She ain't heavy...

The only way to create a sisterhood is by becoming a good sister to other women

It is tempting to dismiss that old adage about women being each other’s worst enemies as a cliché. It is easy to see it as the kind of sexist claptrap that gets tossed around to give feminism and feminists a bad name. But take a good look around you? Do you really see a supportive sisterhood at work? Or do you see snarkiness, bitchiness, rivalry, and plain old spite? If you are among the lucky ones, you will experience a mix of both. But speaking for myself, I must confess that I see much more of the latter. 

Let’s conduct a little experiment this Sunday. Trawl the Internet and list the first ten stories you find that body-shame, slut-shame or fat-shame women. If nine of these ten stories don’t have a woman’s name on the byline, I will eat my own ‘spare tire’. 

For some reason, women seem to take particular pleasure in dissing their own sex. She has fat legs. She shows too much cleavage. She is a slut. She has a muffin top. She slept her way to the top. She has too much cellulite. She is a bad mother. She hates kids because she can’t have any of her own. She is old. She is ugly. It’s all dressed up in pretty words, and sometimes with faux concern, but that’s what it all boils down to.

And then, of course, there are the double standards. George Clooney is the most eligible bachelor at 53. Amal Alammudin, that undeserving wretch of a barrister at law, is lucky to have snared him (how on earth did she manage that?). Jennifer Aniston, at 45, is a washed-up old hag who has been reduced to dating B-list stars like Vince Vaughan and Justin Theroux after she was divorced by Brad Pitt. And do you think the poor thing will ever have a baby? (With those shriveled up ovaries? Are you kidding?)

And that’s just the media. But in real life, too, the ones taking the most pleasure in this sort of stuff will be other women. They will be tut-tutting in fake sympathy when a friend gets dumped by her boyfriend (“Poor thing! I never did think he would marry her!). They will be the ones going nudge-nudge, wink-wink when a colleague gets promoted (“Didn’t I tell you she was sleeping with the boss!”) And they are the ones who will make you feel bad about your body (“Wow! Aren’t you brave to wear that!”)

Kelly Valen wrote about this in her book Twisted Sisterhood: Unravelling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships, which created quite a stir when it came out in 2010. Valen conducted a survey among a random sampling of 3020 women from the ages of 15 to 86, and came up with some startling results: 84 per cent of the respondents felt they had “suffered terribly” at the hands of other women while 88 per cent had felt currents of “meanness and negativity emanating from other women”. But what gave me hope was this: 96 per cent of respondents said they wanted “something better for girls and women”.

But that ‘something better’ can only come if we better ourselves. The only way to create a genuine sisterhood is to be true sisters to one another. If you want to be one of that number, then here’s a ready primer of do’s and don’ts for you (feel free to write in with your own!):

• Don’t treat younger women in the workplace as a threat. If you can’t bring yourself to mentor them, fine. Just treat them the same as you would male co-workers. No special favours, but no snide comments either.
• Do try and create safe spaces where women can share their stories, lean on one another for support, and learn from each other’s experiences. This doesn’t have to be a formal forum; in fact, it could even be a virtual chatroom. But it helps immensely to have a platform where you can speak honestly with one another, even if you do so anonymously.
• Don’t be judgmental. What works for you may not necessarily be the best choice for someone else. Everyone’s life plan does not have to look like yours. Some women will choose to work; others will want to devote themselves to their families; and yet others will try and achieve a mix of both. Some will revel in being career women; others will find their purpose in being earth mothers. Every one of these choices is as valid as the other. Try and respect that.
• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you feel the urge to say something bitchy, imagine it’s being said about you and the urge will pass. (And if it doesn’t, bite your tongue!)
• Don’t try to be ‘one of the boys’ if it involves the objectification of women colleagues at work. It may be tempting to laugh along, but remember it could (and probably will) be you at the receiving end one day – if it hasn’t happened already behind your back.
• And finally, do try and be kind. Pay a compliment. Praise a colleague. Offer practical help where needed. Be supportive with words if you can’t with deeds. Be there. Be a sister.

Kitchen Confidential

Why is the woman who cooks dismissed as downtrodden while the man who cooks is seen as emancipated?

Growing up, I never once saw my father enter the kitchen. He did not know how to cook; in fact, I doubt if he even knew how to make a cup of coffee for himself. The kitchen was always the exclusive preserve of my grandmother, my mother, and the other ladies of the household. The men never ventured inside; no, not even to fetch themselves a glass of water.

It may sound strange now, but this was pretty much the state of affairs in every home. Women did the ‘womanly’ things like cooking, cleaning, serving, fetching; yes, even the ones who held down jobs outside of the home. And men did ‘manly’ things like go out to work and bring back the daily bread (to be toasted and buttered and served up to them with a strong cup of tea). Men were very much the hunter-gatherers. And women remained nurturers and carers.

There were some men of our acquaintance who knew how to make a decent mutton biryani or a chingri malai curry, but their excursions into the kitchen were treated as momentous events that were marked down in the calendar months in advance. And even then, they were assisted by a flock of women who did all the dirty work – peeling, chopping, cleaning – for them. Once the mise en place was set, the men would sweep in to do the frying, sautéing, roasting or whatever else. And then, they would sweep out leaving the kitchen in an absolute shambles, to take their place at the dining table to be served like the kings they were.

I am glad to say that things have changed since then. Men no longer treat the kitchen as alien territory. Nearly all of them know enough cooking to be able to feed themselves in the absence of a mother or a wife. And many of them actually enjoy cooking, and take pride in their achievements behind the stove. But even so, based on purely empirical evidence, the bulk of the cooking in most households is still done by the women (either the lady of the house or the hired help).

What intrigues me, though, is how cooking has become another battleground of sexual politics. New-age feminism seems to think that a working woman who still cooks (or is expected to cook) at home is downtrodden, the victim of an age-old patriarchal system that decrees that the kitchen is a woman’s preserve. She is buying into sexual stereotypes and letting the sisterhood down with every perfect chapatti she rolls out.

On the other hand, a man who works outside the home and comes back to cook for his family is seen as an enlightened being. We even have a name for him. He is called the New Age Man. He is confident of his masculinity and not afraid of being in touch with his feminine side. He does not buy into any kind of sexual stereotyping. He is equally at ease in the boardroom as he is dexterous at the chopping board. We should all be so lucky as to end up with someone like him!

So basically, a woman who loves to cook for her family is a sell-out. But for a man, cooking for his family is a unique selling point. Can you figure this one out? No, me neither.

Why should the same impulse – to nurture and feed your loved ones – be seen through two such different prisms depending on the gender of the person concerned? Why should a woman be mocked for doing something that a man is congratulated for?

Clearly, as we enter into the second decade of the 21^st century, gender stereotyping has come full circle. But while men are admired for stepping out of their gender-defined roles, women are pilloried for staying within them.

I can still hear the jeers that greeted Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor when she admitted on national television that she enjoyed being a housewife and cooking dinner every night for her husband. How could she possibly say something like that, her critics tut-tutted. Didn’t she know that women were expected to be emancipated from housework now? Being a woman of substance meant having a career outside the home. Admitting to being a homebody, and worse, confessing to cooking for your husband (and actually enjoying it!), was a complete no-no.

And yet, I am sure if the tables had been turned, the public reaction would have been quite different. If Shashi Tharoor had said in an interview that he loved going back home after a hard day at the office and rustling up a nice meal for his wife, he would have been hailed as the epitome of the New Man, an ideal that every male should aspire to.

What is going on here? Why is Sunanda’s goshtaba or tabak maas bad while Shashi’s meen moily or avial is good? Why this double standard when it comes to appraising a primal desire: the impulse to cook for those we love?

The truth is that all of us are good at some things and rubbish at others. Some women enjoy the prospect of cooking for their families while others wouldn’t be caught dead before a stove. Similarly, some men love the idea of cooking while others steer well clear of the kitchen.

So, here’s a novel idea. Why not allow each one of them to do as they please – and what pleases them – without any value judgement? That’s not asking for much, is it?

Desk vs couch

As Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer orders her employees back into the office, it’s time to ask if working from home really works

I am writing this column from my living-room sofa, my feet perched on the ottoman opposite. In the next room, I can hear the electrician fixing the lights that fused this morning. Delicious cooking smells are wafting from the kitchen. And the TV is on in the den, the sound muted, so that I can pop in once in a while and check on the score.

Marissa Mayer would so not be impressed.

In case you have missed all the hoo-haa, Mayer, the newly-minted Yahoo CEO created a bit of a storm when she sent out a memo that employees could no longer work from home but had to clock in at their offices. Cue, much outrage and indignation, not just from Yahoo employees – which was understandable given that they would now have to get out of their pyjamas and actually brush their hair before settling down before their computer screens – but from such entrepreneurs as Sir Richard Branson who criticised Mayer’s directive, saying it seemed a ‘backward step’ in an age where remote working is easier and more effective than ever. Branson, who prides himself on never having worked out of an office, said, “Working life isn’t 9-5 any more. The world is connected. Companies that do not embrace this are missing a trick.”

In Mayer’s defence, she issued the memo only after a diligent check of the Yahoo’s VPN (Virtual Private Network) system that revealed that some employees who worked from home were not logging in as much as they should have. But instead of laying off the slackers, she issued an one-solution-fits-all diktat, asking Yahoo’s workforce to either punch in or punch out forever.

Mayer has since been criticised for letting down the sisterhood, because working flexible hours at home is the best-case solution for mothers of young kids. And the betrayal seems even harder to bear because Mayer had seemed like such a poster child for the ‘women can have it all’ school of thought. Hired as Yahoo CEO when she was six months pregnant, she came back to work when her baby was just two weeks old; a bit of a blow to women who have campaigned long and hard for adequate maternity leave. It didn’t help that – unlike other Yahoo working moms who will have to drop their kids off at day care – Mayer had a nursery built for her infant son right next to her office at her own expense. If only every woman could be so lucky...not to mention, rich.

But of course, it’s not just women (or women with children) who prefer working out of the home. Given a choice many men would like to do that as well. And the benefits – no matter what your sex – are obvious. You save on commuting time; you don’t spend on transport; you can work flexible hours. That said, you do miss out on some things that only a work environment can provide. Bouncing ideas off colleagues; working in a creative environment; benefitting from a professional workspace free of distractions.

So, what is better? Working out of home? Or putting in long hours in an office? Having done both at different times in my life, I have decided that there’s no golden rule that works for everyone.

I really don’t buy the argument that people who work out of home are easily distracted – by kids running around, day-time television, the thought of fixing a quick snack – and indulge in too much time-wasting. I have seen enough desk-slaves who spend an obscene amount of time playing Solitaire or surfing the Net at the office to buy that. The bottom-line is: if you are the kind of person who likes to faff around and waste time, you will do that, whether you are ensconced on your sofa or behind an office desk. On the other hand, if you are motivated and driven, you will concentrate on your job, no matter where you are.

And who can deny that it is easier to concentrate behind closed doors at home rather than in a noisy office. As someone who learnt to write and edit in a noisy, open-plan newsroom, which was characterised by much yelling and screaming as deadlines drew nearer, it is an unaccountable luxury to be able to work in quiet solitude where you can actually hear yourself think. So yes, working alone does make sense when you are writing or doing something vaguely creative.

But that is not necessarily the case when you are in a marketing or sales job when you need to brainstorm with other members of your team, push one another to think harder, and get inspired by what the other person says. Even such creative fields as advertising and publishing benefit from a work force that has some face-time with one another, and no amount of tele-conferencing and Skype can be a good substitute. As British Vogue editor Alexandra Schulman, who believes in ‘the collective creativity of an office’, says, “The daily download of chatter within the office feeds into what we produce in an incalculable way. Having half the staff sitting at home, fiddling around on a search engine from the kitchen or pasting up mood boards from the sofa does not replicate that.”

Or, as they would say at Marissa Mayer’s Yahoo, “Back to the water cooler, everyone!”