Multi Disciplinary Edu Global Quest (Quarterly), Volume 2, Issue 4#8, October 2013

ENGENDERING THE PROFESSIONS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN

Dr. Sarla A Santwani

Principal
Dr. H.R.Gajwani College of Education, Adipur, Kachchh
Sarla.santwani@gmail.com
(M) 9924904755

ABSTRACT

Today, we find an increasing number of women in various professions, including the so-called
male-dominated professions like Engineering, Management, Finance, Police, Defense and so on.
However, very few reach the highest ranks in the professions. „Higher the fewer‟ appropriately
describes the position of women in professions. The graph of their professional development and
advancement is far from satisfactory. This is due to socio-cultural, psychological and
professional barriers which they face. Several studies have pointed out the under-achievement of
professional women. Most of these studies have focused on the socio-cultural and psychological
barriers hindering their professional development but not much attention has been paid to the
barriers inbuilt in the very structures, organizations and professional ethos of the professions
which even today remain male-oriented. As a result, they fail to accommodate and integrate the
women professionals easily. This male-orientation of the professions also hinders their
professional development and advancement. This paper aims at throwing light on the specific
barriers, which arise out of the structuring, organization and ethos of the professions. The paper
suggests engendering of the professions as a solution to this and offers some measures as to how
this can be achieved.
Key words: professional women, professional development, barriers, professionalism.

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 Multi Disciplinary Edu Global Quest (Quarterly), Volume 2, Issue 4#8, October 2013

ENGENDERING THE PROFESSIONS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL

DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN

Dr. Sarla A Santwani

Principal
Dr. H.R.Gajwani College of Education, Adipur, Kachchh
Sarla.santwani@gmail.com
(M) 9924904755

In the post independent India, our constitution, based on the principles of equality, liberty
and fraternity conferred equal rights on women in all the spheres, particularly franchise,
education and employment. Education for women was emphasized the most as an instrument to
bring about social change. It was expected that education would make them aware of their own
identities and roles in society by emphasizing their productive roles in different public domains.
It was also envisaged that education would enable Indian women to define their position in
society in a more active manner, by equipping them with knowledge and skills to make them
economically independent and present before them new alternatives and choices. The Indian
Education commission (1964-66), recommended linking up of higher education for women with
their employment. The National Policy on Education (1968) stressed women‟s education not
only on the grounds of social justice but also for social transformation. The National Policy on
Education (1986), stated, “Education would be used as an agent to bring about a basic change in
the status of women” and the “national education system would play a „positive interventionist
role in the empowerment of women.”

Following this, all the subsequent central and state governments have taken various steps to raise
women‟s status through education and by increasing their employment opportunities. As
education has direct bearing on employment, parallel to the increased literacy rate among Indian
women, their employment rate also increased. Their entry into work-force began with
occupations like teaching and nursing but gradually they succeeded into making forays into
almost all the professions, including the so-called male-dominated professions, such as Law,
Engineering, Public Service, Management, Finance, Police, Defense, Finance etc. and
established themselves in the positions of power and prestige. For many professional women of

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 Multi Disciplinary Edu Global Quest (Quarterly), Volume 2, Issue 4#8, October 2013

today, their work is not just for survival or supplementing the family income but to realize their
potential and to contribute to society.

However, this is just one side of the picture. Although the numerical graph of the Indian women
in professions seems to be impressive, the graph of their professional development and
advancement leaves much to be attained. „Higher the fewer‟ appropriately describes the position
of women in professions. Only a few women are able to reach up to the highest ranks in the
professions. A majority of them stagnate at the middle or lower level, doing repetitive jobs.

Some of the research findings also support this. Desai (1977) refers to “a lower need felt by
women for professional competence and advancement.” Gurnani and Sheth (1984) in their study
of women in scientific professions make the following observations: (1) Being late entrants in
the scientific professions, the proportion of women in science is relatively small. (2) The
majority of them are employed at policy-making level (3) Women feel quite strongly that their
male colleagues and superiors do not accept them professionally (4) Their choice of science as a
profession is yet restricted to its use value, as an instrument for making life more convenient.
Only a few women consider science careers in order to express their womanliness, individuality
or to achieve attitudinal changes in outlook and (5) As professional women scientists, Indian
women do not live in isolation from their culture. They continue to consider their family roles
more important than their professional roles. Ahmad (1984) observes “women not setting higher
career targets.” Krishnaraj (1977), in a study related to women in occupations requiring higher
education, concludes that „women were in lower positions relative to men and relative to their
qualifications.‟

Cole & Cole (1973), in a study exploring the phenomenon of unequal participation of women in
scientific professions and discrimination faced by them in U.S.A. concludes that “women
scientists regardless of their marital status or size of the families produced fewer scientific papers
or papers of lesser impact and women were not frequently promoted to senior positions as men,
especially in the better universities”.

The above stated research findings clearly reveal the underachievement of professional women
in various professions, more specifically in so-called masculine professions. This is due to

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certain barriers which women professionals face. These barriers may be divided broadly into
following three categories.

 Socio-cultural Barriers
 Psychological Barriers
 Barriers arising out of the structuring, organization and ethos of the professions.

A lot has been written and researched about the socio-cultural and psychological barriers such as
agrarian family set-up and the socialization of Indian women in such family set ups, gender-
stereotypes and the resultant self-image of women, prescribed gender-roles and expectations of
society from women to confirm to these roles, role-conflict of working women, conditioning or
mind set of women themselves and society at large. However, not enough attention has been paid
to the barriers arising out of the structuring, organizations, professional ethos and the given
concept of professionalism. The discussion that follows throws light on how this set of barriers
hinders the professional development and advancement of professional women.

Patriarchal structures of the professions: The patriarchal structures of professions with their male
orientations affect professional women adversely. Since women were not a part of professions
during the origins of the professions, professional settings (designs of the work-places, furniture
& infrastructure of the work places etc), work-patterns (timings, commuting to work places,
transfers, traveling for office assignments etc) and work-ethos (professional relationships,
professional net-working, reward systems etc) have been designed from male perspectives hence
women professionals find difficult to adjust and perform their duties efficiently. Often this leads
to the marginalization of women in the professions, especially in the so-called masculine
professions such as Law, Public Service, Engineering, Management, Scientific and technological
professions etc.

Stereo-types about the professions: Like the stereotypes about the socio-cultural roles of men and
women; there also prevail stereotypes about various professions, in terms of their suitability for a
particular gender. The professions like Teaching and Nursing are believed to be more suitable for
women as they are more or less extensions of their socio-cultural roles On the other hand, Law,
Public Administration, Engineering, Management and Scientific/Technological professions are
considered more suitable for men because these require toughness, objective thinking and

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decision making. Most of the young men and women, consciously or unconsciously make their
career decisions on the basis of these stereotypes. There is no wonder that we find a few men in
the professions such as Teaching at school level and Nursing because they are labeled as
„feminine‟ and few women in „Public Administration‟ and „Management‟ as these carry a tag of
„masculinity‟ with them. The matter of concern here is that we often find reluctance on the part
of the employers to employ women in male-dominated professions.

Professional Relationships: Professional Relations between the genders also pose certain
problems. Since no orientation is provided about this in the professional preparation
programmes, professional relations tend to be just the extensions of social relations. Men and
women both tend to manifest gender specific behaviors in the professional settings. Men tend to
dominate, exploit or even control women in the professional set ups. Women tend to expect
instructions/guidelines from men rather than taking independent decisions. Male colleagues
reluctantly accept them as equals and subordinates resent taking instructions and orders from
women superiors.

Absence of women‟s professional networks and peer support: The professions are socially
organized like communities and as such they involve informal roles and practices which tend
towards homogeneity or exclusionary relations. This is carried out through professional networks
which propagate professional culture. Within this network, social relations with one‟s peers and
colleagues bring opportunities for professional advancement. The women professionals who are
excluded from such professional networks are likely to find themselves disadvantaged when it
comes to professional opportunities. Our social and cultural taboos inhibit women to mix freely
with members of opposite sex hence they hesitate to become an integral part of male networks.
This often deprives them not only of the shared professional knowledge and experiences that
enrich professionals but also of the „soft information and messages‟ transmitted within the
informal chats and sessions of the professionals which are equally important for the professional
development and advancement. They often remain uniformed about such subtle internal politics
of the professions. They shy away from voicing their opinions and views in the professional
forums. If there any injustice is meted out to them, they feel scared to protest or even complain.
There is a need for women‟s net-works within professions. But here too the problem is women

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are not able to mobilize themselves strongly. Much remains to be done for fostering solidarity
among women.

Dearth of Female Professional Role-Models and Mentors: Indian Culture, by way of scriptures,
mythology and religious beliefs imposes role-models such as Sita & Savitri on Indian women
and are expected to emulate such role models. Women, who have assimilated such role-models
psychologically, find it difficult to adopt professional role-models which are products of modern,
industrial society. Ahamd Karuna (1984) refers to low professional commitment of women
resulting from their role perceptions and self images imbibed through processes of socialization.
G.Bhargava (1982) studied sex-differences in the professional identifications of medical students
wherein he conceptualized professional identification as career commitment, career satisfaction
and professional self-image and found that the scores of women were quite lower than men‟.
Moreover, on account of small number of women professionals who have really „made big‟ in
professions, there is dearth of female role-models, who may be emulated by young and aspiring
professional women. The dearth of such female role-models also deprives the young and aspiring
young career women of mentoring and sponsorship system.

Professional Ethos: The male oriented work-ethos and the male defined concepts related to
professions result in one major problem which women professionals, particularly in the so-called
male dominated professions face. This is popularly known as „marginalization‟ of women.
Women within the professions are marginalized through a variety of subtle mechanisms. They
are deliberately excluded from various professional activities like meetings, conferences,
collective decision-making etc. The stereotyped image of a professional is that of a male who
professional who single-mindedly pursues profession. He along with other males of the same
profession forms professional net-works wherein mutual interactions, support and sometimes
even competitiveness help him to rise in the profession. In case of women professionals, because
of compelling demands of their social roles, they are unable to pursue professions single-
mindedly even if they want to. Adhering to professional culture becomes even more difficult as
there are fewer women in professions than men, which makes it difficult to form women‟s
network.

Concept of Professionalism: It is not just the structuring of the professions but the basic concept
of professionalism with its components such as professional commitment, accountability, and

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pursuit of professional excellence which are also defined from male perspective, ignoring the
social reality of women. On analyzing this concept, one realizes that it demands „all or nothing
approach‟ and call for identifying oneself with the professional image. Spencer and Podmore
(1987), while enumerating the factors which contribute to the marginalization of women in male
dominated professions make a note of “all or nothing kind of definition preaching total
commitment, molding one‟s entire personality and life-style to suit the requirements of the
profession, professional image and emphasizing professional socialization (professional culture)
for a professional‟. In case of men, the professional image being akin to their social image, they
are in a much better position than women professionals in whose case the professional image is
opposite to the socially prescribed image hence they find it difficult to identify with professional
images. Women failing to conform to these professional images are labeled as less competent.
Thus, they are also assessed by male criteria of competitiveness, aggressiveness and
combativeness ignoring their special and unique strengths.

Gender-biased criteria of professional assessment: Even the criteria to assess and evaluate the
performance and achievement of professional women are far from being fair, valid and reliable
to reflect correctly the truth about their professional performance and achievement. Although the
social reality of men and women is different, professional structures and ethos of most of the
professions favour male professionals; the criteria of professional assessment remain the same.
The observation that man is considered as competent just by virtue of his gender and if at all
needs to prove his incompetence whereas in case of a woman, she is preconceived as
incompetent and has to prove her competence. In such circumstances a woman has to put in at
least the double efforts than a man to prove her competence. An unpleasant fact here needs to be
mentioned. As our society values personal beauty and charm in a woman more than talent and
achievements, consciously or unconsciously this has seeped into the work spheres also. Often we
find that women in professions are judged on the basis of their personal charm and attractiveness
rather than knowledge or work efficiency. Women professionals must be assessed on the basis of
their knowledge and competence rather than on the basis of their physical attractiveness.

All the above discussed barriers which hinder professional women‟s professional development
and advancement must be addressed by engendering the professions. To put it in simpler words
all the professions need to and be made women-friendly in order to accommodate more number

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of women in the professions and facilitate their professional development and advancement.
Some of the measures which may lead in this direction are as follows:

 The physical structures of the work places and the furniture etc. within it should be
designed to make women professionals feel comfortable during their stay in work-places.
 The safety of professional women must be ensured, especially if they have to travel, work
alone or work during late hours.
 More flexibility should be adopted in the time schedules of professions through
arrangement of shifts so that instead of the single, compulsory time schedule for all,
professionals may choose working hours suitable to them. During pregnancy and
maternity women professionals may be encouraged to participate in the professional
activities through mobile and digital technology so that they may not become out of tune
with the professional life and lag behind, when they return later.
 The gender stereotypes about the socio-cultural roles as well as gender stereotypes about
professions should be eliminated through gender sensitization programmes, more
especially for male professionals who are reluctant to accept women professionals in the
positions of authority or even as equal colleagues.
 New methods of identifying, recruiting and promoting professionals should be evolved so
as to accommodate more women professionals.
 The success stories of the professional women who have „made big‟ should be projected
on a wider scale. The knowledge about the specific career paths these women had chosen
and the strategies they adopted to overcome the barriers will enlighten the young and
aspiring women professionals in paving their ways for successful professional careers.
 The senior and successful women professionals should adopt the novice professionals
and offer to become their mentors thereby grooming them as successful professionals.
 Enterprising women professionals should take initiative for mobilizing women
professionals and form women‟s professional net-works in order to provide professional
support to them.
 The professional preparation programmes should incorporate the gender perspective so
that men and women both become aware of the gender imbalances existent within the
professions and may gear up themselves to meet this challenge in productive ways.

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 The very concept of professionalism should be redefined in a gender balanced manner.

Some wider scaled surveys need to be conducted to find out the perceptions and opinions
of women professionals who are actually working in various professions in the present
times. Based on their experiences, challenges, aspirations, contributions, special
characteristics and behavior patterns which enhance or diminish their professional output,
a more empirical rather than theoretical and prescriptive definition of professionalism
should be evolved. There is also a need for profession-specific definition of
professionalism instead of an umbrella definition which prescribes the same ethos and
code of conduct for all.
 More gender balanced criteria of professional assessment should be evolved so as to
recognize the professional strengths and performance of women. The existent criteria
which mainly take into consideration the higher position a professional attains, the
financial rewards one gets from profession or the wider projection of a professional
which makes him/her famous in the profession, largely disadvantage women as these
often require pushiness and at times unscrupulous means, wherein women don‟t have an
upper edge. Instead of current monolithic criteria of professional assessment, a
multidimensional criteria may be evolved which will also recognize a professional‟s
excellence or contribution in a particular dimension of professionalism. (i.e. client
centered, institution centered, knowledge and skill centered professionalism etc.) This
will go a long way in making professional women‟s achievements „visible‟ which
otherwise are‟ invisible‟.
In conclusion, it may be reiterated that engendering the professions is needed in order to
ensure more women into the professions and to promote their professional development
and advancement during their professional careers.

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References

Ahmad, K., (1984), „The Social Context of Women‟s Education in India,‟ 1921-81, New
Frontiers of Education, 15 (3), pp 1-36

Bhargava, G., (1985), Professional Identification: a study of female students at a medical

college in India, Social Science & Medicine, 20 (11), pp. 1169-75,

Cole & Cole, (1973), „Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research,‟ 27, p. 215

Desai, N., (1977), „Women in Modern India,‟ Vora Publishing House, Bombay.

Gurnani S. & Sheth M., (1984), Social Action, 51, p. 399

Krishnaraj, M., (1983), „Research on Women and Work in the Seventies,‟ Research Unit on
Women‟s Studies, S.N.D.T. Women‟s University, Bombay

National policy on Education (1986), Ministry of Education, Government of India, New Delhi

Report of the Education Commission, 1964-66: Education & National development, Ministry of
Education, Government of India, 1966 New Delhi

Spencer & Podmore (1987), „In a Man's World: Essays on Women in Male-dominated
Professions,‟ Tavistock.

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