Advocating equal importance for male and female careers

A highly successful career in high finance involves constant work and long hours - there is no getting away from that. But that does not mean that women don't do it, even though its traditional male domain. In fact, they thrive. Last week, we brought out the story of Shruti Tewari, who started her career on Wall Street, before making a switch to the creative side. This week,  is an account by Manisha Girotra, one of India's best known women in finance, as covered by Humans of Bombay. She stuck to finance, and has something important to say here about gender equality.

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“I was raised in a middle class family that placed the most importance on education and being financially independent. I was one of the 50 students hired by Grindlays Bank right after graduating from DSE and I started at the bottom. My first few stints included delivering pizza to my bosses, labelling 15,000 chairs and keeping stock of stationery, but I loved it! It was a male dominated work environment, and most people thought I would get married and quit…no one really took me seriously. But I did everything to excel — I would study long hours after work, I would be the first one to enter and last one to leave. In fact, I met my husband at this company and even though I was married at the age of 24 — my passion to make it never died.

Even when I was pregnant, believe it or not I was working right ‘till the day of my delivery — I finished my meeting and left straight from office for my surgery! Back then, the maternity leave was just 3 short months and there were no creches at work — so I would bundle my daughter up with the nanny, keep her in a hotel nearby and rush in between work to feed her. While my daughter was growing up, I realised that the stereotypes are created by society and on so many occasions by women. I remember, I was traveling for work once and couldn’t attend her parent-teacher meet, so my husband took her instead and all the mother’s there applauded him for being so ‘involved’— he came back feeling on top of the world but for mothers it’s considered a part of their duty and that’s where the problem lies. I was termed, a ‘bad mother’ because I couldn’t make it and this is 1 of a 100 incidents. Once when he took her to a birthday party, everyone there praised him and said, ‘your wife is so lucky — you’re a great husband’. He is the best man I could have ever asked for, but why does society place men on a higher pedestal? Isn’t he as responsible for her school and extra curricular activities as I am? Aren’t we equals?
 

When she was 2 years old and had 104 fever, I had a road show the next day — so my husband stayed at home and asked me not to worry. Leaving my daughter behind when she was ill doesn’t mean I don’t love her-- on any other day I would have taken that day off…but my husband did it instead…so does that make me a bad mother?
 

My fight is not about my work, it’s about not having gender equality. As a working woman, I’ve been so disciplined and made my way to being the CEO of UBS, I’ve cracked billion dollar deals and gone home after to help my daughter with her science project. I’m on the World’s top 50 women on the business list, we set up Moelis from scratch and I still have 20 hour days but that doesn’t make me any less of a homemaker. If we really want to progress, gender equality should be on top of the list — where men and women are equals, where a woman’s career is deemed as important as a man’s and where a man isn’t treated like God for being involved at school or in the house. Just basic equality."

The post first appeared on Humans of Bombay