I was an early adopter of blogging. Those days I used to write about anything new I came across. And in one March I came across International Women's Day (March 8). I always had a strong sense of fairness and having grownup with my two sisters, I always had a favorable opinion about women's rights. Hence I wrote a blog post about Women's Day. Those days, no one cared about it. So I wrote about it next year too and it felt like I was spreading awareness. 10 year's down the line, how do I feel now?
As they say, "we do not remember days, we remember moments". And what moments do I remember (with a pinch of salt)? I came across an opening which I felt was most suited for my profile. I sent CV to the HR and got a reply saying, "currently we are considering only female candidates; we shall open for men only if we do not get any females (and are tired waiting)". Okay. Then colleagues kept telling how HR would call them and ask them to pass a female candidate even if they wanted to fail them based on skill evaluation. There were weekend recruitment drives conducted "only for women candidates". Not sure if they gave them pink offer letters too. Internally, someone openly mentioned that we needed more female team members. Of course. Every team got a target of having female team members; the more the better. If a female employee resigned, the lead had to be looked with doubtful eyes. HR mentioned "we are equal opportunity employer" and "we want 60% of new recruits to be women" in the same breath. What the heck? That is not even a thin line between equality and favoritism! Baffled, I asked a question to HR "have you tried to see what % of females are in HR department and may be try to recruit more males to give them equal chance"? Of course they won't. "Equality" then becomes just a "gimmick".
Women need equal opportunity. Totally agreed. I am even supportive of opening sectors for them which are traditionally considered unsafe for them. Let them be in Army or Police - there are a lot of brutal women with a stronger heart and harder fists than a regular man has. In all fields, let them compete and if they measure up to the criteria then let them take the job. But then do not "lower the target" for them as that would be called "favoritism". And do not deny chances to competent male applicants as they might need the job as much as your female applicants would. Evaluate them on equal parameters and hire a candidate without caring if one is male or female or in between. That would be called true "equality".
What is happening today in the name of "equality" is plain "favoritism". I am not proud of it. No one should be proud of it.
Hence after all these years, the meaning of "International Women's Day" has changed for me. I no longer want to write a blog post about it (though I know I just did).
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Disclaimer: Views shared are personal and no reference should be read specifically with any of my employers.