Mumbai: An evening of glamour and glitz, a room filled with women leaders, Indiantelevision.com presented the ‘Wonder Women’ Awards on 8th July. As India steps into 2023, it is witnessing a new wave of entrepreneurship led by women entrepreneurs across various sectors. More and more women are coming out to start their ventures and build successful enterprises. According to the latest studies, women-owned businesses are set to rise in the coming years. However, the overall percentage of women in the workforce is still very low, and a lot remains to be done. On this International Women’s Day, Indiantelevision.com is set to bring industry experts from across the spectrum to share some of these stories of the admirable grit and determination of these entrepreneurs and discuss the challenges that still need to be tackled to ensure a fair and equitable representation of women in all roles.
The moderator for this session was Indiantelevison.com associate editor Kalpana Ravi. The panellists consisted of Bajaj Group head - digital & social strategies Suruchi Kore, Lionsgate VP Gayathiri Gulliani, AnyMind CCO - Rubeena Singh, Natural Diamond Council managing director, Middle East and India - Richa Singh, Knight Riders Sports, CMO - Binda Dey, PhonePe, head of Ad sales – Shivani Srivastava.
Ravi started the session by saying, “From broadcast to distribution, how have you women broken the shackle of being in a male bastion environment and making a name for yourself and showing the man that we can do a better job?”
To this Kore responded, “Stepping from media to Bajaj has been an experience where there’s always a stereotype that we have faced that whether women are made for manufacturing industries, B2B industries, will they be able to tackle the kind of hardships that are required like they have to be available 24/7 and how to deal with them.”
Gulliani added, “Distribution, revenues everything is a male bastion, at one point of time, while there have been a lot of changes but there are a couple of things which I would like to point out: The gender gap. Gender equality is missing. Another thing is a stereotypical mindset which used to be there. Third is societal pressure. Usually, people come up to us and ask how do you manage our work-life balance. How do you manage your home? And I would just turn around and say why isn’t this question asked to a man? It’s always a burning question that irks me.
Rubeena Singh commented, “If I talk about myself being in the marketing technology space, I think there is always a label for technology that it is male-dominated. I think it’s about unconscious bias that all people have. A lot of women of my age in the beginning, where there were ways to think about taking the fields of creativity, and arts a little more what would be thought to be not too technical. But today I see many women who are good at technology and are breaking the age-old stereotypes.”
Richa Singh opined, “There’s a little bit of feminism in me that says I am a good leader and not a good ‘women’ leader and I would like to reiterate that when you stand up and say you are a great editor in chief nobody says a male editor in chief. So, I think that’s a bias we need to think we need to stop with. I headed a large team and it had men and women and I didn't identify and say I have 70 men and 20 women do work. You work with a team of 90 and that’s how you need to be proud of how you groomed them.”
Dey told, “I couldn't agree to more than the ladies before me. It takes a will, especially a girl child and the confidence you gain when you are young goes a long long way. I was privileged to have parents who brought me up as an equal to my brother. They had more expectations from me than my brother pushed me harder. Career was always the focus and it was not an option at all. So, it’s infectious, when someone has confidence in you, you grow the confidence too. In my career, I had amazing bosses both men and women who treated me as equals and that grew my confidence simultaneously.”
Srivastava said, “I come from a hardcore business background and I think because I have proven my credibility again and again in whatever project or business I was asked to lead, manage and build is how the sales opportunity landed on my plate and like all of you guys said that they are eternally grateful to people who take a point on you and say here’s the talent, potential and if you don’t nurture it they will never become who they are meant to be. It’s been a very interesting journey and some snippets from what each one of you said are that the whole concept of whole leadership is filled with such masculine characteristics: ‘aggression’, ‘dominance’, ‘competitiveness’ and as a woman and all of you are tall, I am tiny, so I genuinely feel like I am the smaller one in the room and that’s usually as women are little more submissive. But I think what worked well for me was to keep that personal emotion aside and own my voice.”
Ravi goes on to ask, "What is that one thing you would like to change and make it better for women in the workplace?"
Kore said, “Why are their smoking zones for men and not creches for women as we are now talking about women leaders and entrepreneurs and delivering, then facilities like a creche, and feeding room should be provided by the organisation. That is one change which has to be normalised. The second name for a woman is ‘Mother’ and we all here have faced these issues at one time or another.”
Binda Dey reiterates this point and goes on to say, “Don’t get comfortable, being a woman and handling a job is difficult, certain responsibilities and household chores are assumed to be taken care of by the woman, my advice is do not get comfortable, demand things, equal share of responsibilities both at home and work. But the biggest barrier is people getting comfortable with the situation they are in. If it is the glass ceiling you are facing, your career is not going anywhere or plateaued or taken a maternity break and want to get back. I think it is in our heads, should I take the plunge or not? The important thing is to put yourself out there. Rework your resume, aggressively network and tell people you are looking for a job. If your career has plateaued, tell your bosses that you are not happy with the current situation, and demand what you think you deserve. Most times we women have not asked or demanded what is due to us.”
Rubeena Singh added, “This assumption judgement about women still exists when we interview women, the first question we ask is are you planning to get married if married do you have a child these are leading questions and subconsciously and a lot of women sitting in this room must have gone thru it, I really hope that changes. Today we are living in a world where we are working in a hybrid mode, with the flexibility of time, organisations are more aware and more supportive, of where it started. That is one change I would like to see. The other thing is judgement, sometimes we just assume when it comes to networking, it is like she has a child at home so let us not ask her. Why is it not left to the woman to make her choice. Let’s take my example when I resumed back to work after six weeks of delivering a baby, I had just taken up a senior role and I would go to work for 4 hrs., but nobody respected the fact that I was serious about my job and that is why I was leaving my baby and coming to work. I would hear snide remarks at work saying she is shunning work and the society around me termed me a bad mother. My only thought on this is to leave the women alone and let them make their own choices. I would just ask everybody just not to assume or judge women for the choices they make and let them be to do whatever makes them happy.”
Srivastava goes on to add, “PhonePe has initiated the ‘Mothers at PhonePe, this has two interesting insights, one is to help women make that seamless transition to get back to work and the flexibility around it and assuring the designation. The other part that I love is educating the people around them on how do you inculcate the woman to get back to work. It is not only about the women but when someone in my team was going on paternity leave and it was an early delivery, the HR sat me down and said first twins and the delivery is two months away. The awareness building and telling people how to operate in an environment like that helps. Now to answer your question on what is that one change I would like to see in organisations especially which both Rubeena and Richa pointed out as it is not about men or women but there is a requirement, there is a job, but here is what is needed for that position, if you can fill it you are there. This assumption of you will get married soon, then you will have a baby in the next two years etc. should go. The second thing I would like to see change is when a woman shows aggression it is pointed out that she is being emotional, oh why are you so anxious but on the other hand if a man is aggressive then he is assertive and ambitious. This dual definition or differentiation of how humans behave in circumstances I would love to see that go. I run a large team and another colleague runs another part of the team and every time somebody tells her that you are being too aggressive, I stand up and say sorry, she is just teaching you to do your job.”
Everybody spoke so passionately about their journey and the changes they want to see in organisations and at the workplace, equal opportunities is a very important part and that is the change we all want to see. Let us not have a stereotypical mindset and let us collaborate whether it is in the workplace or home, and not get insecure about each other. It exists but nobody speaks about it, women go through whether they are in the top positions or other positions at work. We need to normalise the situation.
To sum up this debate, one thing which we all women agreed on was do not be judgmental, do not assume, let the woman do whatever makes her happy.
