Recently, an ad from P&G's brand Always captured the classic concept of differences in the way adults and children, men and women, boys and girls perceived the same sentence- What does 'Like a girl' mean? Unsurprisingly, the only ones who took the statement at face value were the young girls- 'Like a girl means like me'. The world has a strange way of 'Socializing' us. Simple sentences begin to mean entirely different things as we grow up because thats what society teaches us. And yet it was this very society that gave the corporate world the likes of Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo and Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook.
The feminist movement
and women themselves have taken leaps ahead from a time when the primary role
of a woman was considered to be that of a home-maker and a care-giver. Every
generation goes that extra step further to establish that men and women, while not
the same, are still equal. Women take the strides and men back them up. In
fact, in a recent conversation, a friend remarked that he understands that
marriage is a huge step for a woman and that he wishes to make this transition
a smoother one for her- a statement that clearly shows the progress we are
making in how women are perceived. Yet, some recent thoughts that emerged at
the Aspen Ideas festival, lead to a small voice
that whispered 'Like a Girl!'
Ms. Indra Nooyi (one of
the women I look up to greatly), shared her perspectives on work-life balance
for a woman. Among other things she said 'Women can't have it all'.
I believe
that irrespective of whether you are a man or a woman, you can't 'have it all'
unless you mentally decide to. By this I mean that 'Having it all' is a state
of mind. You could be the leader of a country, a president, a CEO or a
home-maker and still not 'have it all'. Everyone (irrespective of gender) has
to make some choices in life, and by virtue of that, you may not end up living
an 'ideal' life. You may be a man who chooses and works towards being a Wall Street
hotshot. It's likely that at that point you may not win the 'Daddy of the year'
award. So making this a gender based statement seems like only women pay a
price for trying to be successful. I am in no doubt that women pay a higher
price for success than men, simply because of the inequitable manner in which
society is structured. But it is also true that women are more prone to guilt than men,
and hence end up with the feeling of 'not having it all'. So while it is true
that the odds are stacked more against women, what would have been a great source of inspiration for me is to hear how she (Ms. Nooyi) and other successful women have tackled this inequality and how they have affected change in the lives of so
many other working mothers today.
Another issue that she
brought up during this meet was that she enlisted the help of those at her work
place to help out with her children's upbringing. She mentioned that
she partially delegated the task of parenting to her secretary. While on
the one hand it is unlikely that one in the early years of their career can find time to manage everything to perfection, it is also impossible to achieve success without the
support of a spouse. As the old saying
goes, 'it takes a village to bring up a child' but the luxury of a 'village' is
limited to the elite few. For the rest of us, we need the support of our good
old spouses! For after all, isn't a child the responsibility of both the
parents? And at a time that one parent is unavailable wouldn't the natural
instinct be to turn to the other? Sure, a stereotypical situation would be for
the mother to be the first point of contact, but Ms. Nooyi is far from the
stereotype! And hence, as a woman in a position of power, I wish she had elaborated on the need for men to step up
in the role of a parent and on how corporates in this day and age can play a role
in straightening out the gender roles of society.
It’s a very different
day and age today. True, the mother may still be considered the primary
caregiver, but today she has her husband to lean on. Men are becoming more and
more active in the role of a householder and a father. So in a bid to fight the
world (and fight we must in a lot of circumstances) let's not completely forget
that the goal is not for women to come out on top, but for us to live and make
successes of our lives based on our own standards. And as women in places of power, Ms. Nooyi, Ms. Sandberg and others are definitely in a position to change
the way the corporate world approaches gender equality!
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