Recently, the State Bank of India issued guidelines for joining service. According to these guidelines, women were seen as ‘temporarily unfit’ if they were more than three months pregnant. The Delhi Commission for Women took cognizance of the matter and issued a notice, calling the guidelines illegal and discriminatory.
Here women who were duly chosen via due process would be prevented from joining service if they were more than three months pregnant. Bizarrely, by virtue of being pregnant, a woman would not only miss her chance to be employed but also be seen as ‘unfit’ as though her ability to perform her duties were somehow impaired by virtue of her being pregnant. This fits in with all the tropes of a woman's ‘delicate’ state during "those nine months" when she apparently becomes incapacitated.
And since it is the woman who will be expected to care for the child after birth, she will take maternity leave and will be seen as a liability to the organisation. It is also for this reason that women are not trained for certain platforms and denied many combat and leadership roles in the defence services as well. Women are seen as not offering adequate ‘return on investment’ and hence kept out of many professional spheres – which is why it took so long for women to be allowed to become fighter pilots in the Indian Air Force.
Very often, a woman who wants a fulfilling career feels compelled to relinquish her hopes and dreams of family life. Expected to fulfil unpaid housekeeping and caregiving roles in the home, she will either have to forego advancements in the professional sphere or vice versa. Men are rarely if ever required to make these choices. A man will routinely pursue his professional aspirations while enjoying the rewards of a full and joyful family life.
After the notice and the general brouhaha surrounding it, the clearly discriminatory guidelines issued by SBI were withdrawn. So in this instance, the right thing was done. However, the whole incident once again shines a light on the kind of gender expectations that exist in our society.
The fact that such guidelines were issued in the first place points to a complete lack of understanding of the concept of gender inequality. It reflects the mindset that sees women as dispensable in the workplace. There is still the belief that women should work only if the family needs them to work, not because they have personal aspirations or because they want to be economically independent. Witness how, during the layoffs witnessed during the COVID economic slowdown, women overwhelmingly bore the brunt. Twice as many women as men were laid off. And when jobs are available once again, men are far more likely to be rehired than women.
Women are often punished and/or discriminated against for what they have to do. Society expects women to get married and families expect them to birth babies and look after the home. Only a woman can birth babies and typically all the household duties and caregiving chores land in her lap by default. However, if women request some consideration for these onerous expectations from society and family, she is accused of asking for preferential treatment. The fact is that she is having to walk a tightrope between her professional obligations and the demands upon her time and labour in the home.
SBI’s guidelines are no more than a reflection of societal mindsets at large. In our society, women routinely have to take permission from others, often male members of the family to work. Also routinely, women are expected to give up their jobs when they marry. They are also expected to give up their jobs if the level of prosperity of the family is such that there is ‘no need’ for them to work. In other words, there is no consideration for a woman's personal aspirations to have a rewarding career or even just to have a modicum of economic autonomy.
Look at it this way – women just want what men have taken for granted for so long – being able to enjoy a fulfilling professional life and financial autonomy along with the joy and love of a family. Unless we, as a society change our thinking around working women, guidelines such as those issued by SBI will continue to be the rule and not the exception.
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