Can We Help Women Get To The Top?

Women in the workforce can be each other’s greatest allies, or biggest threats, if we don’t re-evaluate our approach. And so, four Bazaar India contributors shatter the archaic sense of competition to pave the way for a more empowered future.

- Humra Afroz Khan

From being banned access to their own earnings in 13 colonies under the British rule in 1769, to officially joining the workforce during World War I, and today, heading some of the biggest companies globally—working women have, indubitably, come a long way. Unfortunately, the fight for equal rights is far from over. You’d think almost 200 years after the first all-women union was formed in 1825—demanding more parity and fairer wages—the world would have warmed up to the idea of women equalling men. Not yet.

Just last year, LinkedIn’s Opportunity Index reiterated that women continue to face gender-based discrimination at the workplace, despite proven skillsets and equal qualifications as their male counterparts. In the survey, 85 percent of the female Indian respondents claimed to have missed out on a raise, promotion, or work-offer solely due to their gender. And 37 percent admitted they got fewer opportunities or were paid less than men. Most disconcertingly, 22 percent confessed their companies exhibited “a favourable bias towards men”.

Don’t mistake this for a one-off study, because it is not. Research, time and again, has shown that the professional world is, indeed, kinder to men. And the gap only widens at higher management levels, weeding out women in the climb to the top of the pyramid. Think about it: only 6.4 percent of S&P 500 companies have female CEOs, currently.