In the contemporary world, women no longer lag behind in terms of career. They are keeping themselves shoulder to shoulder with opposite sex. However, even today they are expected to do multi tasking. They have to take care of family and household even if they are working. Working women refers to those in paid employment. They work as lawyers, nurses, doctors, teachers and secretaries etc. There is no profession today where women are not employed. However, it is true that working women have to face problems by virtue of their sex.
For centuries, women have been subjected to exploitation and torture physically, sexually and mentally. There are innumerable challenges and problems faced by them both at home and work place.
12. Discrimination at Work
Discrimination starts at the very level of recruitment and interview, where recruiters/interviewers see women incompetent for challenging roles and ask questions like whether you would be able to continue after marriage or what is their future planning as they can’t handle maternity leaves. Though we can say that corporate offices are bridging the gender gap slowly, private institutions and government offices are still way far behind. Jobs that require frequent travel, physical exertion etc. are still open for men only as they are considered more eligible than women.
11. Non-acceptance of Talent, Offered Disrespect
A woman going out to work in many societies is seen very low and questioned about her character/moral. A working woman who is well-maintained or presentable or is friendly with everyone and is progressing in her career instead of being complimented is disrespected. People’s mentality forces them to talk bad about a woman like a woman who gets promoted because of her talent has probably had an affair with boss and got promoted. This causes so much mental stress to a woman.
10. Ego of Male Counterpart
One of the most tough to handle challenges is to manage and cope with the ego of your male counterpart as wife/partner. Males do support women to go out and work, but somewhere they find it hard to accept the progress and achievement of women whether she is his colleague or life partner.
9. Salary?low low low!
Many companies even today pay less to woman i.e. a job done by a woman is paid less compared to men doing the same job.
8. No Safety of Working Women While Traveling
Typically, the orthodox mindset in the Indian society makes it difficult for a working woman to balance her domestic environment with the professional life. In some families, it may not be acceptable to work after six o’clock. Those families that do accept these working hours may experience considerable anxiety every day about a woman’s safety while traveling. So many issues affect a working woman because she is closely protected or watched by her family and the society.
7. Insufficient Maternity Leave
Insufficient maternity leave is another major issue that is faced by a working mother. This not only affects the performance of women employees at work, but is also detrimental to their personal lives.
6. Married?nah I don’t think we have a place for you
Some Companies do not hire married woman as they might have children and family to look after and so they think that she can’t meet their expectations. A Single woman who is pretty enough is hired because she is single and they can be sure about her not taking constant leave and to work with full focus.
5. Lack of Family Support
Lack of proper family support is another issue that working women suffers from. At times, the family doesn’t support women to leave the household work and go to office. They also resist for women working till late in office which also hampers the performance of the women and this also affects their promotion. In fact some parents just wants the girl child to get married just after her studies and specially in Muslim society a girl is asked to marry and not follow her dreams.
4. “Oh What a Beauty!” Comments
By beauty comments I don’t mean compliments given to her about how beautiful she is rather there are comments about her size, the way she walks, misunderstanding her friendly way of speaking as a sign to have fun and she is interested too. She is just nothing but a part of entertainment for them, a person to have fun with and not have intellectual conversation.
3. Do it or you will be fired
If she disagrees to have fun she is threatened about losing her job and marking her black listed so that she doesn’t get job opportunity elsewhere.
2.Mental Harassment
“You cannot do it because you’re a woman “. Treating her like she is dumb or not capable of doing something disturbs her mental health and her confidence. If a woman does something wonderful it is seen as though it was not possible because she is a woman. People question them like “Oh my god did you really work on this all alone” or “I can’t believe you did it”
1.Sexual Harassment
Last but not the least Sexual harassment. She is molested and treated badly. Every single day a woman when steps out, stays out whole day working while traveling, in office, in field, in canteen, in outdoor meetings; directly/indirectly she is subjected to a lot of sexual abuses and harassment. It’s not always with hands she is hurt, but she is attacked and hurt with eyes, with tongue, with gestures and of course unfortunately physically. A few women wave off, ignore and move on; some disgust them to the very soul, out there is no way out so with tears or suppressed anger they move on; while some root off their dignity and even existence. To some women have to compromise, to some escape routes, while some compel them to revolt or break down. And it’s no less than a part of the working women, directly or indirectly, to a small and ignorant to large scale.
