0:16 uh Elsa thank you so much for taking up
0:18 the time to talk to Global compass and
0:20 Strat News
0:23 global thanks nanana for having me I'm
0:25 so happy to speak with you on this very important
0:26 important
0:29 topic absolutely I would first like to
0:32 ask you this news that has come out of
0:35 India slipping two places how
0:37 significant is it in the largest scheme
0:41 of things it is significant but it's not
0:43 surprising let's put it that way so as
0:45 somebody who works on sexual and gender-based
0:47 gender-based
0:51 violence I am not surprised because in a
0:54 way women's lack of financial
0:56 Independence is a form of violence it's
0:59 a harm that Society is causing against
1:02 us simply because she does not
1:04 necessarily have access to all the
1:07 opportunities her male counterparts have
1:09 is it easy for her to open a bank
1:12 account is it easy for her to access
1:17 money make financial decisions free of
1:20 any interference from her family members
1:23 is financial literacy taught to her is
1:26 she in the workforce or is she not
1:30 allowed to work by her family so on and
1:33 so forth so we have to when we have
1:36 indices like this we have to Deep dive
1:39 and think about why is India slipping
1:42 when other countries are improving and
1:45 even if we take our own
1:47 country we don't necessarily have to
1:50 compare ourselves with other people are
1:52 we happy with the State of Affairs in
1:54 our own country and what is it that is
2:00 needed to improve the lives of everybody
2:03 including women who are pretty much half the
2:05 the
2:08 population right uh you know you you
2:10 talked of you just said are we happy
2:13 with the state of things right now now
2:17 for for the past quite a few years um
2:19 the government or or India has been
2:21 working on addressing the issue of
2:25 gender pay Gap is what I believe where
2:28 are we going wrong I mean if if if is
2:30 there inadequate
2:33 implementation of anti-discriminatory
2:36 policies what is the issue here so
2:39 policy is one thing education and
2:43 societal Norms are another so on one
2:45 hand you may have women friendly
2:48 policies that the government has
2:50 introduced you may have laws like
2:52 prevention of sexual harassment at the
2:55 workplace act you may have great
2:59 maternity benefits like 6 months of
3:03 maternity cover for a woman but is this
3:06 accompanied by education and I'm saying
3:09 education in the broad sense
3:12 because most of these issues that hold
3:16 women back stem from patriarchy and when
3:17 you unpack
3:21 patriarchy it's harmful societal gender Norms
3:23 Norms
3:26 that restrict women from achieving their
3:28 full potential they have certain
3:30 expectations of men
3:34 certain expectations of women and often
3:37 this is then used adversely to hold
3:41 women back so it's not enough so take
3:44 for example just the maternity
3:48 policy how many uh because of the six
3:52 months cover a lot of companies are you
3:54 know choosing not to recruit women
3:57 because they have and when they are
3:59 recruiting young women maybe in the
4:02 interview they asking
4:05 them are you going to get married or if
4:07 she's married when are you going to have
4:10 a baby what business is it of theirs you
4:13 know but these are these influence
4:17 decisions whether to uh hire her in the
4:19 first place whether to give her a
4:22 promotion and so on and so forth so a
4:25 lot of we are seeing a push back on that
4:28 policy so on one hand you may have great
4:31 policies but then how are they being
4:34 implemented and is is someone making
4:37 that you know making an attempt to study
4:40 is that having an adverse effect on
4:43 participation of women in the workforce
4:46 then if you look at these indices they
4:49 calculate where women are participating
4:52 in the economic
4:55 Workforce and are being paid right but
4:59 there's a pay Gap 40 uh Rupees to every
5:02 00 rupees so yes are we being
5:05 transparent about pay pay scales I think
5:09 we should make all companies uh you know
5:13 um and all employers be more transparent
5:16 about that but coming back to women's
5:20 work a lot of the work women do is often not
5:21 not
5:25 paid and they do not just work in their
5:27 families and for their households they
5:30 also do it for their communities
5:33 take for example the Asha workers or
5:35 community health workers community
5:38 health workers may not even be paid and
5:42 ASAS get paid very little but if you
5:44 think of the pandemic who were really
5:48 the backbone of the health system that
5:51 helped India get through it were the
5:54 ashas right assisting the doctors the
5:58 nurses the paramedics Etc so I feel a
6:01 lot of the work that will women do on a
6:05 daily basis is not accounted for and we
6:11 have to relook at how we view that work
6:14 measure that work compensate for that
6:18 work and so on and also help people
6:20 shift their thinking that it's not only
6:25 a woman's job to provide such care it's
6:28 also you know the job of men in society
6:31 so ultimately I think it boils down to
6:33 education that must accompany policy
6:36 implementation but also a holistic way
6:38 of implementing these policies so that
6:43 they don't um have a backlash again on
6:46 women right so you spoke of the very
6:49 important uh relationship between policy
6:52 and education you know and initiatives
6:55 are required we you you spoke about the
6:57 gender roles and you spoke about
6:59 invisible labor that women do and the
7:01 triple roles that women perform in terms
7:04 of household and work and
7:07 Community but you know it's very uh
7:10 surprising and alarming I would say how
7:14 come countries like Bangladesh countries
7:17 like Sri Lanka how are they doing so
7:21 well what are they doing right that we
7:23 aren't I'm not an expert in their
7:26 economic policies but what I can see
7:31 from the outside is that maybe they have
7:34 stronger macroeconomic policies maybe
7:39 they have um industries that have more
7:41 women in the workforce so if you take
7:43 both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh they are
7:47 big textile hubs you know so they are
7:52 the um factories for the large labels
7:55 that then get sold in all the major
8:00 department stores and uh our those are
8:04 jobs often that women uh work in you
8:07 know so maybe that's one of the reasons
8:10 that they have more industries that have
8:14 women Centric jobs but at the end of the
8:18 day like I said earlier we you know we
8:21 can get inspiration from Sri Lanka in
8:23 fact it should make us feel a shame that
8:26 they have a better rating than us but I
8:29 feel India should look at itself India
8:32 is very different from Sri Lanka and
8:34 Bangladesh both in size and composition
8:38 of populations and I feel we have
8:41 to relook at
8:44 ourselves very honestly you know not
8:48 just as a techb exercise relook at our
8:50 policies relook at how they are being
8:53 implemented and then we can set an
8:55 example for the world to
8:58 follow uh we don't always have to copy
9:00 what other people are doing we can be
9:02 very Innovative ourselves we have the
9:05 best brains in the world why can't we
9:08 solve this problem so I would encourage
9:11 take this index as you know a mirror
9:14 being shown to us we have a gap that
9:15 needs to be addressed it needs to be
9:18 addressed urgently because look at the
9:21 other side all the big uh Consulting
9:24 companies and every single economic
9:26 report says that if there was more
9:30 participation of women in the the
9:33 economy it would only be beneficial to
9:36 the GDP of the country right and also is
9:39 GDP the right metric for success and
9:41 progress that needs to be relooked at
9:44 but but in reality if more women were in the
9:45 the
9:48 workforce would that translate into more
9:51 money for everybody so that they can be
9:54 better off at the same time it should
9:57 not come at the cost of women only
10:00 shouldering the burden of care work at
10:03 home because then she's doing a whole
10:06 job at home and then a whole job outside
10:09 of home and that is not fair you know
10:11 and post pandemic maybe women are
10:14 exhausted they need time and they need
10:16 mental health they need all kinds of
10:19 resources for their well-being and we
10:23 haven't even looked at that in our
10:25 policies it has been said that it will
10:27 take more than a century to achieve a
10:31 semblance of uh you know gender pay
10:34 equality so perhaps you know the work
10:36 the current working system the
10:39 capitalist working system was never
10:40 designed for women never designed to
10:44 include or incorporate women but Nan I
10:48 would no nanja nanana I would like to
10:51 say that you know corporates are one
10:53 then there's government then there's
10:58 also you know um we are promoting
11:01 self-employment right amongst women
11:03 entrepreneurship but in India
11:05 entrepreneurship is always focused on
11:09 the big uh unicorns and you know
11:11 everybody should be so
11:14 successful um and those are Amplified
11:16 when it comes to women what I've
11:19 realized is they want to work from home
11:22 or close to home also because of their
11:26 care work duties which is a reality and
11:29 that gets sorted out they can't and I'm
11:31 not saying that is good or not but this
11:35 is my observation so how can we also
11:40 amplify and celebrate microenterprises
11:44 especially by women make Capital more
11:48 accessible to them give them the skills
11:50 that they need to start their own
11:53 businesses give them mentoring support
11:55 mentoring is highly critical we've
11:58 integrated mentoring in our programs at
12:01 Red Dot found foundation and most of the
12:04 time these women and girls just need
12:07 somebody to tell them they can do it and
12:10 they need to see others who are doing it
12:12 and then you know they have the
12:15 confidence to go ahead so I would say
12:18 it's not just the corporates because in
12:20 some ways the corporates are doing a lot
12:22 you know and it's not all corporates are
12:25 bad you know corporates are doing their
12:29 bit but how do we have a multipronged
12:33 approach where women have choices we are
12:35 not only forcing them to be beauticians
12:38 or tailor things that they don't like
12:40 but there are so many jobs that can be
12:44 done from home maybe Bangladesh and Sri
12:48 Lanka have identified those so how can
12:51 we bring jobs to women in a place where
12:54 they feel comfortable and that they have
12:56 the flexible hours or flexible work
13:00 times or work conditions that they can
13:04 excel in and then how do we celebrate
13:06 micro Enterprises because if you think
13:09 about your mother your grandmother
13:11 they've always been
13:14 entrepreneurial but because often they
13:16 didn't make lots of money we never
13:19 Associated them as
13:22 entrepreneurs but I do believe that all
13:24 of us have mothers and grandmothers and
13:27 aunties who've been you know earning
13:30 that extra Buck to give us a good meal
13:34 or a you know a nice outfit for Diwali
13:37 or something like that and that needs to be
13:42 celebrated right thank you very much
13:46 Elsa that was uh very nice uh insightful
13:48 uh you know uh thoughts that you shared
13:51 with us and I think of course a lot
13:52 needs to be done I mean a lot is
13:54 happening is as far as there's a
13:56 conversation on Child Care providing
13:58 Child Care for Women at workplaces which
14:00 will anyway increase productivity and
14:03 you know um have less attrition and that
14:05 is so important so you know of course
14:07 not all corporates are bad but I thought
14:09 I'll just throw that thought out there
14:12 that you know do have do people really
14:13 want because you know your history has
14:15 shown right that you know women were not
14:17 allowed to work in so many places single
14:19 women not allowed to rent homes in so
14:21 many you know those things we have we
14:23 have struggled we have some of us have
14:26 managed to overcome those challenges but
14:28 long way to go definitely and I think
14:30 organiz ations like yours are doing a
14:32 lot of good work in that and I
14:34 congratulate you on what you're doing
14:36 and I wish you and your work every
14:38 success in the field of gender
14:40 empowerment and I do hope to keep
14:42 connecting with you and talking to you
14:46 further thank you very much [Music]
