Playing with Fire..

As much as I would like to be strong, certain incidents, albeit completely unavoidable weigh me down to the point of minima. Being a woman, was supposed to be a matter of immense pride, or so I was taught all through my childhood and adolescent life. I never doubted that daughters and sons stand on an equal stage, boy and girls at school share the same platform for success and Fathers and Mothers were as important in decision making as my brother and I were.

The upbringing was terrific, but I understand now, with all due respect to my parents, that I have been deceived into believing that the female sex is as empowered as her male counterpart. I realise now how we, women, are all fooled into advocating that the society will give us the freedom to live, untouched by the heinous face of the world.

No way! Women have to fight for their right to exist alongside men, and they will all be martyrs at the end of this valiant fight. Especially I see this in the work culture. I have not worked in too many organizations. But I, for as long as I have worked and from all the experiences I have collected from my other women counterparts, have come to believe that women will never be granted equal status intrinsically. Even if they are twice as smarter and hard working as their male counter parts, they shall be curbed as much as possible from escalating to success.

If a woman is ‘physically’ weaker than a man then that is perhaps how God designed her to be more delicate than a man. I shall not dare questions the superior designs of the Almighty. But why do we fail to notice that there are woman body builders and karate champions who could certainly break bones of men as well as anyone could. It is just a matter of choice. Some women want to stick to the delicate form whilst some want to be body builders. Similarly, women have been shunned from working outside of their homes and intellectual indulgence for so long that it has taken a while for them to be as confident as the men, who have been doing this since time immemorial. The low confidence has been sewn into the genome of women. This is certainly a work of evolution! Unlike the delicate form of the female this has been brought about by the society. Societal force made them stay away from working and many things that men weren’t forbidden from doing. This doesn’t mean that she cannot be as good as the man in anything, if not better?

Why do I have to keep hearing things such as:

1. Sales Jobs are for men.

2. Real Estate profile jobs are for men.

3. Working late hours is for the man

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This list could go on.

This really angers me! Why can’t a woman be a good sales person? I never get any of my seniors to support me when I bring this subject up.  Why is there a segregation at all? If men can be airline stewards, then woman can certainly be sales women!

The reason why rapes and sexual violence happens is because men think that they are more superior and that they can do anything and get away with it. This animosity in men has gotten stronger ever since women have started getting into the forefront. The male ‘ego’ can’t seem to tolerate that. He thinks in his subconscious mind “Now since women around me have begun being my equals, it is time I showed them, who’s the superior of the two, I will rape her and exercise my tyranny over her”.  

I see the male ego trying to overpower me in all arenas. I see tinges of this in my father and brother as well. As much as I appreciate them curbing this ‘male ego’, they dissemble it quite adroitly, due to the presence of a headstrong feminist at home, I certainly see the clichéd ‘Male Chauvinism’ in them. I see it in my colleagues. I see it in my boss; I see it in a little child too.

My colleagues, all of them being men, never seem to treat me as one of them. One particular colleague of mine from the H.R. thinks that I am not fit enough to be informed of the happenings in the company. And I being the only woman in the organization ought to be at a lower post in order to maintain hierarchy. For the sake of the goodness of Human Resource, how could he distinguish between the genders! My boss certainly thinks I am incapable of the brilliant things his male team members are capable of doing. I, quite often (in fact everyday) witness favouritism at the work place. It irks me once in a while. In fact what drove me to write this is that, I have been literally pleading my boss every fortnight to give me an opportunity in hard-core hotel sales. The concept of hotel sales and revenue management is invigorating to my spirit. Every time I spend some moments reading articles and the process of it, though it isn’t rocket science, it always makes me yearn to experience that profile. My boss did give in once, recently. He asked me to accompany him and another senior to a meeting. I was really excited. My excitement died when I was merely introduced to the gentleman we were to meet with. I felt like a complete idiot, sitting there and barely saying anything at all. And then when we got back, I asked him if I could independently go on calls. He said, “Yes, you may, but keep in mind that your other work should not suffer while on calls.” I gladly agreed. I calculated the entire time management in my mind. I decided I will work extra hours after office to get ends to meet. I couldn’t dissemble my happiness, I was smiling from within. Little did I realize that my happiness was short lived. The next day when I began discussing my plans for the ‘Sales mission’ my boss was so apathetic towards the entire conversation that it lent a very bad taste. To add to my distaste, he told me that I would just be wasting my time and energy. Such is the encouragement I receive from my seniors. This is all because I am a woman. A woman perhaps incapable of being her male counter parts equal.

Perhaps it is my incapability that I cannot get all these men to see the truth.