Gender equality a distant dream in Bangalore work places

Though women in the country have taken great strides at workplace in the last few decades, a lot more needs to be done to ensure equal rights to them. This was one of the points discussed at the Women Leadership Conference, organised by CII, with a theme of “Women in Business - Taking Centre State in 21st Century” on Wednesday in the city.

TV Mohandas Pai, chairman, Manipal Global Educational Services Pvt Ltd said, “Bangalore has per capita income of $9,500, which is higher than that of Mumbai and Delhi. Though there are more women in the IT industry than other sectors, they are mainly at entry level. In the IT sector, they constitute 40% at the entry level, 25% at middle level and only 8% at the top level. Only 4% of the company boards have women. Fifty per cent of the boards never thought of having women on boards. Globally 9.8% of the board directors are women.”

V Manjula, commissioner & ex officio principal secretary, state urban land transport department, lamented that women in government services rarely get the kind of recognition they deserve. “In government services, we do not get recognition for the good we do. But we should work with enormous reserves of optimism,” she said.

Devita Saraf, founder and CEO of VU Technologies, said that women should keep their emotions at check at work, as it is perceived as weakness in a male-dominated workplace.
“People tend to give you advice if you are woman, they still have not learnt how to treat women at work. Women, especially businesswomen should know how to keep their emotions in check and should learn how to draw the line between their personal lives and the workplace,” she said.