Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Why women lag behind men?' that was published in Newsband

Why women lag behind men?

A survey indicated that government schools in Delhi have 52% female and 48% male while private schools is 40% female and 60% male. There are families in which in spite of financial constraints, sons are sent to private schools, while daughters are sent to government schools. It is a disturbing commentary.

It is an accepted theory that girls will grow up to be homemakers and boys will have to earn a living. Better education (which necessarily translates to education in private schools) will help boys get better (that is, better paying) jobs later on in life. Girls, it is assumed, need only be literate as opposed to educated, since they won’t have careers or earning a living to worry about.

Stuck in a deeply entrenched patriarchal society, Indian women face many battles in medicine, science and technology. Science, technology, engineering, and medicine – together known as ‘STEM’ fields – suffer from a glaring lack of women, especially in India. When it comes to those who take up research in later life, the number of women is minuscule.

Stuck in a deeply entrenched patriarchal society, Indian women face many battles before they can make it to the highest levels of STEM. A survey on Women in STEM showed that 81% of women in STEM fields in India perceived a gender bias in performance evaluation. Such hostile work culture, coupled with the pressures of home is making women leave STEM professions.

Women have to handle not just the blatantly misogynist scientific community, but also the pressures of family to conform to traditional gender roles. Many women are routinely told that they cannot be hired for high ranking positions because they either have children or will have children in the future. The underlying assumption is that a woman with a family will give more attention to her home than her job.

High potential men and women in India start out on an equal footing when it comes to job levels, pay and even aspiration, but, over time, a gender gap emerges with women earning less, receiving fewer developmental opportunities compared to men.

The loser in this scenario is not just women but also science itself, which fails to benefit from other points of view. Government agencies, universities, and society must work together to ensure that our hiring practices are free from the insidious sexism that keeps women from achieving their full potential.