But only if you are willing to see it that way, and more importantly believe that you can make it work that way! Career graphs of most people if you take are never a steady straight line growing northwards or northeast. By and large they do tend to grow north east, but often in a chequered manner with many plateaus and steep jumps in between so more like stepped curves. There are also sinusoidal lines and sometimes broken lines too! So it isn’t like all the time one keeps rising to the top in constant velocity or in an accelerated manner. If you understand this, all it takes is to just plan and phase it out on when to get married and when to have children, over a 10 to 15 year span of time from the start of the career, and carefully choosing those spaces when you get to breath a bit (like the base camps while climbing mountains) in your career, to take the appropriate breaks for marriage and maternity. Similarly it is perfectly alright to choose appropriate places of choice or employment to settle down during middle years considering schooling of children and other factors and talk it out with your employers to do this. Yes all these are possible for women to do, like it is for any man, if only you can consider that your career plans do not stop with your marriage and thereafter it is always subject to your spouse’s career and his consent and convenience only. For that, it is entirely essential for the women to demonstrate that career is as much a clear choice and purpose for her in life as family is. Not just by power-packed emotional words during interview, but by consistent behaviour and actions at the workplace. The most important factor for this is certainly the choice of your life partner and his support for this. There is no easy solution or answer to this, as most of us believe in one marriage in our lives and tend to settle with that, whether or not happily ever after. Even the most promising and accommodating boyfriend, sometimes your own classmate from the B-School who turned your soul mate, suddenly changes colour along with his hair. Professional envy at a more successful wife is a pain that many successful career wives have to silently suffer at home. Managing home (mainly children) and work, despite all good intentions by an Indian male, is never balanced and heavily skewed towards wife’s side. Transfers or job changes because of whatever reasons by one become a pain for the other. In real life there aren’t many Denis Thatchers who would like to shadow their Margarets. I do recognise those issues, and those career women who are lucky to have supporting spouses in this matter, can’t count their blessings in this regard. Therefore, don’t ever be foolish in your choice, if you have one, in falling for someone; however Mills & Boonish he is, whichever IIT/IIM he is from, if there is ever a lurking suspicion on his expectation for you to compromise on your career for the sake of his family! Please do make this clear upfront in no uncertain terms if you are serious about your career. And show him how serious you are in your career! I had asked this once to a junior female colleague who was reluctantly resigning for the sake of her husband’s transfer, if her husband would do the same thing if she was to change her job or was getting transferred for better prospects. She was a bit nonplussed at that question, as theirs was a love marriage and both were classmates in the same B School. She came back the next day and told me “Sir I asked this to my husband yesterday evening, and he lovingly said – yes. But somehow I don’t believe him he would, because I know how important his career is for him.” I told her – “If you think he wouldn’t do it, and that his career is more important for him than yours, then what is that you loved him for? Because he loves his career more than you do or he loves his career even more than you?” Sensing she might break down, I did not go any further, but told her this – “Never mind. Wherever you are going, try to build a career there, and let the next chance of making a move be yours and remind him then what he told you yesterday night! And in case even if the next move would be still his and not yours, for heaven sake, don’t tell the next employer that you are resigning because your husband has got a better offer elsewhere. Instead tell them you got one or you are taking a sabbatical for studies or whatever, even if it isn’t true!” Those of you ladies who successfully manage your careers and homes, more power to you! You are the ones who prove that superwomen, unlike superman, are for real and not fictitious. You are the shining examples of what a truly empowered and liberated world is and women are. And you can be the role models for those who missed out making it big like you. Inspire them to aspire for more. And go get ready to let your hair loose and stretch your legs in your much needed weekend break. After all TGIF!
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 10:20:29 +0000
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