Ishani Roy

From Abuse to Jobs, the Crisis Will Burden Women More Than Men

Beyond domestic abuse, too, crises like the current one have resulted in social effects, particularly in employment, that have affected women more than men.

Coronavirus seemingly affects men more than women. Yet, the pandemic will scar a whole generation of women in ways we can only imagine.

In Hubei, the origin of the deadly outbreak, domestic violence reports to police more than tripled during the lockdown. As countries around the world quarantine their citizens, domestic abuse cases are rising.

The police in Uttar Pradesh, which is one of the worst states for violence against women in the country, has launched a new domestic violence helpline as cases surge during the COVID-19 lockdown. With schools and workplaces shut, women have no respite from abusive relationships.

According to the National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma, “The number has increased. Men are frustrated sitting at home and are taking out that frustration on women. This trend is especially seen in Punjab from where we have received many such complaints,”

There has been much discussion on the economic cost of this pandemic. In India, we are talking about mental health issues induced by isolation and anxiety. But very little has been said about abuse and assault of women in their homes.

Statistics show that the coronavirus affects men more than women. Yet, the pandemic will also scar a whole generation of women. Through increased abuse in the short run and systemic economic discrimination in the long run, women will bear a higher cost on their health as well as their economic independence.

Also read: South Asian Domestic Violence Survivors in Silicon Valley Grapple With COVID-19 Lockdown

And it’s not just women. The US National Crime Agency predicted a significant rise in online child sexual abuse during coronavirus pandemic. While statistics aren’t easily available for India, one can only imagine the rise in cases here.

A woman’s burden?

Research by Daniel Schneider and others at UC Berkeley measures the rise in intimate partner violence (IPV) during the Great Recession in the 1930s. Unemployment and economic hardship led to abusive behaviour. They show that even after economic distress levelled at the micro-level, men’s controlling behaviour continued to increase towards their partners.

There is also a link between alcohol and abuse. Researchers have consistently found that approximately one half of all sexual assaults are committed by men who have been drinking alcohol. It should be alarming then that Kerala government had to authorise the sale of foreign liquor as ‘medicine’ when suicide rates rose as alcohol shops closed down due to COVID-19 lockdown. The high court has subsequently stayed the order.

Women’s health is not just confined to safety and abuse. Long term effects on health have also been stark after an epidemic or crisis.

Research by Claire Wenham and her colleagues, as part of the Gender and COVID-19 Working Group, reported a detailed study on the aftermath of an epidemic on gender and equality. They say that after the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, school closures affected girls’ education and life opportunities. As many girls dropped out of school, it also showed a rise in teenage-pregnancy rates. And predictably domestic and sexual violence rose.

Also read: Activists Urge Govt to Roll Back Suspension of Rules Under Act that Bans Sex Determination

Wenham’s research also showed how significantly children were affected with a steady decline of childhood vaccination during Ebola. Later on these children contracted preventable diseases and their mothers’ employment were affected as they took time off from work.

So the trend is always the same – when it comes to crisis things that aren’t priorities get canceled – read women’s health and safety and mortality.

Most devastating were the invisible deaths which did not make news. In Sierra Leone, during the outbreak, more women died of obstetric complications than by Ebola.

Long term impact

Beyond immediate victims, epidemics can also have lasting social effects. Academics have been studying the consequence of epidemics – the Ebola crisis in three African countries in 2014, the Zika virus that surfaced in 2015-16 and recent outbreaks of SARS, swine flu and bird flu. They found that there are deep, long-lasting effects on gender equality.

Julia Smith, health-policy researcher at Simon Fraser University says that even though everybody’s income was affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, men’s income returned to pre-outbreak levels, but women’s income did not.

Another example would be to look at the economic trends post recession on gender and employment. A recent study by researchers at Northwestern University shows that compared to regular recession this pandemic will affect women more significantly than men with more women losing their jobs. The World Economic Forum recently quoted that due to mass school closures women will bear much of the responsibility for child and elderly care. The lockdown will only exacerbate the burden since women already do three times as much unpaid care work than men. In India it is 9.8 times more.

The effects of recession are much the same for Indian women. Even though in 2008 the recession was mild in India, men’s job losses weren’t impacted much. But women have continued to experience a fall in their employment rate. A study by CMIE shows that in 2018 out of the 11 million jobs lost, women accounted for 8.8 million jobs whereas men lost only 2.2 million jobs.

Also read: For the Last 11 Days, One Woman Has Been Stranded Between India and Bangladesh

It’s worse if you are an educated woman. Women with graduate or higher degrees face a punishing 35% unemployment rate. But graduate (and higher) men on the flipside enjoy a lower unemployment rate (10%).

What can be done

There is a brighter side in terms of shifting gender roles. As the world adapts to the new ‘forced’ work from home routine, we could try and rebalance our society, with men taking-up more domestic responsibilities. Perhaps it starts at households where women work as healthcare providers and essential workers. As they would need to stay away from home, it would mean men would be required to take sole responsibility of children and elderly thereby shifting the norm.

Just two days ago the Illinois Department of Human Services announced that they are launching a $1.2 million plan towards prevention of domestic violence and assistance of sexual assault survivors during the current pandemic.

Just as we found Punjab police urging women to ‘put their men to work’, it would do good for administrators in India to take the issue of women’s safety seriously. Launching helplines, authorising funds, making the police force aware would be the first few step in protecting our women from abuse in their own homes.

Ishani Roy is the founder, Serein Inc, a diversity and inclusion consulting company.

The Language of Sexual Harassment: How Words and Images Normalise Predatory Male Behaviour

There is something innately wrong about the way harassment is portrayed in the media and the effect it has on the reader.

It’s time copy editors dump the predator-prey images and experiment with more positive images that recognise the strength needed to deal with such harassment. Credit: Pixabay

One of the defining stories of 2017 was the spontaneous birth of the #MeToo revolution, which initiated thousands of women around the world to recount their experiences of sexual harassment. While harassment wasn’t news to most women, last year was probably the first time that many men got a glimpse into the horrors that women routinely endure.

The #MeToo stories are also unique in their directness – no more euphemisms or shameful silences. Women have publicly spoken that it’s not acceptable to let men in power get away with such behaviour.

As a practitioner in the field of diversity and inclusion, this openness is refreshing. But if we are serious about tackling this epidemic of sexism, we need to also consider the passive enablers of sexual harassment. Unconsciously, through our words and actions, how do we, as a society, condone this behaviour?

A picture is worth a thousand words

Consider the way publications usually cover a story on sexual harassment. The image that leads the piece shows a creepy male hand groping a woman. The pictures are unusually suggestive – compare the visuals here, here and here.

This maybe a part of the reality but there is something innately wrong about the way harassment is portrayed in the media and the effect it has on the reader. From a journalistic point of view, using explicit images increases readership and draw attention. But depicting physical aggression for the man and the woman as a cowering victim simply reinforces the helplessness of the situation more than it intends to. These power-based actions have a significant effect on the audience, in their choice of career and their choice to speak up to name a few.

Perhaps it’s time copy editors dump the predator-prey images and experiment with more positive images that recognise the strength needed to deal with such behaviour.

Sticks and stones

It’s not just the images, language matters as well. There is evidence that the use of passive voice in reporting sexual assault or harassment can unconsciously shift the onus and responsibility from the perpetrator to the one facing it. For instance, we often say “a woman was raped”, whereas it’s more accurate to describe the act as “a man raped a woman”.

This might seem like a quibble, but the lack of an active voice signifies that the assault wasn’t committed by someone – it just happened. Describing the act in an active voice places the spotlight on the harasser, not the victim. Similarly phrases such as ‘violence against women’ airbrush the male perpetrators from the act all together.

Passive narration also has a detrimental effect on the victim since the focus is now on how the woman found herself in such a situation. Victim precipitation is a theory where possible reasons are given for sexual assault that hold the victim responsible – her skirt was too short, she had one too many drinks, she was out late.

This attitude of assigning blame has long term consequences. The profile of a harasser is not a simple matter to quantify, but it’s been researched that it’s a combination of sex along with exercise of power that leads to harassment or assault. It is this sense of power that is heightened when men find themselves not having to account for their behaviour or crime but are able to transfer the blame to the other side.

Unconscious biases

The stereotypical portrayals of women in advertisements aren’t helpful either. Most commercials for dental or medical products feature a male doctor patiently explaining the latest scientific breakthrough to a concerned, but obviously ignorant mother. Most household products show mothers as some version of happy cooks or excited cleaners. These images tug at our notion of an ideal mother. They also reinforce family boundaries – men are professional, women are caregivers.

This isn’t just some feminist anecdote. Unilever’s own research on gender in advertising shows that only 3% of commercials show women as leaders and just 2% conveys them as intelligent.

Casual sexism in tech

Not surprisingly, our online personas are mimicking our offline biases. Apple’s voice command application Siri and Amazon’s Alexa are all female, with a penchant for following orders and taking frequent sexist comments in its stride.

Microsoft has a similar Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant called Cortana which is based on a hyper-sexualised female character in the video game Halo. All these assistants were launched with a female voice; the male counterparts were added later on as an update.

Facebook isn’t far behind. Facebook’s M is inspired by Moneypenny, James Bond’s secretary who is known to humour his chauvinistic behaviour. Beyond ‘smart assistants’, tech is laden with everyday sexism. Try putting in the word CEO in an iPhone and it will come up with a only a male emoji.

An attitudinal change

Sexism or gender bias doesn’t form over a day. It has its root in everyday experiences, background and society we are exposed to. Social media and technology plays an important role and for today’s youth growing up with female AI assistants which obeys unconditionally can lead to some deeper consequences.

But how do we stop this wrongful depiction of power? Different people are trying different approaches. Last year, the United Nations and Unilever took part in the #Unstereotype campaign along with Facebook, Google, AT&T and others to bring about an attitudinal change towards gender equality.

The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK has enforced stricter guidelines of stopping gendered stereotypes in advertising. In cinema, the Bechdel test checks how many times women speak in a scene; the Finkbeiner test guides journalists to reduce bias in write ups about women in science. In all of these corrective measures, the unifying idea is the same – consciously or unconsciously, it doesn’t help to have so many passive enablers to sexist and hostile behaviour.

Just as the fearless little girl stood facing the mighty Wall Street bull, we should take a cue from it and decide who should be portrayed in a position of power.

Ishani Roy is the founder, Serein Inc, a diversity and inclusion consulting company.

Why Google’s Misstep Could Be the Best Thing for Equity in the Indian Workplace

With the current attitude towards women in workplaces, we have to equip ourselves with stronger weapons to fight implicit biases and explicit social norms.

In most developing countries, female labour force participation (FLFP) rises with the gross domestic product. But in India, it’s the opposite. Credit: Reuters

Last week, James Damore, a software engineer at Google published his ten-page manifesto railing against the company’s diversity initiatives. His pop science laden argument on why men and women are biologically different, and hence equity in leadership aspirations are inherently futile, caused an uproar in the technology world. Believers in gender equality heaved a collective sigh of relief when he was swiftly fired, much faster than Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and without a #deletegoogle campaign to boot. Our faith in Google was restored.

But beyond the drama, Damore’s memo had some positives. It has forced people like me, practitioners in the inclusion and diversity space, to take a hard look at our work and clearly address the objections of the many Damores that make up India Inc.

Where are these explicit biases coming from?

As a diversity consultant, I work on implicit biases that hinder women’s progress in the workplace. But much like James Damore, Indian businesses display not only implicit biases but many explicit reservations towards working women. Nowhere is this more evident that in the attitude towards women who are perceived as ambitious. Many openly question a woman’s role in the workplace.

Explicit biases can also be subtle. Damore’s memo attempts to quote scientific evidences towards innate biological differences in men and women and draws the misguided link to success at workplace. As with any pseudo-scientific rhetoric, cherry-picking of theories can often lead to very wrong conclusions. But the more important lesson is that under the guise of a professional and calm tone, the memo achieved a much more profound effect – it has given excuse to the disbelievers to feel more wronged, the men on the fence to completely ignore the privileges their gender hands out to them.

In most developing countries, the female labour force participation (FLFP) rises with Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The causation is obvious: growth leads to more opportunities, incentivising families to educate their girl child and the girl child goes out to carve her space in the workforce. But in India, it’s the opposite. From 1995 to 2015, India’s GDP per capita quadrupled but the FLFP fell by 9%. Harvard economist Rohini Pande argues that the reason for this reverse trend is not the lack of government intervention or the limits on women’s choice; our regressive social norms are the barrier. The missing piece in India’s reverse equation is nothing other than our perception of what constitutes the acceptable behaviour of women.

A study by the Indian Human Development Survey in 2011 showed that a large proportion of Indian women require permission to even venture out to visit the health centre or the market. With attitudes like these, we have to equip ourselves with stronger weapons to fight implicit biases and explicit social norms. A much deeper, structured thinking on economics of behaviour, cultural indicators and study of race is needed.

Google recently fired its employee James Damore for a controversial anti-diversity memo. Credit: Reuters

Awareness trainings by corporates

Many corporates and startups now have an array of gender sensitisation and awareness sessions. While I do not deny the value of these initiatives, the diversity dialogue can stagnate quickly if big issues are not acknowledged.

Firstly, let us address the futility of such one-time trainings. More often than not, mandated trainings get people’s defences up as opposed to creating champions in the space. These defences are not to be disregarded as simply a sexist attitude. Often, there are social and economic reasons for these pushbacks. One of the assumptions that most skeptics make is that they attribute differences in skills and abilities to perform at a job to the demography one belongs to: male or female. Aggression, ability to lead, ability to perform under pressure are categorised as masculine whereas collaboration, nurturing team members and being a better team player are the normal expectations from women leaders.

The famous Heidi Roizen case study showed that the simple act of changing a person’s gender (from Heidi to Howard) made readers judge the protagonist differently. Heidi and Howard were both found to be similarly competent leaders but predictably, Heidi was less likeable with a less probability of getting hired. If students of Columbia Business School hold the same negative stereotypes towards women, Indian patriarchy is surely a lot harder to dissuade.

Changing someone’s attitudes isn’t easy. Sceptics of diversity aren’t convinced that a more diverse and equitable workplace positively impacts business. But it’s a simple solution. To achieve diversity, one should measure it, monitor it and then show them the data. A simple chart on the correlation of women in the boardroom to stock market participation will raise the obvious question of causation. Instead, measure the effectiveness of your own initiatives and show it to the managers who are recruiting.

For instance, neurodiversity won champions all over the world when Ultra Testing, an IT firm, showed how their business benefitted with 70% of the employees coming from the autistic spectrum. Simple economics of demand has made the Indian IT industry boast of a 40% diverse workforce. To stay competitive, the tech industry cannot hop on one leg; they need to sprint on both. They should hire a big bulk of graduating women, ensure that safety and harassment policies are extremely stringent and that they try their best to achieve pay parity. Equity and diversity will follow suit.

No dialogue in workplaces

Finally, the lack of dialogue in this space polarises people who are on the fence. While I wholeheartedly support Sundar Pichai’s decision to take on the issue headlong instead of delegating it to human resources or to his head of diversity, there need to be more opportunities for dialogue.

Let those volleys of skepticism, misunderstanding of gender science come our way; we need to give men (and women) a chance to express their views in the workplace. I would rather the diversity-sceptic manager asks me difficult questions than cross someone’s line of consent or deny the deserving woman candidate a job (Prescriptive stereotype – holding one woman responsible for all women leaving the workforce). Recently, Deloitte did away with their women networks and other affinity groups as they were found to be more polarising in approach and not efficient in making a dent in diversity in leadership – which was its main objective.

So let’s take a cue from this hot Google debate and re-think our diversity agenda. Perhaps it’s time to think beyond women-centric celebrations. Just as James Damore had intended through his manifesto, there is a chance we may fall into the echo chamber where the skeptic raises a concern and the righteous silences it with its ideology.

Ishani Roy is the founder, Serein Inc, a diversity and inclusion consulting company.