The 21st Century Man

The new roles we play in the 21st century.

- Annie Zaidi

When I was a schoolgirl and was asked what I wanted to be once I grew up, I didn’t have an answer. Part of it was that I didn’t yet know what I was good at. But it was also about not knowing that there were dozens of different roles one could land, and whether girls were allowed them.

Growing up in the Eighties and Nineties, a middle class girl could hope to be a doctor, if she was looking to be significant in society. If she worked super-hard, she could join the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) for a small measure of power. Engineering was a possibility but a dubious one: Could we really expect to work on factory floors or construction sites? We could get the degree, but would we be allowed to function? If we gave instructions that a bridge or a dam was to be built in a specific way, would the workers obey? Would the contractors not cheat us more often, because we were women? Would they not ogle, and would we not spend sleepless nights worrying about whether the doors were locked tightly enough, if we had to travel and live far from home?

My grandmother had never been to school. Her generation of women could read and write, but most of them were not formally educated. Her daughters could hold jobs, but they started out teaching in schools. When I was worrying about college and careers, she told me that I should think of teaching if I would not sit for the IAS exam. Teaching allowed you to take time off when your own children had time off. It allowed you to return home before the average man returned from his office job.