Ireland based Janet Anderson (name changed) will be writing for WhenWomenWork occasionally, under an anonymous name, sharing her experiences as a working professional.
Having worked in four European countries, including my country of birth, I can say European companies are all discriminatory in varying degrees going up to extreme high. Employers don’t seem to want you unless you speak the language of the country to perfection, have the ‘correct’ sounding name and even the ‘correct’ skin colour. Qualifications does not always matter so much. It seems to have less to do with racism and more with a fear of the new: new ways of thinking, a different culture than their own etc. I would actually call these countries arrogant.
In contrast, American companies in Europe are much more fair and law abiding - more on this in another post.
It is not easy getting a job either in Europe; but I must say if you are lucky and do get a job, you are actually almost guaranteed payment of salaries, equal rights and help from unions etc.
Paris based Yvonne Michele Anderson, an independent film producer, internet entrepreneur and non-profit and media consultant shares her story of how she overcame barriers to her career advancement by striking out on her own.
I worked in a law firm that is considered the best in it’s field. It was a firm in which women were largely under-represented and, at the time that I was there, there were only two women partners out of 27 partners.
Most of the junior and mid-level associates were women, but they could not envision realistic prospects for advancement, and there was a lot of frustration among them. Women, particularly women in the corporate law section, were constantly given work below their skill levels and qualifications, while less experienced men were placed on more substantial files with little effort.
The worse thing is that the two women in positions of power were not supportive of the younger women coming up through the ranks. In fact, they felt threatened by them. Continue Reading…
And here’s another take on working with women from Rohini Sharma, another friend working as a teacher in Delhi.
Teachers tend to be mostly women in India, not just in schools but even in other training institutes covering languages, soft skills, voice accent training etc.
Gourmet Talk: Having taught in a language institute myself, I can reflect upon my own experiences of working in an almost all-female work environment. Women get together and you have a potpourri ready. Literally so! Forever wanting to show off their culinary skills women get the most delicious of dishes to work. I got to eat things I had never eaten before. Wait, there’s more. Read on…
Wonder what it is like working in an environment where most of your colleagues are men? I posed this question to some of my friends, and here’s one perspective from a teacher (prefers not to be named) at The British School in New Delhi.
“Working in an almost all-female environment, I would definitely like more male colleagues at work. Foremost reason being that in an all female environment, the women are constantly gossiping, bitching, cribbing – not particularly in that order though! Despite their being constant work pressure, they somehow manage to find the time to indulge in all, or, some of this. With male colleagues, however, one can hope for a more professional and thereby a better work environment.”
What’s you take on it? Write in at ajay@ajayjain.com.
