Women bloggers offer tips on work-life balance

MUMBAI: Hushed up ladies' room talk on how to strike home work place balance is growing into a stronger voice, with several women business leaders blogging to support ambitious women who don't want to give up everything for corporate success.

While gender diversity may be helping organisations become better work places, the situation is far from perfect. Office-going women often become victims of taunts as they struggle to juggle between their professional and more challenging domestic responsibilities.

"I leave work at 5:30 pm. This is a dirty little secret of my work life. In my 22 years in advertising I have not given JWT my nights," Swati Bhattacharya, a creative director with advertising agency JWT, wrote in a blog on 'the ladies finger', a newly launched women's e-magazine.

"I know many of my male colleagues have judged me and hinted that I'm a slacker. They've looked at the watch pointedly around 5.30 pm and said isn't it time for you to pack up?"

Her blog, criticizing such taunts, was shared, tweeted and forwarded several times over. Bhattacharya is one of several women high up on the corporate ladder who are using the Internet's wide reach to motivate and support female office-goers . Nita Kapoor, executive vice-president at Godfrey Philips, urges women to allow themselves to "not be perfect".

"When I ask my women executives to describe a satisfying life, they often envision a scenario in which they want to please their bosses, mother-in-laws and husbands — strike a perfect balance between work and life. This is where the trouble starts. I'd like to tell them this concept of work-life balance is a false dichotomy and you can stop beating yourself up trying to achieve it. After all, why do you think you need it? Because someone else said so..." she says. "If we, women, assert ourselves, people perceive us as feminist. If we are softer, we aren't seen as strong leaders. But to climb the ladder, women have to navigate this double bind. Moreover, women need to stop over-thinking, over-reacting and also over apologizing,"

Kapoor writes in her blog, cause it works. Similar sentiments have been expressed by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, who reportedly leaves office at 5:30 pm most days to be with her two young children and husband. Sandberg's blogs and her best-selling book, 'Lean In', which advise on how to make the best of available opportunities, have won her millions of fans among working women.

Bias at the work place is not new. It has been popular subject for cinema almost from the time women started stepping into the corporate world. But what makes it difficult to overturn is its tenacious roots in cultural norms. Women who standing up against it are now increasingly using blogs and social media to express their views.

"Indian children are taught not to speak out to their elders or air their opinion, and because of this early training, many women don't openly discuss their career aspirations—either at home or at work," writes Shachi Irde India, executive director of Catalyst India, an organisation that works to create and expand opportunities for women in the corporate sector. "In addition, India's patriarchal society gives preference to the male child. Boys are taught to shoulder family responsibilities, while girls are brought up to be submissive."

Radio City chief executive Apurva Purohit, who has turned her blog posts into a book, writes, "The country presents a fascinating paradox: on the one hand, more women than ever are asserting their rights; on the other hand, many remain subjugated." While the likes of Bhattacharya and Kapoor are lending their names to the debate, others are joining the conversation under pseudonyms for fear of a backlash. Anonymity on the Internet makes it easy for women to report such cases, says Saloni Malhotra, entrepreneur and co-founder of the blog site Safecity.in. Kapoor says she blogs to address issues that nag her.

"In the process, if it becomes a learning and feedback material for my female colleagues, I am more than happy," she adds. "These blogs have become a forum for women to share views and insights on tackling work life balance guilt, handling a boss, raising a baby or managing a mother-in-law. The next one I will write is 10 questions to my younger self."
Purohit's book, 'Lady, don't be a man', which draws inspiration from Sandberg, offers tips to working women—who are wives, mothers, daughter-in-laws and daughters—on how to make it to the top without resorting to pumping testosterone or male bashing. "Such blogs are more a discussion forum where women can open up about anything they want—from bad bosses to office spouses, from stilettos to mojitos, from babies to boyfriends.

Sitting at our desks, we will have ended up building an entire support system of soul sisters and friends in arms," she writes. While some women business leaders are using social media to offer tips on work-life balance, others are using the platform to initiate discussions pertinent to their business. A popular figure in the second category is Biocon chief Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, who engages actively with her followers and detractors on the micro-blogging site twitter.