A.H.D.Pushpa Latha

lecturer in Botany, Visakha Govt. Degree College for Women, Visakhapatnam.

email id- [email protected]

Abstract

Modern women facing trouble to strike a balance between workplace and family life, often sacrificing the latter to succeed and gain status within the workplace and society. Role of the women in India mostly is household and limited to domestic issues. Working woman faces so many problems associated with her time allocation while engaging in income earning activities outside. It includes problems related to health, psychological, social and family problems. They are strong, smart, technically competent and emotionally variant in comparison to their male counterparts. The challenges unique to women include lack of training and development, gender stereotypes, being excluded from useful information that are not accessible to women due to their gender or due to their unique roles and responsibilities in family. This paper deals with problems faced by women employs especially in India.

Key words: psychological problems, technical competent, emotional variant

Introduction

In developing countries like India, changing economic and social condition necessitated working of women irrespective of their religion, class or social status. But at the same time, it raised number of related issues like managing for family adjustment, working environment, etc. Status of women can be broadly defined as the degree of socio-economic equality and freedom enjoyed by women. Economic, social and cultural factors interplay for reinforcing the gender differences in ownership, control and access to land trough inheritance, marriage or informal networks (Arun, 1994). Women’s economic status in the household, depends on three levels of influence, viz., women’s acquired economic and social power, the socio-economic status of their households and the level of support and opportunities in the community (Zhao, 1991).Women’s economic well-being is usually enhanced by women acquiring independent sources of income that begets increased self-esteem and improved conditions of their households and the overall level of development in their communities. The gender gap in the ownership and control of property is the most significant contributor to the gender gap in the economic well being, social status and empowerment of women (Andal, 2002).Women have been playing vital roles in households since ages. Now women are also recognized for their value in the workplace and are engaged in wide range of activities of work in addition to their routine domestic work. Building a society where women can breathe freely without fear of oppression, exploitation, and discrimination is the need of the hour, to ensure a better future for the next generation.

During earlier days there were some man-made boundaries for women but now women play vital roles in different sectors. Women today are breaking that boundary and are playing the dual role of balancing domestic life as well as professional life, giving a boost to their societal status in the process. The major problems for working women arise out of the dual responsibilities of the working woman – domestic work as well as office work. Though more and more women are coming out in search of paid employment and their families also need their income, the attitude towards women and their role in the family has not undergone much change. Women continue to be perceived as weak, inferior, and second-class citizens. Even today, looking after the family and children is generally perceived to be the primary responsibility of the man.

It is possible to accept that as more and more women have entered the workforce, there is no longer a solid family-support at home (Schwarts, 1992). “Women have increased their participation in paid employment considerably during the past 30 years, but men have not increased their participation in housework to the same extent” (Evertsson and Nermo, 2004).

Women still perform majority of the care giving role and juggling of work in the family. Gender is seen as a significant determinant of negative job spill-over because employed women are expected to carry out the responsibility for family services and still be able to smoothly handle 12 their work roles (Delgado and Canabal, 2006). Although husbands have taken on more domestic work than they did in earlier generations, this gain for women has been offset by “escalating pressures for intensive parenting and the increasing time demands of most high-level careers” (Eagly and Carli, 2007). Added to this is the phenomenon of guilt experienced by women containing a general feeling of responsibility especially towards their own children. It gives rise to a sense of failure of responsibility that arises when they lack control over the demands made on them from different spheres of life. Historically, women have suffered oppression and domination by the patriarchal society in India and have faced many problems and challenges.

Challenges that are faced by women

There has been a steady increase in the rate of women employment in organized sector in wide-ranging spheres and in many folds with the advent of rapid industrialization, modernization, economic development and globalization. But it has led to many evil practices such as physical and mental harassment, gender discrimination and more specifically sexual harassment at work place.[1]

Sexual harassment is superfluous annoyance of sexual requirements in the context of relationship of unequal power [2] which includes physical contact, demand for sexual favours, showing coloured remarks and pornography even verbal and non -verbal conduct of sexual nature.[3] By sexual harassment the women experiences both physical and mental torture. The sexual harassment has taken new shapes while the women have entered in work force. The colleagues and supervisors left no stone unturned to harass the women at workplace on wide range and scale. [4] Sexual harassment is widely considered an emotionally impudent which creates an atmosphere of unhealthy and less productive outcome at the workplace by this sense it has been recognized globally as most frightening form of violence since very long.[5] Sexual harassment in all its configurations is not easy to define. Women usually wield less hierarchical power in organizations, and men have more, sexual harassment serves as one method of the powerful asserting control over the powerless. This suggestion is supported by findings that women are more likely to be harassed when they move into higher levels in organizations or into non-traditional areas. The individuals with less power tend to be more attentive to the individuals with more power than the reverse. This clearly shows that the persons with inferior job position in an organization or in institute are more prone to sexual harassment than a person in power.

Different researches reveal that harassers are found in all types of occupations at all organizational levels, inside and outside home and even among the college professors. The sexual harassment is said to be an outcome of extreme competitiveness and concerns with ego or there is always a fear of losing position of power or dominance among men. They do not want to appear weak or less masculine in the eyes of other men. In order to show their dominance they engage in harassing the women colleagues. So this becomes clear here that the masculine aggressiveness causes the sexual harassment of women.

It is familiar that men in an organization began to harass their women colleagues who are quite friendly in nature. They perceive that these women are sober in nature and if we seek sexual favours from them they will accept. But that was not what women herself indicated her intention to be. And this ultimately leads to the fact that the women are being perceived as of having a sexual interest by being friendly. This friendly nature woman with their men colleagues in an organization or in general social setup becomes the cause of sexual harassment. In our present day society we are familiar with the fact that there are a large number of women population who are with higher academic degrees rendering for job but the available job position are lesser than these highly educated young women. When these talented and efficient women began their journey to find a job in an organization may it be an educational institute or other private or government sector they are harassed and advanced by sexual favours by the person in charges and for that they are assured to be offered a job. This behaviour of male components of an organization who are in higher positions leads to an outcome of ‘Quid Pro Quo’ (This for That). Latter when these girls are attached to a particular job position in an organization they are often asked for sexual offers for promotion, salary increase and other conditions of employment. No doubt this is surely the case of our present society and this becomes one of the basic causes of sexual harassment of young educated women.

The above give causes clearly shows that women either employed in private sector or in government are conditioned to face such humiliation by their male colleagues besides a number of legal and constitutional provision protects their modesty and honour at the workplace.

Professional women feel isolated and burdened by the simultaneous demands of their new aspirations on one side and the traditional way of life on the other.

Conclusions drawn related to issues and challenges faced by women were as follows

 Women are discriminated against in all walks of life.

 Women are subjugated dominated and exploited both at work places and home.

 Women are generally unable to give proper and quality time to households, kids and family.

 Working women generally face workplace sexual harassment, mental pressure, and safety issues.

 Females are also highly judgmental about other female colleagues and try to put one at any given opportunity.

 Women face problems leaving kids at home and going to office early in the morning.

 Child rearing problems are always faced by working women.

 People make particular perception or draw conclusion about characters of working women.

 The social system cannot accept the new roles of women who end up feeling misunderstood and distressed

   References

1.S. C. Srivastava, “Sexual Harassment of Women at Work Place: Law and Policy”, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp.364-390, 2004.

2. MacKinnon, “Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination”, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1979.

 Section 2(n) of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redresal) Act, 2013.

 3.G.S. Venumadhava, M. Tejashwini, “Sexual Harassment of Women at workplace”, International journal of advanced research, Volume 3, Issue5, pp. 1136-1139, 2015.

4.A. Thomas, “Incidents of Sexual Harassment at Educational Institutions in India: Preventive  Measures and Grievances Handling”, Internationaljournal of Recent Advances in Multidisciplinary Research, vol.02, Issue 03, pp. 0317-0322, 2015.

5.J. H. Joshi, J. Nachison, “Sexual Harassment in the Workplace How to Recognize; How to Deal It”, CGIAR GENDER PROGRAM, working paper, No. 13, 1996.