Brig Gen (Rtd) Dr Prof Nazma Begum Nazu :
Women are the mothers of the world, the queen of every sweet home; they have some extra human qualities by which they can do something beyond men’s reach. But challenges are still upon them in excelling their career.
A career is a sequence of jobs that constitute what a person does for living. It needs time, talent, labour, dedication, healthy support from family and society. Excelling in career is a challenge for all but is more complicated for women because in addition to the challenges for men they have to face extra challenges like familial, social, cultural, religious, economical even natural.
Obstacles and challenges are everywhere- within the family and outside and also the violence. Women leadership and empowerment is the burning issue but could we address any spare time for them from domestic care – responsibilities and home maker services?
How many women get qualitative leisure time after a hard working office hour? How many of them get mental support who are at crisis during child bearing or rearing during a critical office time?
In fact domestic violence’s are more upon women who are in the pipeline for excelling their career. On spite of continuous economical support and every support to the family, the family starts thinking them as a burden when they are in the process of excelling their career. If there is any deviation in the family — the women in career are main focus to be blamed by the family and community.
After marriage or childbirth there are comparatively lesser time for women for professional study or upgrade them. Physical fitness is the prime need for qualitative office work which needs good sleep and proper rest. After every domestic care and responsibilities serving women get this less and sometimes it’s very difficult to manage this.
Policies for women empowerment exist at national level but there are significant gap between policy advancement and actual practice at community level. It is increasingly difficult to balance work and personal life. Domestic care and responsibilities without any support from family – is a challenge for women in excelling their career.
People in general constantly encounter the stereotype that women are more emotional and less decisive and expectations are often set lower for women. Women are still significantly underrepresented at all levels and continue to have worse experience almost regular. They have to face distressful and bothering behaviour in their job places by the male counterpart which disheartens them to go upwards in career. Still the culture is not created to address women with due respect and honour. Sometimes it seems so deeply seated that it is very difficult to change it to recognizing and rewarding women’s contributions as a people, as a human being. The word – women empowerment is still in the paper only.
Sometimes their success and failure are often put under a microscope and they are more likely to encounter comment and behaviour that reduce them to excelling their career.
Typically men are expected to develop into a role whereas women are expected to have a demonstrated achievement prior to being considered for better or best in career. Women’s ability is often undermined by gender stereotype.
In an ongoing study 63 per cent of women of women of Bangladesh stated that they have to provide more evidence of competency before being considered for highest in career. One of the challenges for women is the ineffectiveness of work place policies from maternity advancement policies. About 72 per cent women in Bangladesh did not feel that they are given adequate support to progress their career. About 21 per cent of female doctors in Bangladesh reported that they felt embarrassed even like eve teasing while they were posted in remote rural areas. Nearly 53 per cent of serving women in UK reported that they could have children without affecting their career. After maternity leave they report missing their opportunities and promotions. Institutes feel hesitant to offer genuine flexible hours. Women made gains in representatively but burnout is still on the rise. Despite gain in the pipeline women remain underrepresented. Women continue to face a broken rung at their first step up to the top. Systemic barriers prevent women from pushing perusing research oriented careers.
In addition to taking more work and stress women leader often face greater challenge to give more effort to accept more criticism in each and every step of their career. In Covid-19 pandemic women in corporate even more burned out – more than man. Despite this, women leaders are stepping up to support in this pandemic to stop human cry, but their work is not getting recognized as their male counterpart.
Throughout the development of mankind the role of women has been extremely pivotal in the development of humans. When they are together with man the world becomes stronger and more promising.
Days are coming – all darkness will remove from every corner. Every challenge regarding excelling in career will not be a challenge at all for women. The endless sun will pray for the queen of every sweet home for the universal mother of the world——
From today onwards
No cry, no darkness
Challenge or stress for a while–.
The most happy world will be a
Woman’s smile,
Billions and trillions of stars
With singing song–
The endless sun will pray for long—
The endless sun will pray for long.
(Prof Nazma Begum
Nazu is a physician).
