Sheetal Munshaw, Director, Atout France India feels that concepts such as International Women’s Day are losing their significance and we should be focusing more on redefining gender roles and creating an equitable environment for both men and women.
How important is IWD for you and why?
In these days of championing the cause of gender equality, concepts such as International Women’s Day are losing their significance. In today’s day and age, we should be focusing more on redefining gender roles and creating an equitable environment for both men and women for them to equally adapt and handle any situation as required.
Do you really think that women, in a fast-changing technology and modern age, needs empowerment? How did you develop confidence in yourself?
Today’s woman is fully empowered to take on any role and any challenge that she deems fit. Women have shown their efficiency in successfully balancing both their professional and personal lives and the recent pandemic and the work from home situation has reinforced this notion.
While women constitute 54% of the work force in global travel, tourism and hospitality industry. This percentage is abysmally low at the top level?
More and more women are now occupying key strategic posts across various verticals, and I do believe that this number will only grow as time progresses. On a global level, too, women are occupying leadership positions including the tourism domain.
What sort of challenges do you face at workplace as well as balancing work-family life?
I think this challenge is not unique it is faced by most women and a lot of men too. With role reversals, blurring of defined roles for men and women this is an ongoing challenge – striking a balance between your personal and professional lives. It is in the end it’s a very personal choice as to how one decides or chooses to toe or draw the line in order to achieve an equilibrium.
One school of thought suggest that women themselves are one of the hindrances in the growth of the women. What is your take on this?
In an Indian context it can be true to a certain extent. The societal make up sets very high and daunting expectations on women by and large and leads to disruption. Being quickly judgmental about working women vis-à-vis their involvement in their homes and family lives are commonplace in our environment.
On the other hand, it also really depends on what one perceives as growth … is it only in the form of remuneration and designations, is it through versatility and learning? Is it also growth as a person and in your ability to work with varied cultures, genders, ages and manage people, time and priorities? Is it growth as a partner as you evolve and are more inclusive or as a parent as you nurture the future that awaits? Finally, it’s not about how people men or women pull you down its about how you choose to rise above and accept yourself.
What are your suggestions to younger generation?
The younger generation from what I perceive is often being raised very differently than ours. Boys are being taught cooking and managing household chores as life skills in order to help them find better balance in their homes and girls are sometimes taught to break away from stereotypical boundaries and to steer away from domesticated tasks. It is also a generation of Instant gratification and to a large extent a sense of entitlement. While the world has changed and opened up a slew of opportunities my only appeal to the younger generation is to strike a defined balance between the reel and the real. And to imbibe the current preoccupations such as sustainability, diversity, inclusion, humility and passion for their pursuits in their everyday living as we have learnt in the wake of the pandemic the hard hitting reality of not being able to take anything for granted.
