Indian Society Is Deeply Patriarchal, Culturally & Economically, Severely Affecting Career Progression Of Women : Justice Ravindra Bhat

"...regular mandated gender sensitisation, training for capacity building, strengthening complaint redressal mechanisms relating to HR concerns (of which sexual harassment complaints form a part), are some examples."

Improving the workplace and its facilities for women would go a long way in ensuring their representation in the workforce. Being aware of the efforts made at the court premises, in this regard, Justice Bhat elucidated on the same -

"Ensuring more separate and clean toilets, spaces for women, looking into security concerns that make women feel unsafe, facility of creches for day-care, are some examples. When we think of making the courts more women-friendly, it's important to remember that this is not just relevant for lawyers and judges, but also other women staff - who turn the wheels of justice, just as much as the more visible manifestations of it."

He recognised the work-from-home lifestyle as a plausible solution for many women lawyers, who otherwise are compelled to take breaks from work. However, he was quick to add two caveats. Firstly, it was highlighted that it is time that women are relieved of this disproportionate burden of domestic expectations; society is to recognise and prioritise a more equal division of such labour. Secondly, Justice Bhat opined, in some professions, the work-from-home model has caused greater burnout amongst women by further blurring the lines between work and home.

Men as allies

Recognising that women alone cannot be bestowed with the responsibility to 'fix the unequal situation', Justice Bhat spoke about the role of men as allies. Men, still predominantly, hold the highest rungs of most professions. Thus they have the power to bring about attitudinal changes in the organisation; creating a better workplace for women. He observed that more often than not, women are stepping off their career path because of numerous smaller factors and daily hassles rather than explicit discrimination or lack of determination or capability.

The impediments that poses threat to 'her' rising up the ranks is deeply entrenched in the organisations' culture. Some of them he identified as :

"issues like being overlooked for promotions, prejudicial behaviour based on the undue share of care work done by women, stereotypes perpetuated by language and conduct, the lack of female-centric facilities…It perhaps needs no elaboration that Indian society is deeply patriarchal culturally and economically, severely affecting the career progression of working women."

Real Representation of Women

He noted that often women are given ornamental positions of power, merely, to give a sense of representation. But, he believed, such tokenistic representations do more harm than good. He added -

"Representation, when achieved in the 'real' sense, has a cascading positive effect. A study by the International Labour Organisation, concluded that when boards are gender balanced, companies are almost 20% more likely to have better business outcomes - which includes increased profitability, creativity, enhanced reputation, ability to gauge customer needs, among others. Given that businesses are motivated by the bottom line, and often working towards bettering their profit margins by 3-4% or even lesser, dedicated effort towards bringing more women to decision-making roles, seems like a no-brainer."

It was pointed out by Justice Bhat how the Constitution of India provides for political reservation for women to augment representation in the decision-making positions. Similarly, the provisions of the Companies Act encourages appointment of women directors.

Women's representation in the legal profession

Noting that as more women are opting for legal education and for litigation as a career, he reckoned that judges and courts ought to rise up to the occasion to extend support for their participation. He enumerated the ways in which cooperation can be provided, as under -

"change in attitude within the bar and fair treatment by male counterparts, recognition of talent when designating senior advocates or recommending elevation as judges, among other factors."

Looking at the concerning condition of women's representation in judiciary, he added -

"When it comes to the judiciary - gender representation has historically been a concern. We have roughly only 83 women judges out of the total 703 high court judges (ie., only 11.8%). Tamil Nadu – with the highest number of female judges (13 judges, i.e., over 23% of its total strength), and even the record for highest number of female chief justices – of which J. Banerjee herself has been one, is promising, but nowhere close to where it needs to be."