Apple, Foxconn and married, working women - where’s the imaginary support system?
- A Reuters investigation of Apple iPhone maker Foxconn‘s assembly headquarters in Tamil Nadu has thrown up anomalies in the hiring process. Married women are apparently rejected on grounds of pregnancy, family commitments, and a greater number of leaves.
Scrutiny
- In India, where political parties have focused on women as a constituency and where the PM has repeatedly reiterated his government’s commitment to gender parity, equality
- labor force participation stood at 32.7 per cent in 2023 vis-a-vis 76.8 per cent for men.
- The loopholes are many and the struggle to enforce it on the ground is bogged down by an inhibiting process perpetuated by a profound lack of imagination.
- It is a failure of the imagination that refuses to consider alternatives, that will not ensure creches at workplaces, beneficial for both male and female employees, or consider the disproportionate care burden on women.
Whose fault is it?
- This failure is not that of the government or of the political parties alone. It begins with individuals and families and seeps into organisations, from society into governments.
- Far too many women are told that they are “fortunate” to have families that “allow” them to work outside or have partners who help around the house.
- The Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2023 report by UN Women and UNDESA warned that unless measures were taken, an entire generation of women would end up spending a disproportionate amount of time on housework in comparison to men, hemmed in by prejudicial norms.
- Earlier this year, in Union of India and Others vs Ex. Lt. Selina John case, the Supreme Court of India observed that rules which penalise working women on the grounds of marriage are unconstitutional.
- For India to emerge as the third-largest economy in the world that puts women at the centre of change, it will need to reorient its metrics of assessment.