Issue 70: Where are the educated women? - Part 6
Structures that make it hard to survive let alone thrive
Dear reader,
Today, Girl At Work (GAW) turns two. While I have no cake to celebrate that with, I have words of gratitude, lots and lots.
This wouldn’t have been possible without you, reading GAW diligently, sharing your comments and feedback, cheering me on from the sidelines, caring enough to suggest topics I should definitely be covering.
In fact, the current series, “Where are the educated women?”, has gone on for so long because it has resonated with so many of you, wanting to read more on the topic. I don’t know how many birthdays GAW will celebrate. If it is in my hands (and maybe it is), I hope GAW grows old with me, reinventing itself with every passing year, chronicling the lives of the millions of working women this world will continue to see. I will pause here and get on with today’s article, for that’s the best way to celebrate a birthday, sticking to the topic of the day.
Cheers,
Kavitha
This is Part 6 of a multi-part series. Click through for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.
It was some time in the 2000s. The improbable had just happened. There was a pregnant consultant in the office.
Let me back up and explain.
Consulting was an interesting industry in those days. It still is.
Every year spent as a consultant is equivalent to three years of real world experience, we were told. I agree. I feel that even today, long after I left the industry behind.
But, consulting was a hard game in those days. It still is.
The long hours and late nights not withstanding, incessant travel at a moment’s notice is not lifestyle conducive in general.
If ever there was a profession made for single people with no responsibilities back home, it was this one. It still is.
And therein lies the problem.
In India, we have single men and single women. And, we have people who can afford to lead the life of singles much after having kids. Unfortunately, that latter set is dominated by the male gender.
Women drop off faster in consulting than in other careers. Here are three of those primary drop-offs.
The first drop-off
In consulting, one’s worth is determined by staffing. Because, when one is staffed on a project, one is driving revenue for the company and hence is productive. And this staffing can take the consultant right next door to their house or 10-12 hour flight durations away, depending on where the client is located.
When a woman gets pregnant, depending on the level of medical complications and gentle nudges from her near-and-dears, her ability to travel gets hit. Now imagine if she’s working in an industry where one’s bread and butter is driven by travel. Suddenly, her staffing value plummets. Because, she can now be staffed only on projects within her location, and that’s always a smaller set than the universe of all the projects that are waiting to make money for the company. Which the male consultants mostly have no qualms getting staffed on.
Let’s assume a percentage of women are even able to travel for a major part of their pregnancy. That still leaves us with a percentage that falls off, having been left unutilised or at least under-utilised during those 6-9 months.
That’s the first drop off. Of those women who are left unproductive because of the way this industry is structured.
The second drop-off
When the woman comes back from her maternity leave, her willingness and ability to travel is possibly even worse than it was during pregnancy. For, there’s now a living breathing little person at home who needs care giving, a structural problem for which most households offer the mother as the sole answer. Even if the woman does have full time help, it gets harder to travel at the level at which her male colleague is now traveling or pulling in all-nighters to deliver on projects and make himself more staffable and most staffable.
That’s the second drop-off. Because, a percentage of the women that makes it so far now wonders whether all this fight is worth it at all, whether there is even a career to be made here.
The third fall-off
The woman who continues with consulting beyond all these obstacles either figures out better caregiving at home or travels along with the child and her helper on her projects. Her male colleague continues traveling like he always has, caregiving of his children being sorted by his female spouse back at home.
The woman who is still unable to travel but wants to stick to the consulting company thinks, “Why not do a part time / knowledge management / research job at the consulting company instead of hardcore consulting”.
That’s the third drop-off.
Her path now veers far away from that coveted consulting career she might have craved as much as her male peers when she was younger, as she embarks on a territory that is horizontal and non-revenue-generating in most consulting companies.
To conclude
“The mother as an artefact is fast disappearing from the consulting industry,” a friend tells me as I draft this article. It isn’t surprising, though it is heartbreaking.
Structurally, some careers continue to be more gendered than others and even though things change and cultures evolve, these don’t seem to shift the needle much.
Because, for every woman who drops off the consulting career, there are countless men ready to take her place. Because, unless primary caregiving shifts equitably between women and men, the structural issues of a consulting career will always be at cross purposes with the structural issues the woman faces at home.
That’s a conundrum for which I have no answer in this article.
Some problems are just that. Problems. And perhaps it’s ok to chronicle them as such.
P. S. Views strictly personal. None of the events mentioned in this post refer to the organisation that I am currently associated with.
CONGRATULATIONS on turning 2! Thrilled for you & yes, May we all grow old together 💖