As 8th March approaches and the Women’s Day celebrations start raising their head, my mind starts to wander.
For a long time, I was irritated, annoyed and almost embarrassed by it. I believed and still believe that I’m not any less than a man and so why should I need a women’s day. After all, there’s no Men’s day. Before you shriek at my mistake, there is one now but there wasn’t one then – at the beginning of my story, before my wonderful awakening.
I spent my preteens roaming about looking “like a boy” with short hair (again calm down, this was in the eighties)and scrapped knees, secretly doing “girly things” like embroidery which I love to date, and making jewellery from eucalyptus cones. I didn’t think any of these things had a gender till a friend of mine who was a whole year older and way wiser, apprised me differently.
And then there was the assumption that I was a boy because of the way I looked and the things I did so I wore earrings and would exclaim in great indignation that I was a girl and with my body language that I was as good if not better than one. Hmm… competing with not only societies norms but also the opposite gender is so very exhausting!
It wasn’t long before my body make it perfectly clear that I was definitely a woman, so I heard the word tom-boy and started conforming to all that defined a tom-boy. I subconsciously assumed it kept me safe from unwanted attention and lewd glances. If only I had known that even a burkha wouldn’t have helped with that!
But as usual I diverse…. And this time with 3 paragraphs…(shocked emoji would be appropriate but my editor raises her eyebrow at the use of such tools).
So, in trying to keep up with the men and fighting my battle of equality (even misplaced superiority), it took me a while to realize that it is not about what we are, the fight was never about being equal. That’s a given.
It was always about not having to prove people wrong by being “as good as a man”, not having to change norms or preconceived notions, not being referred to as the boy of the family, about not being introduced to people as a “woman” golfer, not needing to walk or talk like a man to be taken seriously…
Some years ago, I owned (with my wonderful partners, the majority of them being women), and ran a Professional Mens Cricket team. I convinced companies to sponsor us and negotiated with agents and national sports bodies to hire international players. We got asked many questions – how it is to work with an all-women’s team being the medias favourite. I wanted to tell them to ask the matriarch of a herd of elephants that question, but we needed the media, so I was “nice”! Another time, a player’s agent told me that a very senior gentleman who owned the team had promised to change the players route back home. It made me chuckle when I heard the statement, I laughed out loud after I told him that I was the highest you could go, I was the CEO!
But what took the cake was the interaction with a pair of brothers who represented a particular “big” player. I had been negotiating with Brother A (let’s call him that for now) and Brother B was to travel with our “Big” player X. We had a WhatsApp group and in replies to my questions, B would keep referring to me as Bro. At first I assumed it was a casual way of speaking, irrespective of my sex but then when he said bhaijaan, I said “I think your bhaijaan, A, has forgotten to tell you that the CEO of this team is a woman. bro is good, Bhaijaan is a bit much” I promise you, I wasn’t trying to score a hit or be nasty, I was too busy and I would like to believe, adult for that but childish enough to laugh in glee when there was radio silence for 6 hours and a hurried blubbered apology with a change of tone!!!!
These are just a couple of stories. I, who come from a place of privilege provided to me by my education and socio-economic background have dozens more to relay but mine are probably not as many as most women face in their professional and personal daily life. I am conscious and appreciative of the fact that there are millions of women out there who don’t have the same privilege and are probably fighting greater battles.
I hope that one day and in my lifetime we seize the need for a women’s day but till then I’m going to enjoy the 10% off I got at …..