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    Gender games: Too many men, too little change

    Synopsis

    Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) made it compulsory for companies to have at least one independent woman director on the board of listed companies. Till April 6, 2019, 51 of the top 500 NSE-listed companies had not appointed a woman independent director, numbers from Prime Database showed.

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    On company boards, women representation is not just a matter of being politically correct, it makes enormous business sense.
    Women accounted for just 15.2% of corporate directors in India in 2019. The global average is 20.6%, according to a Credit Suisse Research Institute study released in October 2019. The same study showed India has the third-lowest rank in Asia-Pacific countries when it comes to women CEOs (2%) and the second-lowest rank (1%) when it comes to CFOs.

    Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) made it compulsory for companies to have at least one independent woman director on the board of listed companies. Till April 6, 2019, 51 of the top 500 NSE-listed companies had not appointed a woman independent director, numbers from Prime Database showed.

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    Gender imbalance doesn’t get better down the work ladder — according to Catalyst research, while women constitute 48.1% of the population, women’s labour force participation rate is declining; only 23.6% women aged 15 and above participated in the labour force in 2018.

    There’s no question, therefore, that women are largely missing from India’s workspaces. And while similar data on women’s presence in public spaces is not available, it is glaringly evident even to a casual observer that men overwhelmingly dominate India’s public spaces, too.

    Public space is synonymous with access to resources, says Sairee Chahal, founder and CEO of Sheroes, a women-only community. Chahal is also on the board of Paytm Payments Bank. In Chahal’s experience, on company boards, a lot of the times the perspective of a woman is not even considered by men.

    “Men are performance-driven, number-driven but low on empathy. Treating everything with a filter of rationality does not work. High empathy, high trust, multi-disciplinary ethics — women do this more efficiently,” she said.

    Srimati Basu, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Anthropology, and a member of the Committee on Social Theory at the University of Kentucky, explains: “Claims to public space seem to be a fundamental part of citizenship and participation. The work of anthropologists like Peggy Sanday who measured “women’s status” across various cultures, and found that high status was associated with women’s public roles (leading religious ceremonies, taking political decisions such as going to war, transacting economic activities).” She added: “Public participation means you’re a full member of society, being hidden from public view marks you as something less”.

    On company boards, women representation is not just a matter of being politically correct, it makes enormous business sense. Strategic decisions are made in boardrooms and, therefore, it is crucial that boards are made up of individuals who bring with them not just specialised knowledge, but sensibilities and perspectives that come from diverse backgrounds, according to Kalpana Morparia, chairman, South and Southeast Asia, JP Morgan.

    “While women form a major part of the diversity agenda and successful boards recognise that, I would like to extend the diversity agenda beyond gender to include academic qualifications and skills to drive better dialogue and outcomes,”she added.

    Marico chairman Harsh Mariwala is positive that gender diversity benefits a working environment, whether for employees or directors. “Women bring in a different way of thinking and are more right-brained; in a company like ours, they bring their own unique perspective to the table,” Mariwala said.

    As good as all these reasons are, claiming workspaces and public spaces for women isn’t easy given structural social reasons at the root of gender imbalance. Male domination should be turned on its head and women should own certain spaces — but getting there isn’t easy.

    IIM Kozhikode director Debashis Chatterjee breaks down the various levels of impediments to women claiming public spaces.

    The first is structural: like in some countries where women have restricted freedom of movement; where an implicit structural environment is imposed to “protect” women both inside and outside, which acts as a structural barrier.

    Then there are physical barriers (places crowded by men).

    And the third dimension is the mindset, where even if spaces are available, one is conditioned to not go there.

    In India, different gradations of these exclusions exist.

    This can change only when more women become active participants. In the IIM system, for instance, when there were just 2-3 women among the vast majority of men, it was very easy for women voices to get lost. Now the nature of conversation has changed; women, larger in numbers in IIMs, are much freer to voice their opinions.

    “However, this is a cultural issue and the government can’t mandate it. The government can be an enabler. The government mandates a change but it won’t always work. For instance, there is a state government run Mahila Mall in Kozhikode that is not getting customers,” Chatterjee says.

    Looking beyond the campus, there are a few examples of women claiming equal space. “Take Durga Puja in Kolkata, Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai. Men and women go out and make the public spaces their own in the spirit of festivity; it’s a spontaneous expression. Festivals, organised events are a way of gradually implementing such participation, but the process will be gradual,” Chatterjee adds.

    When some agency steps up and keeps things voluntary, and therefore not coercive, often others follow. It’s better to make things spontaneous, natural. The idea is to keep creating enabling mechanisms through autonomous exercises, says Chatterjee.

    Preparation starts early. Gender equality sensitisation and respect for the girl child should start at the primary school level. Be it in terms of the games and sports, we get each gender to play or even display photographs of women role models, particularly those who have shattered the glass ceiling, says Dabur India executive director-HR V Krishnan.

    “I feel the idea of women in public spaces should also be a part of the school curriculum in the form of a special subject on ethics & values, in the formative years itself…this will go a long way in helping women claim their space at work and in society at large.”

    There is evidence of enabling mechanisms in the corporate world.

    Where are the women? Something as simple as asking this question has made a marked difference in gender diversity stakes. Says Egon Zehnder India managing partner Pallavi Kathuria: “MNCs and global companies do ask this question when they are looking to hire executive leaders. It’s not a norm yet but some companies with clear diversity targets ask for 30% of the shortlist of CXO candidates to be women.”

    Shailja Dutt, founder and chairperson of the executive search firm Stellar Search, cites the example of a multinational company that almost always asks for female candidates in their potential pool of CXO talent. This MNC has started to see a perceptible difference in how it is now perceived as a better employer brand. “A company that does this as a focus over a long time, with genuineness and not as a token, moves the needle in the right direction.”

    For their part, women have a role too. Women in power have a responsibility, adds Dutt. However, when there is only one woman in a boardroom, the objective for that woman becomes to be as good as others. The ‘I want to build a sisterhood’ narrative takes a backseat. This is where the crux of the problem lies.


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