'Bank on Women' OR Bank for Women

What could have been more ironic then on the day first All-Women Bank was announced in India, a woman bank manager was attacked in an unguarded ATM in Bangalore by a miscreant man for money that left her paralyzed and critical. Just couple of days later, a woman journalist has accused a media honcho of sexually assaulting her in a hotel in Goa. The woman and her family have also reportedly received threats for the accusation that she has made against the media bigwig, reportedly by his henchmen. Another couple of days pass and 93 school girls are sexually assaulted in a moving train in Bihar. Their ‘fault’ was to ask to protest the occupation of their reserved seats in the GangaDamodar Express by a large group of men claiming to be examinees of the railway recruitment exam. Their teachers were beaten-up and the girls were sexually harassed for more than four hours. No co-passengers came to their rescue.

Can the All-Women Bank really change the fate of girls and women in this country? Can it really empower them? Can it help them to get their due?

All talks about women empowerment and equality currently seems mostly limited to political circles (plain rhetoric), intellectual circles (lackluster research) or social circles (page 3 stories). If there has been any change in the state of women or in the participation of women then the credit goes to these women who have excelled at home or outside home.

Last week two of our students came to interview me on the reasons for existence of glass-ceiling in organizations that prevents women from reaching top echelons of the leadership, thereby restricting their talent and capability. The students were doing this as a part of a project given to them by a colleague of mine.

Do such glass ceilings exist? A whole lot of statistics and ‘lived experiences’ would tell you that the women have often found the ‘stairs’ suddenly disappearing in their organization in their quest for summit.

Causative? Undoubtedly this is a Cultural issue.

The smallest and most basic element of any society is a family. While some of us may have been lucky to come from beautiful families, most families suffer from a Cultural dys-functionality. Man of the house rules the roost. He takes all major decisions and all financial decisions, almost. The house runs on his commands. His moods decide the mood of the house; he smiles, everyone smiles, he frowns, none dare speak and if he frets then everyone ducks in the ‘trenches’. Often the lady of the house is reduced to a mere ‘worker’ and is dehumanized’.

If the house has both boy and a girl, then the boy always gets preferential treatment. The boy is treated like a ‘Prince’ pampered and spoiled and the girl is made to the chores of the house.

Take this incident for instance - It is not uncommon to find people running and crossing busy roads in India with complete disregard to safety. The other day I witnessed a mother running across a busy road with two of her children, a boy and a girl. And guess what, she was holding the hand of the boy and the girl was all by herself running behind her mother. The mother was not even looking whether her daughter was making it or not.  Heart breaking to me!!!

But this discussion is not about families. All this is to underline something deeper that runs across our families to societies and to organizations – the Culture. Culturally we refuse to treat another woman as equal or many a times even a human. Men do maximum damage, but since it is a cultural issue that is why even some women fall into this trap and treat the other woman with less dignity.

Harassment of women, violence against women or glass-ceilings in organization are all by-products of this Culture. The same people, who populate the families, populate the society and the organizations too.

What is the solution?

German government is reportedly pushing for 30 per cent quota for women in supervisory boards in all German companies. The move has been opposed by major companies like Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler, Opel since it will lead to major upheaval of their management.

So is Quota a solution in India too? Reserve a fixed per cent of leadership positions of women in organizations?

Quota always contradicts merit. And leadership positions should go to the most deserving and not to the one because of his/her gender.

Then what’s the solution?

Solution is no different from the problem. Even in cultures like ours’ companies can create an organizational culture that ensures women do not drop out at middle-level positions. Take ICICI Bank for instance. They have made it possible for women employees to also choose responsibilities what they want to do; they have made it a taboo in organization for anyone to say that he does not want to work with someone or does not want someone in the team just because that person happens to be a woman. The women employees also get vacation during the exam months of their kids, but largely, in the interview of Mr. K. Ramkumar, ED atICICI Bank (published in Business Line, a business daily), seemed to suggest that the bank is trying to create a organizational culture that breaks bias and glass ceilings against women.

Organizations may not get compete success, but by creating such cultures within themselves they can still insulate the larger culture to a large extent. It is only by creation of such cultures that it can possibly change attitudes and pre-dispositions of people towards women.

Certain section of societies and families can also do so as well by creating a micro-culture that is different from the larger culture. That is why some communities and families are better. 

Engaging women is a not a charity but a recognition to an equally good talent pool that is needed and is indispensable.

All-Women bank is welcome but we need to bank on women more to bring about a real change.