When 15,000 women walked through the New York City demanding shorter working hours and higher wages way back in 1908, they could not have imagined that it would take them so long to chase their goal. Hundred years later, women are still marching to attain parity with men in terms of job placements, promotions and equal wages. The disparity is more so in the developing world.
A study by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Understanding the level of women empowerment at the workplace, which surveyed 149 companies in India, illustrates vividly the state of affairs. While there are 16% women managers at junior levels, they constitute only 4% at senior levels. Further, only 1% of the organisations have women CEOs. At the lower rungs, too, the discrepancy exists, according to the study.
Another report by Assocham, Women top in education: Why miss top positions, released earlier this year threw up similar figures. Based on the responses of 575 women working in various sectors across the country, the survey pointed out that only 3.3% women in India get elevated to key positions despite scoring much better over their male counterparts.
The practice of not rewarding women?s efforts was found in both, the public and the private sectors. The Assocham study also revealed that 78.9% women continue to slog at humble positions, while 17.7% of them put a end to their career in only middle management cadre despite working very hard.
But given women?s ability to find solutions to the oddest of problems, they are finding their way around such obstacles. The Global Gender Report 2007 shows as much. Indian women scored 4.97 on a scale of 1-7 in their ability to rise to the positions of enterprise leadership. (see graphic). They are increasingly starting their own businesses. Right from daring new ventures of their own to setting up small cottage industries to running successful business houses, they are doing it all and doing it successfully. The growing incidence of entrepreneurship among women is offsetting lack of equal opportunity at the male-dominated workplace.
The Assocham survey highlighted that around 17% of the total respondents from the metropolis opted for self-employment or business, including academicians, despite the job market witnessing a booming period.
So from making papads and pickles at home to making powerful presentations in corporate attire, they are doing it all. Says V L Indira Dutt, joint managing director of Chennai-based cement manufacturer KCP Ltd, ?What a man can do, a woman can do better. Today, it?s not just women with access to education but women in rural India are also realising the importance of being financially independent. They have the mindset along with the skill set. All they need is a little encouragement.? She is also the chairperson of Saarc Chamber Women Entrepreneur Council (SCWEC). The council is actively involved in implementing activity-based programmes to empower the women council members of the Saarc region.
Herbal beauty products poster girl Shahnaz Husain couldn?t have agreed more with Dutta. The young girl from a traditional family she was married at the age of 15. But, she emerged from a sheltered life and upbringing to step into the world of business. She had the will and let nothing come in her way. ?Internationally, billions of dollars are spent on advertising and packaging. But, I stuck to my solo ?India and Ayurveda? image. I stood alone at the counter and sold my country?s 5,000-year-old ancient heritage in a jar. Deterrents did come up in life, but I have tried to meet them as challenges,? she recollects.
Today she has a chain of over 400 franchise clinics, shops, schools and spas worldwide as well as Ayurvedic formulations for skin, hair, body and health care. She has been also encouraging ordinary housewives to open salons in their own homes, so that they can become financially independent. ?I have seen how shy housewives have blossomed into confident entrepreneurs,? she says.
Being good at their work, points out Ritu Nanda of Ritu Nanda Insurance Service, comes naturally to most females. ?Women have 40% more nerve receptors than men, which I think makes them better at communication and management, and in being better leaders. They are doing what men can do and doing it more efficiently.?
Hers is another case in point. Though her initial 10 years as an insurance agent were probably the most difficult, today she is woman in a man?s world and doing very well. ?I still can?t forget how people laughed at my face when I became an insurance agent. I think that drove me more towards proving them wrong,? she recounts.
The only issue that comes across as an obstacle for some women is balancing work and home. But then women are known to be good at multi-tasking. Says fashion designer and entrepreneur Ritu Kumar, ?It?s never easy to balance many roles that a working woman has to play. From being a daughter and wife to a homemaker, she plays all roles and takes care of her work. Being an entrepreneur has been an interesting journey. If I look back, at times it?s exhausting, but all in all, it?s very fulfilling.?
And it?s been no different for women in the rest of South Asia. Because these women are just making cracks in the glass ceiling more visible than ever. The point was driven home recently at an event of SCWEC organised by the FICCI Ladies Organisation.
Take, for example, Ramya Weerakoon of Sri Lanka. When the 23-year-old war widow was forced to turn her hobby of batik painting into a profession in 1972, she hardly realised that she would be changing things for many other women in her country. Weerakoon started a small unit from her home in 1976. Today, she owns factories under the names of Ramya Apparels, Tendwear and Ramya Horticulture that provide employment to about 2,000 women. She recollects, ?My first aim was to get a house of my own and then support my two daughters.?
And it was no smooth sailing for her, but she made sure that she negotiated the rough currents successfully. She started exporting batik and was soon running an independent unit. Today Weerakoon is an independent and outgoing woman she never thought she could be. As the vice-president of SCWEC, she is trying to smoothen the edges that were rough for her. ?One of the biggest problems I faced was in getting a loan from a bank to start my business. It still remains an issue in our country and we are trying to solve it from our end as much as we can.?
Another marked change, Tariq Sayed, president of Saarc Chamber of Commerce and Industry, points out, is that women are venturing into different kinds of businesses. ?Back in 70s and 80s they stuck to making pickles, papads and handicrafts. Today they are entering the corporate world and doing things that any man can do.? A case in point is of Rukshana Jahangir of Pakistan. She knew she wanted to do things on her own even if it was something that no woman in Pakistan had done earlier. In 1992, she started rearing livestock for beef. ?I began with three cows. Of course, it was something that no woman was doing. So, everybody?right from my family to neighbours?thought I was being extremely stupid. But then I just wanted to do it and I did it,? she says.
Today, 18 years later, she has 900 heads and is exporting beef to the UAE. She has also set up a factory, Rohi Rung Embroidery, where wives of her male employees are engaged in embroidery work. ?We export to the UK and Brazil.? Ask her what was the biggest challenge that she faced with her livestock business and pat comes the reply, ?Oh, the male workers thought I wouldn?t be able to manage it. So a lot of labour issues came up, but I always had a back up plan.? Apart from running her companies, Jahangir is also chairperson of the women?s wing of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, helping many other women like her to find their feet in the ground.
Others like Pramila Rijal of Nepal might have started off doing traditional work with a boutique called Images Fashion House on a small-scale, way back in 1986 when she was barely out of college, but today she is supporting a lot of young women to do their own business, thanks to a finance company, Savings and Credits, started by her and a few other women entrepreneurs.
The loan policies in Nepal, she says, are very rigid. It?s something that a lot of women find difficult to deal with when they want to start their own businesses. And that?s when Savings and Credits comes into the picture. ?We try and support them financially and provide loans. We can extend a loan up to $3,00,000.? As president of the women?s wing of Nepal Chamber of Commerce, Rijal also tries her best to support women entrepreneurs in whichever way she can.
Naaz Farhana Ahmed of Bangladesh is also a model case. A beautiful cane basket from Africa is what inspired her to promote handicrafts of Bangladesh. So, in 1984, she began her entrepreneurial career by setting up Kanak Handicrafts in Sheraton Hotel, Dhaka. Working with poor artisans, she was soon manufacturing, trading, supplying and exporting not just handicrafts but also office stationary and equipment. Today, this vice-chairperson of SCWEC is working on changing the odds she faced when she wanted to start her business. ?For a woman to work on her own was never easy in Bangladesh. I want to give them that platform and at the same time look at their overall development.?
The experiences of women across South Asia are similar but the promises are universal. Kiran Mazumdar -Shaw, CMD of Biocon, said to FE in an earlier interview: ?Women have a very strong interest in delivering, performing and being recognised. Once they stop being a minority, it will disappear.?