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THROUGH PINK GLASSES: A LOOK AT THE RECENT DISCUSSION ON WOMEN’S QUOTA IN GERMANY.

Posted by: IJR, 17. September 2011 - 9:04
Source: http://ijroth.wordpress.com

by Isabelle-Jasmin Roth, New Delhi
August 2011

Always nurtured a secret fantasy of ganging up on your boss with your female colleagues? Yes? Then keep reading. Put on your pink glasses and embrace your inner woman. But don’t expect too much. Except a story of courage, humor and feminine assertiveness from the other side of the world.

New Delhi, 2008. I am in a business meeting with five men. Loud, heated and simultaneous discussions are being held on renewable energy projects, financing possibilities and business potential. Intermittently a doe-eyed secretary hurries through the door and whispers missed calls into the Indian chairman’s (hairy, paunchy, laden with gold) ear. I, blond, 23 and intrinsically naïve, dare to pose a question to the room. Have I made the impossible possible? The noise dissipates, – through the sole power of my words – creating a vacuum.

“Huh – the squaw has spoken.“
The reaction: none. Confused looks speak more than words. The answer is directed to my colleague Tobias. I, blushingwithembarrassment/fury; struggle for breath/composure (please choose your preferred version of the two). It was not only the air conditioning, which failed at that very moment. I spend the rest of the meeting denouncing all present, one after the other as well as the pantheon of about 4000 Indian gods and hastily contemplating alternative career plans – the farther and colder the place, the better. Yet, one question continues to pique my curiosity – would the same have happened to me in Germany?

Colorful survival training in a country of machos and chauvinists.
Three years have passed since that meeting – and I am still working in India. In 2008, amidst my studies, I joined the startup company BRIDGE TO INDIA as a director shifting base to the Indian capital. Although I knew the country and culture well, learning to survive as a (business) woman in a country with possibly the highest number of macho-chauvinists, according to a study by the International Center for Research and Women (download the study here), was never easy. If only I had studied the ways of the Gulabi gang (freely translated and well known as “the pink-sari gang”)! Founded in 2006 in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the movement today has achieved cult status both at home and abroad. These ladies fight collectively for justice by assaulting violent husbands. Which man would stand in the way of a horde of outraged women dressed in their pink saris and armed with lathis (bamboo sticks normally used by shepherds for herding goats), the Gulabi gang could intimidate any man? None. This knowledge is the Gulabi gang’s secret to success.

Also thanks to the “ladies in pink”, pink caused a sensation once again in the South Indian city of Mangalore in 2009. A group of young women was attacked in a club by representatives of the Hindu National Lord Ram party who believed that a dancing and drinking woman was not compliant with the moralistic image of a traditional Indian woman. As a spontaneous response against these self-appointed guardians of public morality, 13,000 women from around the world sent out pink underpants to the party chairman the following Valentine’s Day courtsey an extensive media and internet campaign. The fate of the panties was however to remain unknown.

Is quota regulation the solution? No – neither in India nor in Germany
And what does this have to do with Germany? Should chancellor Angela Merkel herd her cabinet members with lathis? Or should she pose in a pink bikini to promote female power in German boards of management? Surely not. Yet, one thing is certain: women do not need quota regulation to be successful. What they do need is courage, creativity, assertiveness, a long arm and a loud voice. Most of all, a good sense of humor in order to let the remarks, sideswipes and elbows roll off. Competency issues for top management, should not be settled around the question of who wears a bra or not – neither in India nor Germany.

Just stay a woman! That’s what you do the best anyway.
New Delhi, 2011. Today, BRIDGE TO INDIA has a team of ten employees – largely men. Through my work, I meet diverse people from politics and economy – many of them, men. Has the system changed in the last three years? No. Have the Indian men changed in the last three years? No. Have I changed? Definitely. As I soon discovered, the secret of Indian women in power is that they were, are and will always be – and yes, it can be that easy – strong women.

So, it is up to you, my ladies! Grab the opportunity that the quota discussion offers you. But do not rely on it. Take your lathi or your underwear in your hand and do good work. Even if you need to take the shorter end of the stick from time to time. Do it for yourself and for your successors. That too, without a quota.
Just stay a woman! That’s what you do the best anyway. And as Paris Hilton already said: pink never goes out of fashion.

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