Are IT women Safe?

'Are IT Women Safe?' - A guy's Blog? Well, Yes..! And I was wondering if it should be 'Are Women Safe?' instead of saying 'Are IT Women safe?' Yup..! The head count of IT women is much greater than it was a couple of years back and this title sounded apt. wherever you go now, you are surely not the only IT person there. No, certainly not. And majority of my friends circle fall in IT.

I have this habit of talking like a gentleman from the Shakespearean Era, a bit philosophical. People who have talked to me for a few times would have sure noticed that (most certainly that’s why they escape when I start talking). And, do you think I would not have talked to any women on this topic? I certainly did. And the responses I received, here they are.

“IT women are certainly safe compared to women from other professions. They belong to and work in an educated environment where moral values and work ethics are followed to perfection” - An MBA final year Student in Chennai, a batch-mate of mine in under graduate course.

“Women are nowhere safe, leave alone IT.” - Another MBA final year Student in Coimbatore, a similar batch-mate of mine in under graduate course.

“Women are supposedly not safe in this world at all. However you categorize them, may it be working, non-working, IT, non-IT.” – A senior Software Architect in Bangalore.

“Come on, that’s a silly question. IT women live in hell everyday and I am a perfect example. You know that very well don’t you?” – A Software professional in Chennai, my best friend.

IT industry on the whole has created the illusion that it’s a high paying, highly ethical, highly modern and perfectly safe environment for women to work in. Thats really an illusion, isn’t it? A survey says 88.76 percent of women graduates from professional institutions feel IT is the best step in their career. And sadly, more than 80 percent of them vote against the decision in less than a year. What causes this? Is it because of the insecurities around them? Bingo! Yes, it could be physical or psychological or both. And, it could be within office as well as outside office.

IT industries are mostly concentrated in cities. And to a lot of people, these cities are not their home towns. They live away from their families and friends. Decisions, shopping, friends, etc are all on their own and obviously with no chance of help from their parents. That itself comes as a mental block. True stories of a girl’s life going astray just because of their parents staying away from them are one too many. One might right away point out these stories happened due to wrong judgments of the girls and not safety. Give me a few minutes, I am not done yet.

IT companies are usually concentrated in the outskirts of any city. And areas near those outskirts which were never residential area, areas where women would be scared to come out of their house after six in the evening, etc have now become the most sought after areas in the real estate graphs. Have these areas become completely sophisticated like what has become of the so called outskirts. Not really. The people and their mindsets still remain the same. I do agree that we have shuttles and cabs for transport. Let me ask everyone of you there. Are the women safe when they walk-back home from where they are dropped considering the time when they leave work? One of my friends has narrated four incidents when some guy was trying to misbehave when walking-back home and that too in the first two months she joined her dream company. You want to call it an isolated incident? Call it if you want but that’s not the case. And more shocking thing was these guys involved in a couple of these incidents were not the rogues of the locality but rather Software “Professionals”. When I asked my friend now, she says, “I am used to it. There is no other go.” One of my sincere prayers is that nothing serious happens to her.

Another devil under the pillow is the mobile phones. When I was doing my UG in Coimbatore, never have I seen even the most ill-mannered guy in college shooting out a wrong message or an unidentified call to a girl. May be mobiles had not gained much of an importance back then. Nowadays, I would say at least 40 percent of women, mainly in the IT industry where mobile phones have a major user list, receive more wrong calls than the actual right ones. Obviously guys do it and to them it’s the “Right” calls. And the messages that are sent across are even worse. The words would be easily censored in movies even. “Only god knows how they find out the numbers”, complained a girl who was sitting in front of me in my daily shuttle. In one of the cases, a colleague of mine was shocked to find that the other person had got her number from the office outlook. And in another case, the guy was a friend of the girl’s roommate. That’s a good example for a wrong decision of friendship and a wrong selection of people whom you select to stay with.

As I had mentioned previously, there is a misconception that IT women have a safe way of traveling. Yes, to a certain level on working days. How do they commute during holidays or on chances of shopping? Obviously, it’s the public transport. This is the case of all women and that’s the pathetic case. I hope there is not need to explain this part of the blog further. It has been happening for years and it will happen for years to come unless women don’t stay quiet when some thing wrong happens. Had the girl slapped or punched the guy’s nose when he jammed into her, I don’t think he would have done it again. But women are scared to react. That’s natural and difficult to think about consequences.

All the mighty air-conditioned IT buildings give a brighter picture from the outside. On the inside, are women happy and safe at work? Give it a thought. The answer in most of the cases is a “No” with a capital “N”. I accept that there are a lot of women who are strong-willed and have an appreciated way of working. But there are some women who have their sad untold stories that happen to them while at work. A friend of mine, with bright hopes, entered the industry almost at the same time as me. But her story had so many twists and turns than you can imagine in a Hitchcock movie. She faced all the psychological tortures from a guy who happened to be her lead. She neither was able to learn anything for those six months nor do anything substantial for her career. I can never forget the smile on her face when she was finally released from that project and moved on. Yet again, you want to call it an isolated incident? You obviously can but that’s obviously not the case. I did ask her one question. “Why didn’t you raise this issue with the seniors of the HRM?” The answer was simple and of course the girl’s way of dealing with things (no sarcasms intended). “I didn’t want to spoil the guy’s career.” And that’s the case in almost all the incidents.

This industry has made life more socialistic. Social gatherings are one too many. That’s unavoidable and acceptable as well. How many of these social gatherings, say a treat for a promotion, take in mind that women employees are going to join the gathering as well? May it be the timing or may it be the consumption of alcohol. May it be the comments passed or may it be the consideration of the comfort levels. An honest point would be none of these things are considered. “Don’t drink and drive” say the hoardings. Why do they say that? That’s because you would not have a control over yourself. Same applies in these gatherings as well, doesn’t it? How many of the guys think ‘teasing’ a girl is fun? Yes, fun for the moment. The same fun slowly keeps creeping and creeping and creeping and finally ends to be a psychological torture to women at work. Never confuse the socialistic trends and the psychological rudeness. There is a definite demarcation there and guys should understand that. I remember a batch-mate of mine attending twenty two counseling sessions with a psychiatrist before being able to sleep properly amidst of the fun, sorry to say, psychological rudeness.

Are guys the real problem to women? I didn’t exactly say that. Wrong decisions may be the problem, wrong friends may be the reason, the wrong habits may be the reason and to some extent women are responsible for the mishaps of safety too. But majority, sad to say, guys have become a girl’s problem. “Eve-Teasing” and “Cyber-mobile crimes” are punishable offenses. But who cares?

I would expect someone to say, “What’s your problem dude? We guys aren’t like that.” If you aren’t like that, I would give you a royal salute that I have never even given my dad. I remember one of my professor’s quotes. “All men are animals.” The words did create a fuss in class room even back then. Not all but some men really are. And because of those “Some” men, “All” men are still being considered animals.

My friend just reminded me, “Dude, you are writing a blog and not a novel.” Yeah, its time to wrap it up and I am very sure that there are just the very normal problems that IT women face. If I had to go on with the much more serious part of it, it would look like and FIR (First Information Report filed in case of a crime) and not a blog.

If at the least one male employee would change his view on his fellow female employee, I would be happy. If that could happen, I would say that the chances of my friend reaching her home safely or having a wonderful time at work will increase. That’s one of my sincere daily prayers.