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Prejudices in the workplace
By Sangeeta Patni (nee Samar) ('90)
 Last
night my eight-year-old daughter was going through her schoolwork,
where she was looking up genders of different animals/humans.
Peacock/Peahen, Dog/bitch, King/Queen etc.
In the middle, she turned around and asked me, “Mom, what is the
female of Doctor?” I was reading a book and without missing a
beat, answered, "Beta, there is no gender for a profession. A doctor is
a doctor, whether a male or female". She nodded sagely - "Yeah,
right. Like you are an engineer. It is based on what you do, not
whether you are a girl or a boy", and she went back to her
schoolwork. I realized with a start - this is so simple for her.
She has seen me work all her life, it comes as no surprise to her that
a profession has nothing feminine or masculine about it. That it
is simply about skill and ability, and nothing to do with gender.
But that’s not the way the entire world views it. Not the
current one, anyway. There are people in the world who
“feel” differently about a woman professional although they
“know” that both genders have similar professional
ability. However hard we try and gloss over it, gender prejudices
are alive and kicking in the world. I know, I have experienced
them first hand.
It is seldom voiced, nor is visible to a casual eye, not in the
politically correct professional corridors I find myself in, but it is
there. Lurking in board-rooms, in seminars, in meetings, in
parent-teacher meetings, and even in homes, rearing its ugly head,
every now and then. Showing up in the way men and women look past
me in my company’s booth at a technical event and engage with a
male colleague for a technical discussion. Thrown in my face when
a male colleague is chosen over me to head a project I have worked so
hard on. Demonstrated by the involuntary closing-of-ranks by my peers
at a beer bash session at an office party. It shows up when
people hand out roles to me that they assume me to be good at
– at nurturing people, at being good in handling irate customers
and at soothing down a ruffled colleague, and in the same breath, I am
passed over for roles that require handling new project situations,
traveling to new geographies and breaking new ground and markets. It is
seldom, at least in the beginning that people seek to see what I am
good at – I am just lumped with these “female”
expectations. Awwwrrrgghh, it is frustrating!
After being an engineer with two decades of work behind me, and
reasonably sound and successful decades at that, I still find steeling
myself for a fight with this unseen foe whenever I meet a new set of
people – whether male or female, a new set of buildings and new
situations. I have to overcome this prejudice and forgive the
people who have harbored it, before I get on with my work. No
matter how many times I have killed it, no matter how many times I have
proved myself to be equal, I have to do it again and again and again.
Why? Because I must. Because I know that despite what some people may
assume me to be, I am an equal professional. This truth is known
to me, but is hidden behind the fog of unconscious conditioning of the
mind. And I must fight to bring this truth to light, sometimes even to
myself.
How exactly do I fight prejudice? Ah, that’s not easy or
even straight-forward. More because this is insidious and unseen,
sometimes even the person with the prejudice does not know he/she has
it. Unless it is a dogma, it typically is subconscious. To
combat it, it, hence, needs different kind of weapons. I know of
one that works. Evidence to the contrary.
 And
I make it my business to create such evidence. I ignore
perceptions and just get on with my job, make sure I explain my role,
my skills that got it done, generate visible, demonstrated evidence of
my skills, and make sure I articulate my desired role before I find one
dumped on me. I simply focus on sharpening my skills, meeting my
deliverables, and keeping my faith in myself intact. Then, I dig
my heels, and wait - for the respect moments to occur, when
others, prejudiced or not, acknowledge and respect what I have done.
When respect appears, prejudice simply melts away and disappears.
All it needs is evidence and patience. Sometimes, lots and lots of
it.
It is often hard and frustrating work. But a job that needs to be done.
For my sake and for the work I love doing. For my daughter – and
her daughters. For my parents who thought me to be equal to my
brothers. For the BITS education which equipped me to be equal
– and for friends and colleagues who depend on me to be so.
And I know I am not alone. I look around and see other women who have
done the same. CEOs, Scientists, Technology Officers, Police Cops,
Design engineers, Mountaineers, IAS Officers, Pilots – all women
who silently went about applying their ability and the skill to do a
job, and just did it. When they kept at it, no matter what people
thought or said, people could not but respect that they did, and
considered them as equal professionals. Invariably. Inexorably.
Irrevocably.
But this is only about the battle I wage and the weapons I use. I am
able to work long, hard hours and grind away the prejudice - but about
my daughter, and girls of her generation? It would indeed be sad, if
she too would have to present evidence upon evidence of her skill and
ability before she is accepted and treated as an equal,
It is important, then, to examine where this prejudice comes from, so
that one is able to move towards it annihilation, within oneself and
all around us. It is said that a prejudice is an attitude that we have
about a person that is governed by appearances, color, gender, height,
religion, their sexuality and other such things. Prejudices are not
consciously learnt. They exist in the murky depths of the unconscious
mind. Nobody teaches you prejudice. It is arrived at by our minds,
sifting evidence that it finds, in experiences, daily interactions,
stories, myths, legends, movies and stuff like that. We absorb them in
homes, work places and in social settings. It is prejudice which makes
one select a male surgeon over a female one, even though the female
surgeons’ credentials may be factually better (but this is one
area, which is fast changing everywhere).
Talking about prejudices, I have a confession to make. I hate to say
it, but I have sometimes been prejudiced about female professionals
too. I am not proud to admit it, but it was there. I couldn’t
help feeling a little nervous when I would see women striding towards
an aircraft I was going to fly, wearing a pilot’s uniform. I have
no idea where that came from, considering that I "KNOW" a female pilot
will be as good as male one. How could I think thus? I, as a
professional woman faced my own prejudice and overcame them while I
hoped for a world that has none.
My prejudice about female pilots came from my growing up years. I never
saw many women fly aircrafts when I was growing up. I never heard
stories about women pilots, only about male ones. Maybe if I had seen
enough women pilots, and heard enough stories about companies fighting
to hire women pilots, I would not have batted an eyelid when I saw a
woman walk into the pilot’s cabin.
We’ve come a long way! There are examples to the contrary everywhere. It is time for all of us to change!
It is said that the unconscious mind has ‘a mind of its
own’. No one can force it to behave. It needs to be trained and
schooled, and then, it would change. To school the unconscious mind, it
would need the same trick that I use to fight this attitude at work.
Pile up evidence to the contrary. Pile up images, thoughts,
songs, stories, legends and news about women and their professional
lives all around. Create a smorgasbord of professional success stories
of women. Tell them to your daughter and to your son, tell them to the
winds, tell them to the rooftops, tell them to newspapers, tell them to
your friends – let all of them know that women, too, lead
successful professional lives. Celebrate them. Rejoice in their
skill. Stories of this kind will jostle for space with all those
other old stories about women being mothers, care givers, wives –
but they would be there too. And they would be told and re-told and
echoed back to our unconscious minds in many, many ways. Then,
someday, when the unconscious mind is processing his or her
experiences, stories and images, it would reach the final
“Aha’ moment! The conclusion that there is ample evidence
of women doing design, software, space sky-walking, medicine, mountain
biking – and that really, profession has nothing to do with being
a woman, but only to do with skill and ability.
And then, when my daughter – and yours – grows up, she
would be perceived as an engineer. Not a “female’ engineer,
but just an engineer. Period.
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