Equal Opportunity - Myth Or Reality?

Change should be initiated at home and mothers should ensure that their children grow up with a gender sensitive value system, opined the panellists at a discussion organised by the Times of India (ToI) at Taj Deccan, Banjara Hills on October 15.

The event was a part of the Vox Populi series that the newspaper organised in the city in the month of October, in collaboration with Manjeera Homes. ‘Equal Opportunity – Myth or Reality’ was the overarching theme. Has the legendary glass ceiling really been broken, or are the age old perceptions and traditional mindsets still in place when it comes to the Indian woman were some of the questions that the event tried to address.

Dr. Lavanya Kannaiyan (Paediatric Surgeon), Leena Sil (Senior Consultant, PWC), Chandrima Roy (Chief PRO, South Central Railway), Usha Reddy (Principal, Meridian School), Dr. Alladi Suvarna (Neurologist), Suchitra Ella (Bharat Biotech), Kanchan K Malik (University of Hyderabad) and Anjana Sinha (Inspector General of Police) participated in the panel discussion. It was moderated by the Resident Editor of ToI, Kingshuk Nag.

The discussion was carried out under several sub topics like ‘The superwoman expectation,’ ‘Progressive is loose,’ ‘Single woman still not accepted,’ ‘The new-age stridhan,’ ‘Sexual harassment,’ and ‘The sidelined homemaker.’ While the panellists did not have a consensus on personally experiencing sexual harassment or parents-in-law demanding their salaries, everyone agreed that such things happen in lower classes of the society. They also asserted that evolution was not an overnight process.

A group of youngsters present in the audience gave fresh male perspectives that were much needed to balance the opinions of an all-female panel. They pointed at the direction in which the younger generation is heading by citing examples from their lives – some prompting their homemaker moms to start working and some being proud of their girlfriends who earn more than them.

Mr. Nag, with his witty demeanour, made the event quite a lighthearted one despite the sombre theme of the discussion. Roli Srivastava, a senior reporter at ToI, took the lead in organising the event.