An unfair world against the paid working woman

After graduating business school, I had the unique opportunity of meeting women doing both paid work at corporations, NGOs, military institutions, rural agriculture, urban maid services and, not to mention, unpaid and unrecognised work at households. Women's recorded and unrecorded participation in Bangladesh's economy has seen quite an incredible growth over the years. And yet, when women pursue either paid or unpaid work, they are asked to face a society that is indoctrinated to deal with them unfairly – and often oppressively. 

Bangladeshi society has internalised that the typical working person is a man – whether he has a family to support or not. A man working a white-collar job is capable of working long hours, often without worrying about his other responsibilities like cleaning the house, doing laundry, preparing meals and so on. Renting or owning one's own place in urban Dhaka is often not an option for most freshers starting off their careers. Consequently, it is the women of the households – either hired maids or the family members – who take care of all the backstage essentials for the working persons, whom we often refer to as the "breadwinner." The average working man is also available to travel cross cities and is expected to do out-of-office work like market or field visits and attend unplanned client meetings at odd hours. Not to mention, working overtime during the wee hours of the night is considered a bonus for scoring high in the performance metrics. Attending a physical office by availing public transport is also an easier task for the urban man, who can push his way out in the bustling capital of chaotic bus rides and tense roadside tongs.

Now, let's come to the life of the typical Bangladeshi working woman. For one thing, a young woman starting off her career has to think twice when availing public transport in Dhaka, wherein reports of sexual harassment are rampant. Conducting market or field visits is another strenuous task for women, as public facilities like women's toilets are often inaccessible. Women whose work involves outdoors often suffer from infections due to this one reason. Travelling cross-cities is more challenging for women than men who do not have to worry about their safety and security, at least not as much as women. Working overtime is also more difficult for women as finding safe transport at late hours is burdensome. Our terms and conditions for women willing to do paid work is simple - she has to be like her male counterpart as much as possible. The reasoning behind this which I feel is remarkable, is that most organisations and we – the society at large – do not want to accommodate women.

The one question I have often faced during job interviews is: "Will you be able to do market/field visits and travel often?" This one question is often asked to test a female candidate's loyalty to her job and subsequently her career. I find myself caught off-guard when asked this question as a host of plausible answers shoot through my head in a matter of seconds: "Umm, I would have to take my baby with me." and "Where will I be staying?" and "Will you provide a safe and secure work environment?" and "How will I manage with a child dependent on me?" At the end of the day, the average member of the institution is a man who often doesn't have to worry about these nitty-gritties of family life or his safety and security. Why? Because more often than not, a woman, regardless of if she is a jobholder or not, is doing tireless unpaid work at home to keep the man of the household from worrying about these. 

In the end, what do we have? We have a woman who is told to "suck it up" by not raising her concerns, to not hesitate or back away from doing overtime or travelling on short notice or doing physically strenuous work when it is medically not recommended. In essence, we ask very little of the woman who has ventured to join the paid-for-work life. She has to relentlessly prove her worth to her employer by being like a man, in every way possible. I often find that my friends, who are working women in corporations, are constantly reassuring employers and others that they will be joining work after childbirth when their maternity leave ends. Women often get sidelined in this manner and they need to have exceptional assertiveness to voice their unique needs. People often argue that a woman can do anything a man can do, so why do we need to accommodate the few women who can't do what a man can do? Well, for starters, women do not need to be like men. But why put men on a pedestal saying, "There you go, there's our ideal working person, a man." 

Any concerns raised by women are quickly marked as a sign of "privilege" and the men of the organisation sulk under their breath, wondering why women are even here working with them. 

The dominant culture teaches women to suppress their voices and to push themselves beyond what is humanly capable. How often would a woman suffering from severe menstrual symptoms be able to take a day off from work? Could a woman dare to explain how she is experiencing labour pain even days after a miscarriage? How about a pregnant woman who has been advised by her doctor to take it easy on herself as she is at the risk of miscarrying again? Would she be able to easily talk to her supervisor and get some days off while being paid? Aside from women's common medical needs, how often is a young woman's security concerns taken seriously? Sexual advances by male colleagues and unprofessional advances are often shrugged off as common practice and termed "harmless." Rejecting women's concerns, dehumanising them, and not valuing their contribution to the organisational goals is downright oppressive. 

Edwin Ardener, a British anthropologist, developed the Muted Group Theory. The theory posited that women's voices and perspectives in society are often muted by the dominant male counterparts. A society uses a mainly masculine lens in dealing with all its affairs. Women often come to subconsciously accept this oppressive phenomenon and learn to suppress their own voices. Historically, a hunter-gatherer or breadwinner-homemaker dichotomy in a structural-functional society is used to put men in the upper class and women in the lower class. Women's increasing recorded and unrecorded participation in the economy in both paid and unpaid forms has done little to dismantle this outdated social construct, and women – despite becoming breadwinners – remain muted even in the paid working sphere. 

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For a woman, being exceptionally good at what she does is often not enough. Whatever she is, whatever her contribution to the organisation, she often has to prove her loyalty to the working world by having inhuman capabilities of raising a child, contributing to household work and putting up with lots of workplace discomfort while being a star employee. Her contributions to the household are often seen as work worthy of not even mere acknowledgement. According to a study titled "Estimating Women's Contribution to The Economy: The Case of Bangladesh" by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) in 2015, men work 2.7 hours per day doing household activities while women work 7.7 hours per day. These include shopping for food, shopping for other items, tending to children, household planning and caring for livestock (applicable only in rural areas). Women do at least 12.9 activities on a typical day in rural areas, while in urban areas they do around 11.2 activities. Men, on the other hand, do only about 2.6 household activities in both urban and rural areas. The report also estimated the value of women's unpaid work (non-SNA activities) at 76.8 percent of GDP in FY 2013-14. And according to the willingness to accept method, the corresponding estimate was equivalent to 87.2 percent of GDP in FY 2013-14.

History shows that women's rights have often come across as a privilege in the male-dominated working world, and any rights that women have achieved so far has been the result of tireless struggle. An article titled "The Forgotten Origins of Paid Family Leave" in The New York Times by Mona L Siegel highlights how the Maternity Protection Convention of 1919 was adopted by the newly formed International Labour Organization (ILO). However, it was not developed because employers deemed it was needed after women's increasing economic participation during and after the first World War. Rather, the minimum 12 weeks of maternity leave came about due to the impassioned undertaking by women who were feminist leaders, unionists, and social workers. Among the demands placed by women for women were: Flexible work hours, equality in remuneration, and paid maternity leave. Working women who were pregnant were also to be allowed safe work environments that would not harm their unborn baby. 

As more and more women join the workforce, women may become a stronger force in Bangladesh where their diverse needs are discussed and addressed by employers. Society at large, and all its institutions, considers men to be the default working person and consequently, women's concerns often do not come up, unless raised specifically and by a large number. Organisations often do not want to meet women's specific requirements, shrugging them off as a privilege and thereby difficult to accommodate. Maybe that's why, as per World Bank data, during the Covid-19 pandemic women's labour force participation dropped from 39 percent in 2019 to 35 percent in 2020, whereas male labour force participation dropped just one percent during the same period, from 80 percent to 79 percent. Women, in effect, are dispensable in the working world despite their significant contribution to the economy. 

Even though women have proved their contribution through the centuries, their worth is still questioned. Bangladesh has seen women becoming combat pilots, sergeant doctors, human rights lawyers, corporate managers, prominent politicians and, not to mention, steadfast homemakers and caregivers raising future leaders. Yet, here we are suppressing working women's voices as much as possible, holding them responsible for being who they are – women. 

Tashfia Rawnak Anika is a master's graduate from the Development Studies department of Dhaka University and an aspiring development professional.