Are my questions irrelevant?

" Idle mind is devils workshop..., this is one more product of devils restless mind"

Some Statistics to start with, basically describing ratio of Women Mangers to every 100 Men managers in corporate sector in different countries, including managers at lower level as well as high level managers.

USA 67; Canada 68 ; New Zealand 48; Poland: 18; Japan: 9; India : 2

For the time being if we keep Indra Nooyi, Chanda Kochar, Naina Lal Kidwai, Kalpana Morparia aside….than many questions come to my mind after reading statistics above.

I agree that the most difficult thing in this world as said by various poets and writers is to decipher women thought process, but still I am raising some questions.

ð Why are there so few women in organizations top tiers?
ð Does a manager’s gender, determine the way in which s/he behaves and/or is treated?
ð Is it related with lack of opportunities or lack of ambition of women workforce?
ð Or is it because of overwhelming sense of belonging to our value system?

Even today, the majority of the managerial workforce in organizations consists of men. Given that the inclusion of more women in the workforce has been strongly promoted in recent times, we still have very few women in the top tiers of management in organizations including business, research, educational institutes.

Even If we include women dominated sectors such as farm labour, domestic help, manufacturing, nursing, primary teaching, even than percentage of directly productive workforce of women in India is around than 32%, which means 68% do not contribute to GDP, and moreover these 32% productive work force also does not utilizes their full potential

While analyzing, first thing comes to mind based on some article studied during my organization behaviour studies during management school was there is a gender centered perspective. According to this, the attributes individuals perceive they possess vary according to their sex and women’s limited progress is attributed to factors that are internal to women.

Men are hypothesized to perceive themselves as possessing masculine characteristics (they are aggressive, forceful, strong, rational, self-confident, competitive and independent), while women are hypothesized to perceive themselves as possessing feminine characteristics (they are warm, kind, emotional, gentle, understanding, aware of others’ feelings and helpful to others). Hence gender-centered theorists have promoted that their biological and/or socialization pattern has prompted women to exhibit traits and behaviors that are not conducive to their becoming successful managers but successful anchor of the family, supporting husband, providing values, beliefs and learning’s to the next generation.

I have seen many Women sacrificing for the sake of career of their husband, within my family, my friend circle, and professional network; I have not seen a single instance where vice a versa has happened. Couples of Hindi movies I remember bring such issues very clearly are Abhiman where a talented wife gives away here career for satisfying ego of her husband or recent movie Astitava, where husband who himself had extra marital affair is not able to accept affair of his wife. Such imbalances are reality everywhere in our society.


The second perspective, the situation-centered perspective is based on individuals’ positions in the organizational power hierarchy shape their perceptions, attributes, and behaviour.

According to this approach, there are two types of situations in organizations
1. Advantageous, and
2. Disadvantageous.
Advantageous situations are located in the upper levels and offer power to their occupants. Disadvantageous positions are located at the lower levels of the organization and offer little power to their occupants.

With power, comes the ability to satisfy one’s own needs and desires within that work situation, while in contrast, work situations lacking in power, and inhibit individuals from acting on their own behalf. As a result, individuals in the lower positions in the hierarchy are more dependent on others to meet their needs than are individuals situated in the higher positions.

This encourages lower level individuals to perceive themselves as being more feminine (understanding, aware of others’ feelings and helpful to others) than upper level individuals. In contrast, upper level individuals will think of themselves as more instrumental or masculine as they can depend on themselves rather than on others to satisfy their needs. Traditionally women have been found to occupy lower level positions than upper level ones and hence the difference.

In our society women are stereotyped as having traits associated with a homemaker, which has created the second belief that women do not have the necessary traits to enter perceived masculine and/or high status occupations.

In our society Women's achievements tend to be devalued or attributed to luck or relationship rather than ability or skill , which reduces the rewards, they receive in the society or organization. While most organizations use performance evaluations in one way or another to decide salary increases and promotions to be given to employees, the underlying attribution does play a role in deciding the rating.

In my limited experience and extensive observation, I have observed that work performed by men may be valued more highly than that of women. A female student may have to outperform her male peers to be taken seriously by her teachers. This tendency to devalue women and their work was presented in a recent issue of Sunday times, in which two groups were asked to evaluate articles, paintings, resumes, and other similar products. The name on each item was clearly masculine or feminine. The sex of the originator of each item was switched for the second group of evaluators. Regardless of the type of item evaluated, those ascribed to a male were rated higher than those ascribed to a female.

Is this gender bias is because of behaviour, because of personality traits, because of social fabric, or because of our Indian values.

On one side our own literature gives very high importance to Women as goddess Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kaali, Shakti, and on other side our mythology tells us story of “Dropadi” who has to undergo trauma of living with five husbands, or getting harassed in front of family members and 5 husbands. Or “Sita” has to undergo Agni Pariksha to prove her innocence..?

Or somewhere it is the Cinderella complex - where no matter how successful a woman is, subconsciously she still expects that a prince is going to come along and rescue her.

Nobody has the answer….but are my questions irrelevant?