There are fewer women physicists or architects or neurosurgeons in the world than their male counterparts. And, women chess grandmasters or video-game fanatics are hard to come by. Why is it so? Well, according to research, one reason is that male and female brains differ genetically.
According to a Discover Magazine article (‘He Thinks, She Thinks’) I had referred in my previous post, the human brain functions differently for men and women. For instance, while men have greater ability in focusing intently on work and tuning out distractions (ideal for winning at chess), women are more capable than men in handling languages and at verbal and memory tasks.
Although this may explain aptitudes in specific professions that men and women excel in, genetic coding in the brain is not the only reason for gender bias or stereotypes. According to psychologists and social scientists, environmental – i.e. societal and cultural – coding is as important as our genetic make-up. In fact, our culture actually sensitises us to certain belief systems which reappear at the workplace.
Consider, for instance, belief systems which we have all grown up with: ‘a woman’s place is at home’ or ‘men are better at maths and science than women’. Or, take the matter which was commented upon in one of my earlier posts: women losing out in job negotiations due to their non-aggressive nature. These belief systems actually affect our behaviour and performance even in benign situations.
Here’s a case in point as discussed in an article, ‘Think Again: Men and Women Share Cognitive Skills’ from www.psychologymatters.org:
“In a 1999 study, Steven Spencer and colleagues reported that merely telling women that a math test usually shows gender differences hurt their performance. This phenomenon of “stereotype threat” occurs when people believe they will be evaluated based on societal stereotypes about their particular group. In the study, the researchers gave a math test to men and women after telling half the women that the test had shown gender differences, and telling the rest that it found none. Women who expected gender differences did significantly worse than men. Those who were told there was no gender disparity performed equally to men. What's more, the experiment was conducted with women who were top performers in math.
Because “stereotype threat” affected women even when the researchers said the test showed no gender differences – still flagging the possibility -- Spencer et al. believe that people may be sensitized even when a stereotype is mentioned in a benign context.”
The moral of the story is, wherever these belief systems exist, and are predominant, we tend to, automatically, go on the defensive. Particularly, in situations in which we are being evaluated: job interviews, appraisals, school and college exams, or the sports field. Sometimes, we are so sensitised by these belief systems that, although untrue, we prefer to conform to these systems than to challenge them. It is as if our brains are hardwired to perform in a predicated manner.
30 July 2007
27 July 2007
Gender differences
“Like many-handed Hindu goddesses, women are better jugglers (in my experience), sweeping through their lives performing several tasks at once, while men seemingly do things sequentially—a division of labor that certainly prevails in our household.”
– Linda Marsa, in her article, ‘He Thinks, She Thinks’, Discover Magazine, July 2007
Genders differ – not just physiologically, but mentally and emotionally as well. This, as you can guess, is not a profound statement by me; but, rather, a reflection of all the scientific research that is available and my experiences in life. While reading up on gender differences in the workplace, earlier this month, I came across an article on the Internet from Discover Magazine which deals with the issue of gender differences from a scientific perspective.
The article, ‘He Thinks, She Thinks’ by Linda Marsa says, for instance, “men process their strong emotions differently from women and tend to act out and take action…” Ms Marsa, then, goes on to examine why this is so. Apparently, “findings offer tantalizing hints that even gender behavior differences once attributed solely to nurture—women are more emotionally attuned, while men are more physically aggressive—stem in part from variations in our neural circuitry.”
I quote from the article:
“The brain is divided into two hemispheres that play different roles in perception and behavior. The right side is relatively more involved with visual and spatial control, while the left is the seat of language. There is evidence that the male brain uses either one hemisphere or the other and relies on specialized brain regions when performing a task. Women, meanwhile, call on both hemispheres regardless of the task, resulting in greater communication between the two; they also enlist more brain regions to process information. When at rest, male minds appear to be more attuned to the “external world,” while there may be a “differential tilt toward the internal world” in female brains, says Larry Cahill, a neurobiologist at the University of California at Irvine.”
Got all that? Why not read the entire article online on Discover Magazine?
– Linda Marsa, in her article, ‘He Thinks, She Thinks’, Discover Magazine, July 2007
Genders differ – not just physiologically, but mentally and emotionally as well. This, as you can guess, is not a profound statement by me; but, rather, a reflection of all the scientific research that is available and my experiences in life. While reading up on gender differences in the workplace, earlier this month, I came across an article on the Internet from Discover Magazine which deals with the issue of gender differences from a scientific perspective.
The article, ‘He Thinks, She Thinks’ by Linda Marsa says, for instance, “men process their strong emotions differently from women and tend to act out and take action…” Ms Marsa, then, goes on to examine why this is so. Apparently, “findings offer tantalizing hints that even gender behavior differences once attributed solely to nurture—women are more emotionally attuned, while men are more physically aggressive—stem in part from variations in our neural circuitry.”
I quote from the article:
“The brain is divided into two hemispheres that play different roles in perception and behavior. The right side is relatively more involved with visual and spatial control, while the left is the seat of language. There is evidence that the male brain uses either one hemisphere or the other and relies on specialized brain regions when performing a task. Women, meanwhile, call on both hemispheres regardless of the task, resulting in greater communication between the two; they also enlist more brain regions to process information. When at rest, male minds appear to be more attuned to the “external world,” while there may be a “differential tilt toward the internal world” in female brains, says Larry Cahill, a neurobiologist at the University of California at Irvine.”
Got all that? Why not read the entire article online on Discover Magazine?
25 July 2007
Threat of the gender stereotype
Some of my working women friends have told me that their experience in business and the corporate world has not been only about performing in a competitive environment. They believed that there certainly is discrimination in the workplace, leading to differential treatment of men and women with equal (or similar) abilities.
They also believed that there are gender differences in preferences for job roles, leading to selection of specific jobs, and even occupations, for women. They have gone as far as to tell me that women, possessing abilities equal to men, have different expectations from the job and their ability to perform in the job (compared to men).
Did this mean women have lower expectations from their jobs and their careers? If so, did this mean women are, perhaps unconsciously, creating an image for themselves of being less able than their male counterparts? And, if this is true, did this mean that, once again perhaps unconsciously, women are creating a stereotype for themselves in business and the corporate world?
If the answer to these questions is a resounding ‘yes’, then it is likely that this gender stereotype will create its own pressure on women and, in turn, interfere with their performance at work. What’s worse, this threat of the gender stereotype is likely to give men an advantage over women… thereby, increasing the gender differences at the workplace.
They also believed that there are gender differences in preferences for job roles, leading to selection of specific jobs, and even occupations, for women. They have gone as far as to tell me that women, possessing abilities equal to men, have different expectations from the job and their ability to perform in the job (compared to men).
Did this mean women have lower expectations from their jobs and their careers? If so, did this mean women are, perhaps unconsciously, creating an image for themselves of being less able than their male counterparts? And, if this is true, did this mean that, once again perhaps unconsciously, women are creating a stereotype for themselves in business and the corporate world?
If the answer to these questions is a resounding ‘yes’, then it is likely that this gender stereotype will create its own pressure on women and, in turn, interfere with their performance at work. What’s worse, this threat of the gender stereotype is likely to give men an advantage over women… thereby, increasing the gender differences at the workplace.
23 July 2007
Women lack aggression
Although, in India, we have had a woman Prime Minister and now have a woman President, high-ranking positions in the political, academic, business and corporate worlds have usually been held by men. If you feel India is a little old-fashioned in distributing career opportunities to women non-equally, you’re probably right. But then, the rest of the world isn’t that far ahead of us. All across the world, gender differences prevail in all sorts of job roles and positions, not just in the high-ranking ones.
Why is this so? Well, discrimination against women is one reason that comes to mind. Then, as it so happens in the wide world, there are preferences for human capital of a specific gender for certain job roles. Perhaps this, too, is discrimination as there is a bias in favour of men… resulting in the proverbial gender gap in earnings (mentioned in my earlier posts). Connected to this thought is another: that women may be less competitive than men. Or, women may be less effective than men in competitive environments.
Could this be true? My experience tells me it is. That women, at least in India, are less competitive than men. Unlike men, women lack aggression, which is an important component of performance in a competitive environment. By ‘aggression’, I don’t mean hostile behaviour; but, rather, a propensity to perform at an enhanced level in order to win in a mixed-gender competitive environment. The ‘mixed-gender competitive environment’ is critical here as, I’ve found, women to be aggressively competitive in the company of other women.
If this is true, then it is indeed an interesting phenomenon. The fact that women can be aggressive per se, but not so when competing against men, is really an eye-opener. Because, then, the adage ‘women lack aggression’ is really a matter of belief, and has nothing whatsoever to do with their ability or skill or talent. It means women choose to use non-aggression as a behavioral strategy in a mixed-gender competitive environment, forfeiting their credentials, their job opportunities and their careers. And, in turn, limiting their chances of success (against men).
The question is, could this be classified as a gender stereotype?
Why is this so? Well, discrimination against women is one reason that comes to mind. Then, as it so happens in the wide world, there are preferences for human capital of a specific gender for certain job roles. Perhaps this, too, is discrimination as there is a bias in favour of men… resulting in the proverbial gender gap in earnings (mentioned in my earlier posts). Connected to this thought is another: that women may be less competitive than men. Or, women may be less effective than men in competitive environments.
Could this be true? My experience tells me it is. That women, at least in India, are less competitive than men. Unlike men, women lack aggression, which is an important component of performance in a competitive environment. By ‘aggression’, I don’t mean hostile behaviour; but, rather, a propensity to perform at an enhanced level in order to win in a mixed-gender competitive environment. The ‘mixed-gender competitive environment’ is critical here as, I’ve found, women to be aggressively competitive in the company of other women.
If this is true, then it is indeed an interesting phenomenon. The fact that women can be aggressive per se, but not so when competing against men, is really an eye-opener. Because, then, the adage ‘women lack aggression’ is really a matter of belief, and has nothing whatsoever to do with their ability or skill or talent. It means women choose to use non-aggression as a behavioral strategy in a mixed-gender competitive environment, forfeiting their credentials, their job opportunities and their careers. And, in turn, limiting their chances of success (against men).
The question is, could this be classified as a gender stereotype?
20 July 2007
Unmasking manly men
Last year, Robin Ely of Harvard Business School and Debra Meyerson of Stanford University co-authored a working paper, ‘Unmasking Manly Men: The Organizational Reconstruction of Male Identity’. The paper, according to a Harvard Business School Working Knowledge published interview, ‘not only explores how organizations influence the way men enact their gender, but also looks at how “organizational features might encourage people to resist enacting those stereotypes” (quote from Robin Ely).’
Here’s an excerpt from an interview of Professor Robin Ely by Sarah Jane Gilbert, discussing the research behind and the point of view of ‘Unmasking Manly Men’:
Sarah Jane Gilbert: How do you define masculine identity and what led you to study this topic?
Robin Ely: We define masculine identity as the sense a man makes of himself as a man, which develops in the course of his interactions with others. A man encounters—and learns to anticipate—others' expectations of him as a man; he responds, others react, and through this back-and-forth, he comes to see and present himself in particular ways. Such interactions do not occur ex nihilo, but are shaped by culturally available ideologies about what it means to be a man. Hence, men's masculine identity (like women's feminine identity) is a profoundly social and cultural phenomenon.
As organizational scholars, we were interested in organizations as social and cultural contexts that shape how men make sense of themselves as men—the stories they tell themselves about what it means to be male—and in the effect this sense-making has on how they behave at work. Much research on gender in organizations documents how men and women differ on a variety of dimensions, from leadership style to negotiation skills to work values, but neglects the organizational features that underlie such differences.
This body of research runs the risk of reifying differences, of making them seem natural. If study after study reports findings that align with stereotypes and does not address why, then these differences—in temperament, values, attitudes, and behaviors—take on a determinative quality. In a culture that readily promotes gender essentialism—the belief that sex differences are natural—stereotypes provide a default attribution for women's lack of progress in the public sphere of work, making it difficult to expose and undermine the social and cultural bases of inequality.
We were interested in generating theory about the contribution of organizations to the etiology of sex differences in behavior, cognition, and emotion at work. Specifically, we wanted to understand how organizational features, such as work practices and norms, encourage people to think, feel, and behave in a manner that is consistent with traditional sex-role stereotypes, but also how organizational features might encourage people to resist enacting those stereotypes.
From this perspective, both masculine and feminine gender identity are interesting to study, but to study men and masculinity was especially intriguing because so often the world presumes that only women have a gender. By studying men and masculinity, we were able to highlight that men too have a gender and to examine how organizations influence the way men enact their gender.
For those of you interested in unmasking manly men, read the full interview here.
[Citation: ‘Manly Men, Oil Platforms, and Breaking Stereotypes’, Sarah Jane Gilbert, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 27 November 2006]
Here’s an excerpt from an interview of Professor Robin Ely by Sarah Jane Gilbert, discussing the research behind and the point of view of ‘Unmasking Manly Men’:
Sarah Jane Gilbert: How do you define masculine identity and what led you to study this topic?
Robin Ely: We define masculine identity as the sense a man makes of himself as a man, which develops in the course of his interactions with others. A man encounters—and learns to anticipate—others' expectations of him as a man; he responds, others react, and through this back-and-forth, he comes to see and present himself in particular ways. Such interactions do not occur ex nihilo, but are shaped by culturally available ideologies about what it means to be a man. Hence, men's masculine identity (like women's feminine identity) is a profoundly social and cultural phenomenon.
As organizational scholars, we were interested in organizations as social and cultural contexts that shape how men make sense of themselves as men—the stories they tell themselves about what it means to be male—and in the effect this sense-making has on how they behave at work. Much research on gender in organizations documents how men and women differ on a variety of dimensions, from leadership style to negotiation skills to work values, but neglects the organizational features that underlie such differences.
This body of research runs the risk of reifying differences, of making them seem natural. If study after study reports findings that align with stereotypes and does not address why, then these differences—in temperament, values, attitudes, and behaviors—take on a determinative quality. In a culture that readily promotes gender essentialism—the belief that sex differences are natural—stereotypes provide a default attribution for women's lack of progress in the public sphere of work, making it difficult to expose and undermine the social and cultural bases of inequality.
We were interested in generating theory about the contribution of organizations to the etiology of sex differences in behavior, cognition, and emotion at work. Specifically, we wanted to understand how organizational features, such as work practices and norms, encourage people to think, feel, and behave in a manner that is consistent with traditional sex-role stereotypes, but also how organizational features might encourage people to resist enacting those stereotypes.
From this perspective, both masculine and feminine gender identity are interesting to study, but to study men and masculinity was especially intriguing because so often the world presumes that only women have a gender. By studying men and masculinity, we were able to highlight that men too have a gender and to examine how organizations influence the way men enact their gender.
For those of you interested in unmasking manly men, read the full interview here.
[Citation: ‘Manly Men, Oil Platforms, and Breaking Stereotypes’, Sarah Jane Gilbert, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 27 November 2006]
18 July 2007
A man's world
The other day, while a lady friend of mine was driving me around Bangalore, a car driven by a man suddenly cut in and almost pushed us off the road. Naturally, we were angry; but, being civilised folks, we let it pass. However, the incident remained on our minds for a while.
My friend explained to me that, as a woman driver, she has often experienced the ignominy of being cut in and squeezed into corners by male drivers. She said that men did that for two reasons: (a) it gave them some perverse pleasure, and (b) Indian men believed that driving a vehicle is a masculine task and not meant for women.
It was her second reason which had me wondering about the gender roles that are acted out around us, especially with reference to the jobs we hold. What she said was true – that there are some jobs meant only for men, and women are excluded from them. Though, in India, driving as solely a man’s job seems to have a cultural connotation to it, rather than a universal stereotyping.
Traditionally, hunting and soldiering were considered jobs for men alone. So were carpentry, blacksmithing and brick-laying or construction work. However, cultural nuances were always found, such as women labourers working at construction sites in India. Over the years, as newer job roles were defined, women were excluded from many of them. For instance, working on an oil rig is still considered to be solely in the male domain.
Nonetheless, when it came to white-collar work or executive job roles in the corporate world, more and more women were welcomed into the industry, with some women taking up important roles and positions once dominated by men. Or, so I thought. That’s why I was surprised to read an online article in last week’s issue of The Economist which reviewed two new books on corporate strategy… which is, well, at the cutting-edge of the corporate world.
The Economist article on books on corporate strategy, titled ‘Be firm, be flexible’, reviewed Michael E Raynor’s ‘The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (and What to Do About It)’ and Chris Zook’s ‘Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth’. Among other things, the article hinted that designing and developing corporate strategies is still considered a man’s job… though this view was likely to change.
Here’s an excerpt:
“The two books serve to emphasise the extent to which corporate strategy is man’s territory. Like golf, religion and the working breakfast, it seems set on excluding women from decision-making. Mr Zook’s bibliography lists 55 books written by men and one by a woman. Mr Raynor’s reference index contains the names of 80 men and not a single woman. Strategy today still assumes that corporate decision-makers are like generals on a battlefield, fighting in a sequential world where one step is “then” followed by another along a route clearly marked “either/or”. In reality, though, strategy is now a world more familiar to working mothers, where the inhabitants juggle many issues at once and rarely face clear-cut either/or situations.”
[Citation: ‘Be firm, be flexible’, Books & Arts, The Economist, 12 July 2007]
My friend explained to me that, as a woman driver, she has often experienced the ignominy of being cut in and squeezed into corners by male drivers. She said that men did that for two reasons: (a) it gave them some perverse pleasure, and (b) Indian men believed that driving a vehicle is a masculine task and not meant for women.
It was her second reason which had me wondering about the gender roles that are acted out around us, especially with reference to the jobs we hold. What she said was true – that there are some jobs meant only for men, and women are excluded from them. Though, in India, driving as solely a man’s job seems to have a cultural connotation to it, rather than a universal stereotyping.
Traditionally, hunting and soldiering were considered jobs for men alone. So were carpentry, blacksmithing and brick-laying or construction work. However, cultural nuances were always found, such as women labourers working at construction sites in India. Over the years, as newer job roles were defined, women were excluded from many of them. For instance, working on an oil rig is still considered to be solely in the male domain.
Nonetheless, when it came to white-collar work or executive job roles in the corporate world, more and more women were welcomed into the industry, with some women taking up important roles and positions once dominated by men. Or, so I thought. That’s why I was surprised to read an online article in last week’s issue of The Economist which reviewed two new books on corporate strategy… which is, well, at the cutting-edge of the corporate world.
The Economist article on books on corporate strategy, titled ‘Be firm, be flexible’, reviewed Michael E Raynor’s ‘The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (and What to Do About It)’ and Chris Zook’s ‘Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth’. Among other things, the article hinted that designing and developing corporate strategies is still considered a man’s job… though this view was likely to change.
Here’s an excerpt:
“The two books serve to emphasise the extent to which corporate strategy is man’s territory. Like golf, religion and the working breakfast, it seems set on excluding women from decision-making. Mr Zook’s bibliography lists 55 books written by men and one by a woman. Mr Raynor’s reference index contains the names of 80 men and not a single woman. Strategy today still assumes that corporate decision-makers are like generals on a battlefield, fighting in a sequential world where one step is “then” followed by another along a route clearly marked “either/or”. In reality, though, strategy is now a world more familiar to working mothers, where the inhabitants juggle many issues at once and rarely face clear-cut either/or situations.”
[Citation: ‘Be firm, be flexible’, Books & Arts, The Economist, 12 July 2007]
17 July 2007
Career tips for women executives
As a corollary to yesterday’s post, I thought I’ll add a helping hand to anyone who may benefit from an article I read online on WSJ.com Career Journal while reading up stuff on the Internet before posting on my blog.
The article, ‘Four Negotiation Tips For Women Executives’, by Lee E Miller and Jessica Miller, goes back a couple of years – and is, perhaps, a little Western going by Indian sentiments – but it is worth a read by both women and male executives who wish to give their careers a fillip.
You can find the WSJ.com Career Journal article here.
The article, ‘Four Negotiation Tips For Women Executives’, by Lee E Miller and Jessica Miller, goes back a couple of years – and is, perhaps, a little Western going by Indian sentiments – but it is worth a read by both women and male executives who wish to give their careers a fillip.
You can find the WSJ.com Career Journal article here.
16 July 2007
Men make more money than women
Some of my women executive friends complain that they don’t get paid as well as their male counterparts do. They say that women aren’t good negotiators of (their own) compensation packages during job interviews because they lack the aggression men have. In the process, they compromise on their earnings while putting in the same effort at work.
This thought is perhaps true as (besides also being suggested by a fellow blogger in a recent comment on my blog) it seems to resonate faithfully in the largest of the ‘equal employment opportunity’ markets in the world: the United States of America.
Almost a year ago, an article in CNNMoney.com commented on this very fact. The article, by Jessica Seid, titled ‘10 Best-paid executives: They are all men’, presented a case of how, according to data collected from compensation surveys done in 2005 for Fortune magazine, the best-paid women executives in the US were paid almost a third of what the best-paid male executives received.
Here are some examples from that article:
In 2005, the top-earning woman executive was Safra Catz, president and CFO of Oracle. She took home $26.1 million in total compensation. Her CEO, Larry Ellison, took home $52.3 million (double of Catz’ pay).
The second-highest paid woman executive, Susan Decker, CFO of Yahoo!, made $24.3 million. Her chairman and CEO, Terry Semel, earned $56.8 million (more than double of Decker’s earnings).
Compared to the two best-paid women executives, Catz and Decker, the highest paid executive in the US in 2005 was Eugene Isenberg, CEO of Nabors Industries, taking home $71.4 million. The next was Ray Irani, CEO of Occidental Petroleum, who made $70 million.
Why is there such a striking difference in the compensations of top women and men executives? According to the CNNMoney.com article:
“All through the pipeline women leaders aren’t paid as well as men,” said Lois Joy, research director at Catalyst, a nonprofit that seeks to advance women in business. “And when you get to the CEO level, that same inequality is replicated.”
Indeed, the earnings of women in full-time management and professional jobs last year averaged 73 percent of men’s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That gap can be explained to a large extent by nondiscriminatory factors, some studies have found, and are based on a division of labor in the home that relies more heavily on women than on men, according to Catalyst.
Women are not only less likely to work continuously during their lives, but responsibilities at home also influence their choice of job and type of employer, Catalyst said.
However, top-ranking woman executive Safra Catz’ pay was almost a third of top-ranking male executive Eugene Isenberg’s… a figure far less than the 73 percent difference the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Did this mean the difference in compensation packages between women and men increases as the executives move up the corporate ladder?
The CNNMoney.com article suggested one reason (among a few) for this:
At lower levels, a lot of the disparity between executive men and women’s paychecks can be explained by the fact that women managed smaller companies and were less likely to be CEO, chair or company president, said Kevin Murphy, a professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business citing a paper by Marianne Bertrand & Kevin Hallock.
In fact, eight out of 10 of the highest-paid executives overall are CEOs, while only five of the 10 best-compensated women are chief executives.
It doesn’t sound like a very convincing premise to me, but there you have it. Whether you agree with it or not, reading the CNNMoney.com article might give you a better understanding – at least, an US perspective – of the differences in compensations between the two genders.
You can find the CNNMoney.com Jessica Seid article here.
This thought is perhaps true as (besides also being suggested by a fellow blogger in a recent comment on my blog) it seems to resonate faithfully in the largest of the ‘equal employment opportunity’ markets in the world: the United States of America.
Almost a year ago, an article in CNNMoney.com commented on this very fact. The article, by Jessica Seid, titled ‘10 Best-paid executives: They are all men’, presented a case of how, according to data collected from compensation surveys done in 2005 for Fortune magazine, the best-paid women executives in the US were paid almost a third of what the best-paid male executives received.
Here are some examples from that article:
In 2005, the top-earning woman executive was Safra Catz, president and CFO of Oracle. She took home $26.1 million in total compensation. Her CEO, Larry Ellison, took home $52.3 million (double of Catz’ pay).
The second-highest paid woman executive, Susan Decker, CFO of Yahoo!, made $24.3 million. Her chairman and CEO, Terry Semel, earned $56.8 million (more than double of Decker’s earnings).
Compared to the two best-paid women executives, Catz and Decker, the highest paid executive in the US in 2005 was Eugene Isenberg, CEO of Nabors Industries, taking home $71.4 million. The next was Ray Irani, CEO of Occidental Petroleum, who made $70 million.
Why is there such a striking difference in the compensations of top women and men executives? According to the CNNMoney.com article:
“All through the pipeline women leaders aren’t paid as well as men,” said Lois Joy, research director at Catalyst, a nonprofit that seeks to advance women in business. “And when you get to the CEO level, that same inequality is replicated.”
Indeed, the earnings of women in full-time management and professional jobs last year averaged 73 percent of men’s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That gap can be explained to a large extent by nondiscriminatory factors, some studies have found, and are based on a division of labor in the home that relies more heavily on women than on men, according to Catalyst.
Women are not only less likely to work continuously during their lives, but responsibilities at home also influence their choice of job and type of employer, Catalyst said.
However, top-ranking woman executive Safra Catz’ pay was almost a third of top-ranking male executive Eugene Isenberg’s… a figure far less than the 73 percent difference the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Did this mean the difference in compensation packages between women and men increases as the executives move up the corporate ladder?
The CNNMoney.com article suggested one reason (among a few) for this:
At lower levels, a lot of the disparity between executive men and women’s paychecks can be explained by the fact that women managed smaller companies and were less likely to be CEO, chair or company president, said Kevin Murphy, a professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business citing a paper by Marianne Bertrand & Kevin Hallock.
In fact, eight out of 10 of the highest-paid executives overall are CEOs, while only five of the 10 best-compensated women are chief executives.
It doesn’t sound like a very convincing premise to me, but there you have it. Whether you agree with it or not, reading the CNNMoney.com article might give you a better understanding – at least, an US perspective – of the differences in compensations between the two genders.
You can find the CNNMoney.com Jessica Seid article here.
10 July 2007
Balancing
Coincidentally, and somewhat in line with my previous post on the different realities men and women experienced in their careers, the Sunday Times of India, in their Times Life! supplement last Sunday, released a story on successful working women in India and their perspectives on their work lives. The story, ‘Guilt-edged lives’, showcased several successful Indian businesswomen voicing, unanimously, the fact that a career means a balance between work, family and home.
The Times Life! story, which strangely does not credit its author(s) but acknowledges the Times News Network, quotes Sulajja Firodia Motwani, MD of Kinetic Engineering: “Being a working woman is a constant struggle, especially when it comes to kids. Even if you try and balance your work with your family and kids, there’s still an emotional pull.” The story centres on the fact that these successful businesswomen experience a feeling of guilt in having to manage work and family/home simultaneously, and are bold enough to acknowledge it publicly.
However, the story does not clearly state if the feeling of guilt is directed towards their work or their family/home, or both. Meaning, if they feel guilty for not being able to devote themselves 100 percent – and do justice – either to their work or to their family/home, or both. Judging the tone of the story, I’d say the guilt is directed towards their family/home. Which could mean that (and forgive me for generalising here) the woman is less guilty about not being able to devote 100 percent to her work/career.
To be fair, the story does go on to say (and I quote here from the story):
“At times the woman is torn between her professional aspirations and her familial roles. The solution seldom lies in choosing one over the other because for a woman it is important that she achieve success on both the home and work fronts, and not one at the expense of the other. Easily said, but takes some doing.”
Although all the women interviewed in the story mentioned their guilt, concern for and devotion to their children, interestingly, not a single woman mentioned her guilt, concern for and her devotion to her husband – leave alone her parents or her parents-in-law, which is normally how an Indian family is structured. I wonder if this is what the new and emerging Indian woman is all about. Perhaps, there’s a story in this as well.
And, what about the different realities (that men and women experienced in their careers) which I had talked about in my previous post? Well, the Times Life! story does touch upon that. It concludes with a quote from television host and VJ Mini Mathur: “A man simply cannot multitask the way we women can. If he’s making a film, he is only concentrating on that task, while I am expected to juggle several roles at once, and come up ace in each.”
[Citation: ‘Guilt-edged lives’, Times Life!, Sunday Times of India, Sunday, July 8, 2007]
The Times Life! story, which strangely does not credit its author(s) but acknowledges the Times News Network, quotes Sulajja Firodia Motwani, MD of Kinetic Engineering: “Being a working woman is a constant struggle, especially when it comes to kids. Even if you try and balance your work with your family and kids, there’s still an emotional pull.” The story centres on the fact that these successful businesswomen experience a feeling of guilt in having to manage work and family/home simultaneously, and are bold enough to acknowledge it publicly.
However, the story does not clearly state if the feeling of guilt is directed towards their work or their family/home, or both. Meaning, if they feel guilty for not being able to devote themselves 100 percent – and do justice – either to their work or to their family/home, or both. Judging the tone of the story, I’d say the guilt is directed towards their family/home. Which could mean that (and forgive me for generalising here) the woman is less guilty about not being able to devote 100 percent to her work/career.
To be fair, the story does go on to say (and I quote here from the story):
“At times the woman is torn between her professional aspirations and her familial roles. The solution seldom lies in choosing one over the other because for a woman it is important that she achieve success on both the home and work fronts, and not one at the expense of the other. Easily said, but takes some doing.”
Although all the women interviewed in the story mentioned their guilt, concern for and devotion to their children, interestingly, not a single woman mentioned her guilt, concern for and her devotion to her husband – leave alone her parents or her parents-in-law, which is normally how an Indian family is structured. I wonder if this is what the new and emerging Indian woman is all about. Perhaps, there’s a story in this as well.
And, what about the different realities (that men and women experienced in their careers) which I had talked about in my previous post? Well, the Times Life! story does touch upon that. It concludes with a quote from television host and VJ Mini Mathur: “A man simply cannot multitask the way we women can. If he’s making a film, he is only concentrating on that task, while I am expected to juggle several roles at once, and come up ace in each.”
[Citation: ‘Guilt-edged lives’, Times Life!, Sunday Times of India, Sunday, July 8, 2007]
05 July 2007
Different realities
I often wonder if men and women experience careers in the same way. Do women executives go through the same exhilaration and/or despair as their male counterparts do? Or, do they experience and view their careers in a completely different way? To find out answers to these questions, I asked several women executive friends of mine about their work and their careers in the corporate world.
Though the sample size is small, my findings are quite interesting.
Women seem to have the same career aspirations as men do. However, somewhere along the line, while getting married and setting up a family, most of my women executive friends have had to drop out of their corporate careers. What they said was, had the marriage and family option not come their way, they would be as competitive as their male colleagues in building a career and moving up the corporate ladder.
For those who remained in the race, or for those who opted out during motherhood and rejoined later, sometimes in a consulting role rather than a full-time job, career aspirations were not reduced. What was reduced, however, was their ambition for taking up greater responsibilities and higher pressures at work which normally commensurate with higher designations.
In short, none of my women friends actually wanted to work harder (and smarter) to become CEOs of their companies, unlike their husbands or my other male corporate executive friends. The women simply said that their determination to chase a career to the top didn’t matter anymore once the children were born. That, their realities changed after marriage and motherhood. That, they had decided to make trade-offs and adopt different career strategies to balance work-life responsibilities.
When I quizzed my women executive friends on what strategies they had adopted in advancing their careers, they stated the same things as I and my male corporate executives often do: exceeding performance targets, demonstrating expertise, taking up high-visibility assignments, displaying excellence in communication and in people management.
As barriers to advancement, they stated lack of line experience, work/management styles which were different from organisational norms, differences (in thinking) with their bosses, and lack of understanding of organisational politics. Once again, these characteristics of corporate careers were similar to what their male colleagues experienced. However, this is where the similarities ended.
Women corporate executives experienced a host of challenges their male counterparts did not. Most of these were gender-based characteristics, and topping it all was an inhospitable corporate culture – a culture that generally favoured men. Next was gender stereotyping – women not being suitable for certain jobs, women not being as committed to work as men, women requiring handling with kid gloves, women being moody and emotional, women crying, etc. Next on the list was lower pay for women. Then, women not being included in (informal) male networks which left the women clueless about organisational decisions/behaviour in many situations.
It ended with women corporate executives lacking appropriate role models.
Though the sample size is small, my findings are quite interesting.
Women seem to have the same career aspirations as men do. However, somewhere along the line, while getting married and setting up a family, most of my women executive friends have had to drop out of their corporate careers. What they said was, had the marriage and family option not come their way, they would be as competitive as their male colleagues in building a career and moving up the corporate ladder.
For those who remained in the race, or for those who opted out during motherhood and rejoined later, sometimes in a consulting role rather than a full-time job, career aspirations were not reduced. What was reduced, however, was their ambition for taking up greater responsibilities and higher pressures at work which normally commensurate with higher designations.
In short, none of my women friends actually wanted to work harder (and smarter) to become CEOs of their companies, unlike their husbands or my other male corporate executive friends. The women simply said that their determination to chase a career to the top didn’t matter anymore once the children were born. That, their realities changed after marriage and motherhood. That, they had decided to make trade-offs and adopt different career strategies to balance work-life responsibilities.
When I quizzed my women executive friends on what strategies they had adopted in advancing their careers, they stated the same things as I and my male corporate executives often do: exceeding performance targets, demonstrating expertise, taking up high-visibility assignments, displaying excellence in communication and in people management.
As barriers to advancement, they stated lack of line experience, work/management styles which were different from organisational norms, differences (in thinking) with their bosses, and lack of understanding of organisational politics. Once again, these characteristics of corporate careers were similar to what their male colleagues experienced. However, this is where the similarities ended.
Women corporate executives experienced a host of challenges their male counterparts did not. Most of these were gender-based characteristics, and topping it all was an inhospitable corporate culture – a culture that generally favoured men. Next was gender stereotyping – women not being suitable for certain jobs, women not being as committed to work as men, women requiring handling with kid gloves, women being moody and emotional, women crying, etc. Next on the list was lower pay for women. Then, women not being included in (informal) male networks which left the women clueless about organisational decisions/behaviour in many situations.
It ended with women corporate executives lacking appropriate role models.
02 July 2007
Are women employees better than men?
During a job interview, I was asked whether women employees were better than men. Honestly, I was caught off-guard. I took it as a trick question since my interviewers were both women. I answered that it was difficult to tell. That it depended on the job description and the responsibilities that came with the job. My interviewers weren’t satisfied with this and insisted on an answer: Were women employees better or worse than their male colleagues?
Put to the test, I was clearly uncomfortable, but suggested that I could, perhaps, state in what respects I considered women employees to be better than men. My interviewers accepted this proposition as a suitable alternative to their question and so I rattled off (a) women don’t bring their egos into their work like men do and pick fights with each other; (b) women are more compassionate than men in dealing with conflict; and (c) women can handle failure more maturely than men.
At that time I had no idea if my answer had hit the mark. But later, upon learning that I had been selected for the job, I met up with my interviewers and quizzed them. I just had to know whether my answer to that question had fit the response expected. Unfortunately, till this day, I’m still in the dark as to whether my answer was the right one. All I was told was that my answer was ‘sensible’ and that, though uncomfortable, I did not seem to be provoked by the question. That, temperament-wise, I was okay.
Although this news was heartening, the situation had me thinking: If we, men, aren’t comfortable answering questions about our women colleagues, how comfortable can we be in dealing with, or managing, them on a day-to-day basis? Or, as managers, in appraising them or mentoring them when the time comes? What’s more, I wondered, would women managers be as sensitive to women employees as male managers are expected to be?
That’s not all. Many more questions dogged my mind: Are women employees different from their male colleagues (in spite of my off-the-cuff answer at the interview)? Do women employees really bring anything special to the job which their male colleagues can’t, or don’t? Do women employees need different ways of managing or mentoring? And, of course, are women employees better than men?
Put to the test, I was clearly uncomfortable, but suggested that I could, perhaps, state in what respects I considered women employees to be better than men. My interviewers accepted this proposition as a suitable alternative to their question and so I rattled off (a) women don’t bring their egos into their work like men do and pick fights with each other; (b) women are more compassionate than men in dealing with conflict; and (c) women can handle failure more maturely than men.
At that time I had no idea if my answer had hit the mark. But later, upon learning that I had been selected for the job, I met up with my interviewers and quizzed them. I just had to know whether my answer to that question had fit the response expected. Unfortunately, till this day, I’m still in the dark as to whether my answer was the right one. All I was told was that my answer was ‘sensible’ and that, though uncomfortable, I did not seem to be provoked by the question. That, temperament-wise, I was okay.
Although this news was heartening, the situation had me thinking: If we, men, aren’t comfortable answering questions about our women colleagues, how comfortable can we be in dealing with, or managing, them on a day-to-day basis? Or, as managers, in appraising them or mentoring them when the time comes? What’s more, I wondered, would women managers be as sensitive to women employees as male managers are expected to be?
That’s not all. Many more questions dogged my mind: Are women employees different from their male colleagues (in spite of my off-the-cuff answer at the interview)? Do women employees really bring anything special to the job which their male colleagues can’t, or don’t? Do women employees need different ways of managing or mentoring? And, of course, are women employees better than men?
15 June 2007
Preserving the past is not easy
We don’t have to be historians or archaeologists or anthropologists or psychologists to know that the past has a grip on us. Almost everyone I know (including me) is troubled by it in some form or the other. Parental correction, sibling rivalry, lack of love, loss, humiliation, oppression… there’s no end to the list of human experiences and emotions which leave us scarred with memories of the past.
It’s not always negative or unhappy experiences that trouble us about the past. Memories of happy and exciting moments, too, have vice-like grips on our minds and our emotions, influencing our responses to the present. No matter how wonderful our pasts have been, it’s the absence of those happy moments that create a vacuum in our lives and cause pain in the present. I guess that’s what loss is all about.
Most of our contemporary fiction and films contain strong, and repeated, elements of memories (strangely, I can’t think of too many Classics which do that) to connect the fragmented narratives. Often, filmmakers and authors use devices such as dreams and photographs (Ingmar Bergman in ‘Wild Strawberries’), letters and diary (Amitav Ghosh in ‘The Hungry Tide’), audio tapes and video (Atom Egoyan in ‘Next of Kin’, ‘Family Viewing’, ‘Exotica’), or, simply, other shorter narratives in the form of recounting a version of the past (Milan Kundera in ‘Identity’).
What I found interesting in these films and novels is that they brought to surface a complication. These devices – images and words – far from being a solution to the filmmaker and the author in recording or narrating the past, actually ran aground when their recordings and narratives disagreed with the actual (authentic) recollections of memories of the persons involved… sometimes catching them by surprise.
Gilles Deleuze, French philosopher, whose treatises on literature, film and fine arts (besides philosophy) are exemplary, had once proclaimed that preserving the past on film is not easy. That, ‘filmic images’ compete with our ‘recollection images’ – i.e. our memories of events not captured on film or audio – making a ‘truthful’ narrative presentation on film rather difficult.
Milan Kundera, in his slim novel, ‘Identity’, seems to suggest that, when recollecting, particularly memories of loved ones, our own version of the past varies abominably, sometimes with drastic differences.
It’s not always negative or unhappy experiences that trouble us about the past. Memories of happy and exciting moments, too, have vice-like grips on our minds and our emotions, influencing our responses to the present. No matter how wonderful our pasts have been, it’s the absence of those happy moments that create a vacuum in our lives and cause pain in the present. I guess that’s what loss is all about.
Most of our contemporary fiction and films contain strong, and repeated, elements of memories (strangely, I can’t think of too many Classics which do that) to connect the fragmented narratives. Often, filmmakers and authors use devices such as dreams and photographs (Ingmar Bergman in ‘Wild Strawberries’), letters and diary (Amitav Ghosh in ‘The Hungry Tide’), audio tapes and video (Atom Egoyan in ‘Next of Kin’, ‘Family Viewing’, ‘Exotica’), or, simply, other shorter narratives in the form of recounting a version of the past (Milan Kundera in ‘Identity’).
What I found interesting in these films and novels is that they brought to surface a complication. These devices – images and words – far from being a solution to the filmmaker and the author in recording or narrating the past, actually ran aground when their recordings and narratives disagreed with the actual (authentic) recollections of memories of the persons involved… sometimes catching them by surprise.
Gilles Deleuze, French philosopher, whose treatises on literature, film and fine arts (besides philosophy) are exemplary, had once proclaimed that preserving the past on film is not easy. That, ‘filmic images’ compete with our ‘recollection images’ – i.e. our memories of events not captured on film or audio – making a ‘truthful’ narrative presentation on film rather difficult.
Milan Kundera, in his slim novel, ‘Identity’, seems to suggest that, when recollecting, particularly memories of loved ones, our own version of the past varies abominably, sometimes with drastic differences.
13 June 2007
Piecing together a narrative
“I don’t understand you,” said Alice. “It’s dreadfully confusing!”
“That’s the effect of living backwards,” the Queen said kindly: “it always makes one a little giddy at first…”
“Living backwards!” Alice repeated in great astonishment. “I never heard of such a thing!”
“…but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both ways.”
“I’m sure mine only works one way.” Alice remarked. “I can’t remember things before they happen.”
“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked.
(Lewis Carroll, ‘Through the Looking Glass’, Chapter 5 – Wool and Water)
Memories are an important part of our lives. They give us meaning, linking our past with our present, explaining our lives. They seldom come to us as one long story, beginning to end, explaining everything in one narrative; but appear in fragments, many a times triggered by cues from our daily lives which are unknown to us.
It is this mysterious, fragmented and episodic nature of memories that fascinates me. And, this piecing together of fragments to make a whole – a story, a picture, a life – is what attracts me to the art of storytelling. For, what purpose does my memory serve if not to help me tell my story – to come to terms with my own past, my history, my identity? I see it as something that explains who I am.
Coincidentally, I’m not alone here. When I look around, I see fiction and film inundated with memories – sometimes whole sequences of them, stories within stories, films within films, sometimes appearing repeatedly – filling in what has been denied to the reader/film-viewer, and sometimes even to the characters in the story or the film, explaining the raison d’etre of the longer and larger story that we read or view or experience.
This denial – and the subsequent, automatic filling in that memories do – is an interesting phenomenon. And, what better medium to represent it than film, visually. Although I’ve seen many films which deal with memories in an artistic cinematic manner, the film that comes first to my mind is Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Wild Strawberries’, a B&W film made some 50 years ago, in which the first memory of the protagonist’s, an aging professor’s, childhood was a field of wild strawberries.
Memories, along with identity and history and loss, form an important part of Atom Egoyan’s films (about which I have written in my previous post) as well. The film-viewer’s enjoyment of Egoyan’s films, from his first ‘Next of Kin’ in 1984 to his 2005 film ‘Where the Truth Lies’, is really achieved – completed and even climaxed – by piecing together fragments, much of it in the form of memories, from the various characters’ pasts to form one complete narrative in the end.
For both Bergman and Egoyan, this heavy reliance on memories leads to complex films. With Bergman, memories represent dream-like sequences which tend to freeze time; and in ‘Wild Strawberries’, for example, Bergman uses dreams and photographs to a great extent to piece the narrative together. With Egoyan, using metaphors (and media aids) such as videos, audio tapes, fairy tales, and even colour, memories fill time and space, providing a continuity which is necessary (for the film-viewer) to piece the narrative together.
“That’s the effect of living backwards,” the Queen said kindly: “it always makes one a little giddy at first…”
“Living backwards!” Alice repeated in great astonishment. “I never heard of such a thing!”
“…but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both ways.”
“I’m sure mine only works one way.” Alice remarked. “I can’t remember things before they happen.”
“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked.
(Lewis Carroll, ‘Through the Looking Glass’, Chapter 5 – Wool and Water)
Memories are an important part of our lives. They give us meaning, linking our past with our present, explaining our lives. They seldom come to us as one long story, beginning to end, explaining everything in one narrative; but appear in fragments, many a times triggered by cues from our daily lives which are unknown to us.
It is this mysterious, fragmented and episodic nature of memories that fascinates me. And, this piecing together of fragments to make a whole – a story, a picture, a life – is what attracts me to the art of storytelling. For, what purpose does my memory serve if not to help me tell my story – to come to terms with my own past, my history, my identity? I see it as something that explains who I am.
Coincidentally, I’m not alone here. When I look around, I see fiction and film inundated with memories – sometimes whole sequences of them, stories within stories, films within films, sometimes appearing repeatedly – filling in what has been denied to the reader/film-viewer, and sometimes even to the characters in the story or the film, explaining the raison d’etre of the longer and larger story that we read or view or experience.
This denial – and the subsequent, automatic filling in that memories do – is an interesting phenomenon. And, what better medium to represent it than film, visually. Although I’ve seen many films which deal with memories in an artistic cinematic manner, the film that comes first to my mind is Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Wild Strawberries’, a B&W film made some 50 years ago, in which the first memory of the protagonist’s, an aging professor’s, childhood was a field of wild strawberries.
Memories, along with identity and history and loss, form an important part of Atom Egoyan’s films (about which I have written in my previous post) as well. The film-viewer’s enjoyment of Egoyan’s films, from his first ‘Next of Kin’ in 1984 to his 2005 film ‘Where the Truth Lies’, is really achieved – completed and even climaxed – by piecing together fragments, much of it in the form of memories, from the various characters’ pasts to form one complete narrative in the end.
For both Bergman and Egoyan, this heavy reliance on memories leads to complex films. With Bergman, memories represent dream-like sequences which tend to freeze time; and in ‘Wild Strawberries’, for example, Bergman uses dreams and photographs to a great extent to piece the narrative together. With Egoyan, using metaphors (and media aids) such as videos, audio tapes, fairy tales, and even colour, memories fill time and space, providing a continuity which is necessary (for the film-viewer) to piece the narrative together.
10 June 2007
Remembering
One of the most critical (literary) devices for the émigré author is the act of remembering. For, much of the content of immigrant writing is derived from memories… from material dug up from the author’s past and, perhaps, personal experience. Not all of it is literal, of course. An author’s keen observation plays an important part in recording facts and human behaviour, and then fictionalising them.
For instance, it’s unlikely that J M Coetzee had lost his leg in a bicycle accident to have written ‘Slow Man’; or that, Amitav Ghosh had waded through the swamps of the Sundarbans to chase river dolphins in West Bengal, India, to have written ‘The Hungry Tide’. But, using metaphors – in these cases, the inability to adjust (or re-adjust) to a new life after a loss or displacement or when fate deals a blow – émigré authors have a tendency to lure themselves into creating fiction based on personal experiences from, and memories of, their past.
Of course, most authors of fiction use similar devices, but the émigré author’s story has a haunting connection with the real past. Much of it is personal. Sometimes, it is difficult to separate the real from the fictional.
When the weaver of such émigré fiction is also a talented film director, then the stories seem more real. They take on a more solid hue, playing on the screens before us in words and pictures. One such film director, and a favourite of mine, who has adapted many of his films from his own émigré material is Atom Egoyan.
An Armenian-Canadian, Egoyan’s greatest achievement is his film ‘The Sweet Hereafter’ – a tale of adjustment (or re-adjustment) of lives when a bus-load of school children die in a road accident, soon followed by the arrival of a lawyer trying to compensate their loss with money… forcing them to remember their past lives, their loss and their grief.
While Nicole, the girl permanently crippled from the bus accident in ‘The Sweet Hereafter’, refuses to give in to the destructive forces of the lawsuit and changes the course of the lives of everyone in the film, Paul Rayment, J M Coetzee’s protagonist in ‘Slow Man’, crippled from the bicycle accident at the beginning of the novel, refuses to change the course of his life and live in its sorrow.
Such is the power of remembering, and Egoyan’s later film ‘Ararat’ thrives on it. ‘Ararat’ deals directly with the loss of a homeland and an identity that result from a historical and a political event – the Armenian Genocide, when the Turkish government overran the Armenians in 1915-18, killing one and a half million Armenians. But, that’s not all.
‘Ararat’ also deals with the coming to terms with this loss at a distant future (the present), where generations of émigré Armenians are trying to adjust (or re-adjust) to a new life in a new country. Egoyan seems to say that Armenians (like himself) cannot help but remember their past, with generations of Armenians intricately connected with it, weaving in this aspect of Armenian life through multiple characters and multiple layers in this complex film.
In ‘The Hungry Tide’, Amitav Ghosh presents a similar scenario, but in a far complex manner. He presents three generations of Bengalis from different walks of life, interconnected through their past and their Bengali identity, subtly touching upon an event from Bengal’s history – an uprising by homeless Bangladeshi refugees in Morichjhapi in the Sundarbans which was overrun by the West Bengal government in 1979, killing hundreds of Bangladeshi refugees.
While the significance of the historical event is central to Egoyan’s film, in Ghosh’s novel it is only incidental. But both, film and novel, raises a moral question of how we deal with history and our personal remembrances of it. Egoyan is unable to provide an answer to this question. Ghosh simply doesn’t offer one. So, we are left to form our own conclusions.
For instance, it’s unlikely that J M Coetzee had lost his leg in a bicycle accident to have written ‘Slow Man’; or that, Amitav Ghosh had waded through the swamps of the Sundarbans to chase river dolphins in West Bengal, India, to have written ‘The Hungry Tide’. But, using metaphors – in these cases, the inability to adjust (or re-adjust) to a new life after a loss or displacement or when fate deals a blow – émigré authors have a tendency to lure themselves into creating fiction based on personal experiences from, and memories of, their past.
Of course, most authors of fiction use similar devices, but the émigré author’s story has a haunting connection with the real past. Much of it is personal. Sometimes, it is difficult to separate the real from the fictional.
When the weaver of such émigré fiction is also a talented film director, then the stories seem more real. They take on a more solid hue, playing on the screens before us in words and pictures. One such film director, and a favourite of mine, who has adapted many of his films from his own émigré material is Atom Egoyan.
An Armenian-Canadian, Egoyan’s greatest achievement is his film ‘The Sweet Hereafter’ – a tale of adjustment (or re-adjustment) of lives when a bus-load of school children die in a road accident, soon followed by the arrival of a lawyer trying to compensate their loss with money… forcing them to remember their past lives, their loss and their grief.
While Nicole, the girl permanently crippled from the bus accident in ‘The Sweet Hereafter’, refuses to give in to the destructive forces of the lawsuit and changes the course of the lives of everyone in the film, Paul Rayment, J M Coetzee’s protagonist in ‘Slow Man’, crippled from the bicycle accident at the beginning of the novel, refuses to change the course of his life and live in its sorrow.
Such is the power of remembering, and Egoyan’s later film ‘Ararat’ thrives on it. ‘Ararat’ deals directly with the loss of a homeland and an identity that result from a historical and a political event – the Armenian Genocide, when the Turkish government overran the Armenians in 1915-18, killing one and a half million Armenians. But, that’s not all.
‘Ararat’ also deals with the coming to terms with this loss at a distant future (the present), where generations of émigré Armenians are trying to adjust (or re-adjust) to a new life in a new country. Egoyan seems to say that Armenians (like himself) cannot help but remember their past, with generations of Armenians intricately connected with it, weaving in this aspect of Armenian life through multiple characters and multiple layers in this complex film.
In ‘The Hungry Tide’, Amitav Ghosh presents a similar scenario, but in a far complex manner. He presents three generations of Bengalis from different walks of life, interconnected through their past and their Bengali identity, subtly touching upon an event from Bengal’s history – an uprising by homeless Bangladeshi refugees in Morichjhapi in the Sundarbans which was overrun by the West Bengal government in 1979, killing hundreds of Bangladeshi refugees.
While the significance of the historical event is central to Egoyan’s film, in Ghosh’s novel it is only incidental. But both, film and novel, raises a moral question of how we deal with history and our personal remembrances of it. Egoyan is unable to provide an answer to this question. Ghosh simply doesn’t offer one. So, we are left to form our own conclusions.
07 June 2007
Intellectual allegiance
South African writer J M Coetzee, winner of two Booker Prizes, makes no bones about it. Soon after winning his Nobel Prize in 2003, Coetzee, in an interview with David Attwell, stated that his “intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not African.” And that, all his life, his writing has faithfully responded to this DNA. Even in Australia, where he moved a few years ago, Coetzee has maintained a European sentimentality while lamenting over his immigrant status, documenting it in his 2005 book ‘Slow Man’.
Kazuo Ishiguro, born Japanese but now living in England, and another Booker Prize winner, expresses similar views. In his January Magazine interview with Linda Richards (which I also cited in my previous post), Ishiguro stated, “That’s how I kind of branded myself right from the start: as somebody who didn’t know Japan deeply, writing in English whole books with only Japanese characters in. Trying to be part of the English literary scene like that.”
Like Ishiguro, who had moved to England as a child, Michael Ondaatje, also a Booker Prize winner, had moved to Canada from Sri Lanka at the age of eight and acquired Canadian citizenship along with his family. He has grown up in Canada and currently resides there with his Canadian family. Apart from a touch of Sri Lanka here and there (such as in ‘Running in the Family’ or in ‘Anil’s Ghost’), Ondaatje’s writing has always been peppered with an international flavour.
When I think about these authors, I often wonder how strong their intellectual allegiances are. I ask, how faithfully can these authors return to their pasts, to their countries of origin, in their novels and reproduce characters and scenes of native reality. Ishiguro seems to have a perfect answer for this: “it’s not really about describing a world that you know well and firsthand. It’s about describing stereotypes that exist in people’s heads all around the world and manipulating them engagingly.”
If this wasn’t enough, Coetzee gives another fascinating explanation. Speaking of Samuel Beckett (in the same Attwell interview I’ve mentioned earlier), Coetzee says: “Beckett was an Irishman and a European with no African connections at all. Yet in the hands of a dramatist of the sensitivity and skill of Athol Fugard, Beckett can be transplanted into South African surroundings in such a way that he seems almost native there. What does this show? That the history of the arts is a history of unceasing cross-fertilization across fences and boundaries.”
Wow. Can literature, or the arts, be any more delightful!
Kazuo Ishiguro, born Japanese but now living in England, and another Booker Prize winner, expresses similar views. In his January Magazine interview with Linda Richards (which I also cited in my previous post), Ishiguro stated, “That’s how I kind of branded myself right from the start: as somebody who didn’t know Japan deeply, writing in English whole books with only Japanese characters in. Trying to be part of the English literary scene like that.”
Like Ishiguro, who had moved to England as a child, Michael Ondaatje, also a Booker Prize winner, had moved to Canada from Sri Lanka at the age of eight and acquired Canadian citizenship along with his family. He has grown up in Canada and currently resides there with his Canadian family. Apart from a touch of Sri Lanka here and there (such as in ‘Running in the Family’ or in ‘Anil’s Ghost’), Ondaatje’s writing has always been peppered with an international flavour.
When I think about these authors, I often wonder how strong their intellectual allegiances are. I ask, how faithfully can these authors return to their pasts, to their countries of origin, in their novels and reproduce characters and scenes of native reality. Ishiguro seems to have a perfect answer for this: “it’s not really about describing a world that you know well and firsthand. It’s about describing stereotypes that exist in people’s heads all around the world and manipulating them engagingly.”
If this wasn’t enough, Coetzee gives another fascinating explanation. Speaking of Samuel Beckett (in the same Attwell interview I’ve mentioned earlier), Coetzee says: “Beckett was an Irishman and a European with no African connections at all. Yet in the hands of a dramatist of the sensitivity and skill of Athol Fugard, Beckett can be transplanted into South African surroundings in such a way that he seems almost native there. What does this show? That the history of the arts is a history of unceasing cross-fertilization across fences and boundaries.”
Wow. Can literature, or the arts, be any more delightful!
05 June 2007
A new internationalism
In the last thirty years, the contemporary Indian novelist (writing in English) isn’t the only one who has prospered. There have been others, with similar émigré backgrounds, who have acquired fame outside their home countries through works of great literary importance in the late 20th century… with some of it spilling over to this very moment. In my previous post, I had named three such authors – J M Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro and Michael Ondaatje – but my favourite would really be Brian Moore.
Brian Moore, Irish by birth, is not the typical émigré novelist. He is white and from the United Kingdom. The reason I remember him today (he passed away in 1999) is because, to me, Moore displayed many of the attributes of an émigré novelist, leaving his home in Ireland and migrating to Canada while in his twenties. He roughed it out as a journalist for several years before turning to writing novels. All through his life, he was haunted by guilt, loss of faith, alienation and isolation and, from what I’ve read about him, he was never at home anywhere. Moore could have been a character in his own novels.
However, Moore did set the trend for the émigré novelist which Salman Rushdie, much later, defined so eloquently as the writer looking back and seeing life through a broken mirror. Or, the characters with broken lives coming from divided worlds, and with divided loyalties, which Coetzee, Ishiguro and Ondaatje (among others) created and described in their novels a quarter of a century later. As far as the English-language novel goes, I tend to think Brian Moore’s immigrant writing paved the way, and set the mood, for a new kind of international novel.
Rushdie was one of the first authors to ride on this road, but it was Ishiguro who actually voiced this sentiment – this new phenomenon – in the international literary world clearly. In an interview by Linda Richards in January Magazine, Ishiguro had said that, in the early eighties, there was “a great hunger for this kind of new internationalism.” That, “publishers in London and literary critics and journalists in London suddenly wanted to discover a new generation of writers who would be quite different from your typical older generation of English writer.”
This new phenomenon clearly put aside (some of my favourite) English authors such as John Mortimer, Malcolm Bradbury, David Lodge and Angus Wilson, and introduced a new generation of authors who wrote about the world as they saw it – not as an Englishman, but through the multicultural eyes of an émigré. It introduced a cultural blend which only émigré writers writing in English could offer its readers, critics and publishers.
The focus automatically shifted to the post-colonial world – the Commonwealth for a start – for its bevy of writers. And the rest, I suppose, is literary history. This new generation of international writers went on to win the Booker, the Nobel and other literary prizes around the world… and adorn the bookshelves of millions of readers like you and me.
[Although Brian Moore had won several literary prizes in his life, he did not win the Booker. He was nominated for it thrice.]
Brian Moore, Irish by birth, is not the typical émigré novelist. He is white and from the United Kingdom. The reason I remember him today (he passed away in 1999) is because, to me, Moore displayed many of the attributes of an émigré novelist, leaving his home in Ireland and migrating to Canada while in his twenties. He roughed it out as a journalist for several years before turning to writing novels. All through his life, he was haunted by guilt, loss of faith, alienation and isolation and, from what I’ve read about him, he was never at home anywhere. Moore could have been a character in his own novels.
However, Moore did set the trend for the émigré novelist which Salman Rushdie, much later, defined so eloquently as the writer looking back and seeing life through a broken mirror. Or, the characters with broken lives coming from divided worlds, and with divided loyalties, which Coetzee, Ishiguro and Ondaatje (among others) created and described in their novels a quarter of a century later. As far as the English-language novel goes, I tend to think Brian Moore’s immigrant writing paved the way, and set the mood, for a new kind of international novel.
Rushdie was one of the first authors to ride on this road, but it was Ishiguro who actually voiced this sentiment – this new phenomenon – in the international literary world clearly. In an interview by Linda Richards in January Magazine, Ishiguro had said that, in the early eighties, there was “a great hunger for this kind of new internationalism.” That, “publishers in London and literary critics and journalists in London suddenly wanted to discover a new generation of writers who would be quite different from your typical older generation of English writer.”
This new phenomenon clearly put aside (some of my favourite) English authors such as John Mortimer, Malcolm Bradbury, David Lodge and Angus Wilson, and introduced a new generation of authors who wrote about the world as they saw it – not as an Englishman, but through the multicultural eyes of an émigré. It introduced a cultural blend which only émigré writers writing in English could offer its readers, critics and publishers.
The focus automatically shifted to the post-colonial world – the Commonwealth for a start – for its bevy of writers. And the rest, I suppose, is literary history. This new generation of international writers went on to win the Booker, the Nobel and other literary prizes around the world… and adorn the bookshelves of millions of readers like you and me.
[Although Brian Moore had won several literary prizes in his life, he did not win the Booker. He was nominated for it thrice.]
03 June 2007
On foreign land
It’s interesting to note that although many Indian authors writing in English live in the UK, the US and Canada, their stories are mostly about India. Typically, there are three themes that run through their stories:
One, stories in India about Indian life. Two, stories in India about Indian life where Indian immigrants return to India from their new home for a brief spell. And three, stories about Indian immigrants in their new home on foreign land.
This is true because of the authors’ familiarity with both cultures… and the histories and geographies of both countries. Without this background, it is difficult to accomplish their tasks as Indian writers telling the world about India. It actually enables writing of this immigrant kind. My guess is, these writers draw heavily upon both (a) their memories of their old countries and (b) their personal experiences of, and responses to, their new homes.
This qualification gives them an edge over India’s home-grown writers who depend entirely upon their Indian experience. Indian home-grown writers not only lack the magic of immigrant experience, but, because of their lack of knowledge of foreign land, the people there and their customs, they desperately fall short in their ability to relate to, and please, Western readers.
Western readers, in turn, are enamoured by Indian writing in English – particularly by the works of those writers who are able to showcase the best of both worlds.
Mind you, this is true not of Indian writing in English alone, but encompasses writers of other countries as well. By that, I mean writers who share the experience of the immigrant kind and, yet, are able to relate to readers of both countries, old and new. J M Coetzee (South Africa, Australia), Kazuo Ishiguro (Japan, the UK) and Michael Ondatjee (Sri Lanka, Canada and the world) are three names that come to mind immediately.
In doing so, they emerge as global writers whose writing appeals to a much larger global readership. They may live on foreign land for the moment, but their writing endears them to a much larger audience.
One, stories in India about Indian life. Two, stories in India about Indian life where Indian immigrants return to India from their new home for a brief spell. And three, stories about Indian immigrants in their new home on foreign land.
This is true because of the authors’ familiarity with both cultures… and the histories and geographies of both countries. Without this background, it is difficult to accomplish their tasks as Indian writers telling the world about India. It actually enables writing of this immigrant kind. My guess is, these writers draw heavily upon both (a) their memories of their old countries and (b) their personal experiences of, and responses to, their new homes.
This qualification gives them an edge over India’s home-grown writers who depend entirely upon their Indian experience. Indian home-grown writers not only lack the magic of immigrant experience, but, because of their lack of knowledge of foreign land, the people there and their customs, they desperately fall short in their ability to relate to, and please, Western readers.
Western readers, in turn, are enamoured by Indian writing in English – particularly by the works of those writers who are able to showcase the best of both worlds.
Mind you, this is true not of Indian writing in English alone, but encompasses writers of other countries as well. By that, I mean writers who share the experience of the immigrant kind and, yet, are able to relate to readers of both countries, old and new. J M Coetzee (South Africa, Australia), Kazuo Ishiguro (Japan, the UK) and Michael Ondatjee (Sri Lanka, Canada and the world) are three names that come to mind immediately.
In doing so, they emerge as global writers whose writing appeals to a much larger global readership. They may live on foreign land for the moment, but their writing endears them to a much larger audience.
01 June 2007
Look back
In one of my recent posts on the contemporary Indian novel, I had mentioned a point raised by Salman Rushdie. That of the tendency of Indian authors living outside India to look back at their old country with a sense of nostalgia, with “some sense of loss.” As expressed in their writing, this feeling seems to be common among all immigrant authors – ‘immigrant’ from the perspective of the new country – and is perhaps because they wish, as Rushdie suggests, “to reclaim” what they no longer have.
This may be true for Salman Rushdie, and more so for authors like Bharati Mukherjee, Anita Desai, Amitav Ghosh or Vikram Seth who were born and brought up in India, but I am surprised when people include V S Naipaul and Jhumpa Lahiri in this list of Indian authors. After all, to reclaim, you must possess it first; and neither Naipaul nor Lahiri were born, or ever lived, in India. So, when Naipaul and Lahiri “look back” what do they see? Do they see the India you and I live in? What is it that makes them “look back” and see India, a place they have never lived in, nor experienced the way you and I do everyday?
This reminds me of an interesting comment that Amitav Ghosh had made at the 2002 International Festival of Indian Literature at the Neemrana Fort Palace in Rajasthan, which I quote here from a February 2002 News India Times article ‘Two worlds of Indian writing meet, hesitantly’ by Anindita Ramaswamy:
“...Amitav Ghosh, who is equally at home in New York or Kolkata, told IANS that he sees himself clearly as an Indian writer. “I think an Indian writer is one who is willing to be called an Indian writer. For example, Naipaul, who has never lived in India nor has written much about India, I am sure feels that he is an Indian writer.” Ghosh said that the definition of Indianness surfaces more prominently when one is abroad.”
Mr Ghosh, I am an ardent fan of yours, but I cannot agree with you here entirely. In fact, I’m not even sure if you are 100% sure of what you are saying. Having been an immigrant myself, I can confirm that the ‘consciousness of being Indian’ surfaces when one is in a foreign land. But, to include in it people who have never been Indian is a fallacy. I believe Mr Naipaul’s writing is a product of his imagination and his skill. I applaud him for that. I cannot call him an Indian writer.
This may be true for Salman Rushdie, and more so for authors like Bharati Mukherjee, Anita Desai, Amitav Ghosh or Vikram Seth who were born and brought up in India, but I am surprised when people include V S Naipaul and Jhumpa Lahiri in this list of Indian authors. After all, to reclaim, you must possess it first; and neither Naipaul nor Lahiri were born, or ever lived, in India. So, when Naipaul and Lahiri “look back” what do they see? Do they see the India you and I live in? What is it that makes them “look back” and see India, a place they have never lived in, nor experienced the way you and I do everyday?
This reminds me of an interesting comment that Amitav Ghosh had made at the 2002 International Festival of Indian Literature at the Neemrana Fort Palace in Rajasthan, which I quote here from a February 2002 News India Times article ‘Two worlds of Indian writing meet, hesitantly’ by Anindita Ramaswamy:
“...Amitav Ghosh, who is equally at home in New York or Kolkata, told IANS that he sees himself clearly as an Indian writer. “I think an Indian writer is one who is willing to be called an Indian writer. For example, Naipaul, who has never lived in India nor has written much about India, I am sure feels that he is an Indian writer.” Ghosh said that the definition of Indianness surfaces more prominently when one is abroad.”
Mr Ghosh, I am an ardent fan of yours, but I cannot agree with you here entirely. In fact, I’m not even sure if you are 100% sure of what you are saying. Having been an immigrant myself, I can confirm that the ‘consciousness of being Indian’ surfaces when one is in a foreign land. But, to include in it people who have never been Indian is a fallacy. I believe Mr Naipaul’s writing is a product of his imagination and his skill. I applaud him for that. I cannot call him an Indian writer.
30 May 2007
How strange
If you have read my previous posts on the contemporary Indian novel, you would have got the feeling that it is one which is necessarily written in English. That, the contemporary Indian novel is not written in one of India’s 22-odd nationally-accepted vernacular languages, and then translated into English. No, it is clearly written and published in the English language. And, most likely, it is published outside India.
Not only that, there is a great chance that it may be, later, translated into European languages like French, German, Spanish, Portuguese or several other languages around the world. But, it is not likely to be translated into any one of India’s vernacular languages. It is likely to remain as a published work for, perhaps, 10% of India’s English language novel reading population.
I have often wondered how strange this is. How strange it is to have a body of work written in English, a language foreign to the greater population of India, represent India as its literature to the wider world. I have wondered how strange it is to have a body of work, supposedly from India, written by authors most of whom don’t even live in India. Or, at least, not anymore.
It’s not that these Indian authors are in exile like Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Milan Kundera. These Indian authors have left India and migrated to another country for better opportunities for themselves. Or, a few, like Jhumpa Lahiri or Pico Iyer or the ubiquitous V S Naipaul, have always lived away from India. Their only attribute (or qualificator, as someone once told me) is Indian parentage.
Yet, today, these authors represent my country and me to the world at large. I find this strange. I find this strange when I consider the huge body (perhaps I should call it treasure) of Indian literature, written in India’s own vernacular languages, which is a truer representation of life in India, and yet, which is being overlooked by the literary world.
And so, I ask myself, to what extent does this contemporary Indian novel have the right to represent me and my life in India... and be called Indian literature.
Not only that, there is a great chance that it may be, later, translated into European languages like French, German, Spanish, Portuguese or several other languages around the world. But, it is not likely to be translated into any one of India’s vernacular languages. It is likely to remain as a published work for, perhaps, 10% of India’s English language novel reading population.
I have often wondered how strange this is. How strange it is to have a body of work written in English, a language foreign to the greater population of India, represent India as its literature to the wider world. I have wondered how strange it is to have a body of work, supposedly from India, written by authors most of whom don’t even live in India. Or, at least, not anymore.
It’s not that these Indian authors are in exile like Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Milan Kundera. These Indian authors have left India and migrated to another country for better opportunities for themselves. Or, a few, like Jhumpa Lahiri or Pico Iyer or the ubiquitous V S Naipaul, have always lived away from India. Their only attribute (or qualificator, as someone once told me) is Indian parentage.
Yet, today, these authors represent my country and me to the world at large. I find this strange. I find this strange when I consider the huge body (perhaps I should call it treasure) of Indian literature, written in India’s own vernacular languages, which is a truer representation of life in India, and yet, which is being overlooked by the literary world.
And so, I ask myself, to what extent does this contemporary Indian novel have the right to represent me and my life in India... and be called Indian literature.
25 May 2007
The contemporary Indian novel – IV
I don’t understand it. In spite of V S Naipaul not having any good things to say about India, we are eager to embrace him as an Indian author. In spite of V S Naipaul claiming his Nobel Prize as a citizen of Trinidad & Tobago and the United Kingdom, we are craving for his company as an Indian author. In spite of V S Naipaul not being India-born or having lived in India for a substantial period of time (for instance, like William Dalrymple), we are willing to include him in our fold as an Indian author.
What is it with us Indians? Are we so much in need of talent and recognition that we have to borrow from the world outside – even from those who clearly distinguish themselves as not being Indian, or not being an Indian author? If we were to go by V S Naipaul’s own comments on the Hindi film as ‘not reflecting reality’ and ‘concealing the truth’, are we not indulging in exactly that same thing when we welcome him as an Indian author?
It’s strange that the authors who are recognised by the international literary world as Indian authors are the ones who don’t stay in India. They are the ones whose notions of India, as recorded in their writing, reflect an India which she is not. Or, perhaps has not been for many years. Writing from the UK or the US or Canada, these writers are creating a picture of India which is imaginary. They are creating an Indian identity which bears little resemblance to the reality. And yet, the whole world is accepting it as the truth.
I remember Salman Rushdie bringing up this point many years ago in a bit of non-fiction ‘The Eye of the Beholder: Indian Writing in English’ for the Commonwealth Institute. Rushdie suggested that the portrayal of India by Indian authors writing in English may be warped, skewed and distorted. He mentioned the habit of ‘looking back’ that Indian authors writing in English irrevocably practised. According to Rushdie,
“…exiles or emigrants or expatriates, are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back, even at the risk of being mutated into pillars of salt. But if we do look back, we must also do so in the knowledge — which gives rise to profound uncertainties — that our physical alienation from India almost inevitably means that we will not be capable of reclaiming precisely the thing that was lost; that we will, in short, create fictions, not actual cities or villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands, Indias of the mind.”
But, besides me, and maybe a line-up of India’s own regional language authors who feel the need to assert themselves to clear the picture, no one is complaining. After all, writing is all about readership. And, the strength of the readership for the contemporary Indian novel lies with the Western world.
What is it with us Indians? Are we so much in need of talent and recognition that we have to borrow from the world outside – even from those who clearly distinguish themselves as not being Indian, or not being an Indian author? If we were to go by V S Naipaul’s own comments on the Hindi film as ‘not reflecting reality’ and ‘concealing the truth’, are we not indulging in exactly that same thing when we welcome him as an Indian author?
It’s strange that the authors who are recognised by the international literary world as Indian authors are the ones who don’t stay in India. They are the ones whose notions of India, as recorded in their writing, reflect an India which she is not. Or, perhaps has not been for many years. Writing from the UK or the US or Canada, these writers are creating a picture of India which is imaginary. They are creating an Indian identity which bears little resemblance to the reality. And yet, the whole world is accepting it as the truth.
I remember Salman Rushdie bringing up this point many years ago in a bit of non-fiction ‘The Eye of the Beholder: Indian Writing in English’ for the Commonwealth Institute. Rushdie suggested that the portrayal of India by Indian authors writing in English may be warped, skewed and distorted. He mentioned the habit of ‘looking back’ that Indian authors writing in English irrevocably practised. According to Rushdie,
“…exiles or emigrants or expatriates, are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to look back, even at the risk of being mutated into pillars of salt. But if we do look back, we must also do so in the knowledge — which gives rise to profound uncertainties — that our physical alienation from India almost inevitably means that we will not be capable of reclaiming precisely the thing that was lost; that we will, in short, create fictions, not actual cities or villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands, Indias of the mind.”
But, besides me, and maybe a line-up of India’s own regional language authors who feel the need to assert themselves to clear the picture, no one is complaining. After all, writing is all about readership. And, the strength of the readership for the contemporary Indian novel lies with the Western world.
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