There is a deep connect between banks and the average Indian woman. Not just because she is the home-maker, handles the family budgets and so on. No, it’s just that for the longest time, several decades really, banking is one of the few sectors that society has approved as an apt profession for women, especially, back in 70s, 80s and 90s. It’s strange really, considering the enormous power wielded by a woman who handles money. But society and many of the older generations till today considered banking to be the only genteel profession (apart from teaching) that a ‘good woman’ can take up.
They argue that banking has regular hours, which means that the woman can come home in time to cook food for everybody and take care of the children. Because if a career woman, one of those strange alien breeds in the 60s and 70s, had to work, it had to be without compromise to her in-laws and her duty to her husband and children. And the only answer to that was banking. One can almost hear that geriatric relative in everybody’s family saying, “Why are you doing MBA? What will your future husband say about you working late nights? Do banking, then you can work in a branch near your house itself and come home by 5 PM to take care of your house.” Small wonder then women make up for most of the workforce in the banking sector today. However, contrary to what people think, the banking sector is not really that friendly to women, it seems.
One of the worst discriminatory acts practised by companies is practised by banks, who regularly subject their new female employees to pregnancy tests before completing the hiring process. “It is invading a person’s privacy. The bank just wants to ensure that a recruit does not have a problem later in cases of transfer. Banks also want to ensure they would not have to find a replacement immediately after being recruited,” a banker, who is familiar with the practice told Economic Times, on conditions of anonymity.
And we are talking about this practice, because, oddly enough, the topic came into the limelight when some of the banks scrapped this practice because of a dearth of talent and rising competition. Well, yes, of course, because misogyny rarely ever comes cheap. There’s always a price to pay.
The irony here is that banking is one sector where there are many women who have risen to the topmost positions within their organisation, gladdening the feminists inside us. But then surely, if they were the women at the top, they must have known about this recruitment policy. That only makes the whole issue worse. ET has reported that AXIS bank recently scrapped this procedure while sources told ET that even banks like ICICI and HDFC have been known to conduct such tests.
But the worst part about the entire episode is the kind of pressure it puts on women. On the one hand, many career women are constantly under pressure to get married, quit their jobs, have babies and stay at home, taking care of them. On the other hand, we have this kind of roughhouse tactic employed by organisations who tell you in no uncertain terms that ‘We don’t care for your working capabilities, only for your baby-making abilities (or lack of them). We just want our financial margins to remain healthy.’
This is just a worse version of the whole maternity benefits issue, where companies are reluctant to hand out paid maternity leave and some other basic benefits like flexi-schedule to their female employees because it makes them shell out money. Faced with a tough choice, the employee eventually quits. The companies are wrong in their approach say studies that have proven that it’s far more expensive to hire new recruits and train them instead of paying maternity benefits to their existing employees.
Speaking about women achievers in banking, an article in ET quoted Shubhalakshmi Panse, Chairman and Managing Director of Allahabad Bank as saying that these women are ‘very flexible’ and that ‘works in their favour’. But the question here is, when will the banks return that flexibility?
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