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Do you know about the history of computers? Many don't know the term was used
to refer to women or that it was not the US Army but the women who worked for
the US Defence Department who created computers and the first computer program
and first programming language.
When you open any textbook of science or social studies today, the role of
women achievers in science and technology goes unmentioned. Textbooks,
especially on science and history of technology, almost always never refer to
the women achievers in question but generally state that the 'The US Army
invented computers'!
Another disturbing trend is the acceptance of the myth 'Showing emotions is a
sign of weakness' as normal. While yelling at a junior in the workplace is
considered acceptable, crying has been banned! According to William H Frey II, a
professor in the neurology department at the University of Minnesota, crying is
an excretory process which evolved as an adaptive response to emotional stress.
It increases our survival by reducing the harmful effect of stress on the body.
Since we ban crying at the workplace as weakness, we are effectively banning the
human body's natural response to banish stress!
How did we get here? There are three main factors:
Text book content: We are what we read. For generations, our schoolbooks
have failed to mention the pioneering women in science, technology, business,
and computers. They wither due to ignorance or poor research. Failure to update
textbooks in light of new inventions and giving credit to the women achievers
has deprived generations of women role models but more importantly knowledge of
their existence.
Today, if you flip through any school textbook, you would rarely find a
lesson written about a woman achiever in technology or science. Children, both
boys and girls, grow up to believe that women haven't contributed to the
advancement of science, technology, or engineering. Every time a child opens a
womanless textbook, it sends the subtle message that women have never played any
significant role in the development of civilization. Since boys read the same
books, they are taught the same thing-that women never contributed anything to
development and society, conditioning them from an early age to consider women
as inferior. This leads to the continuation of 'women' and 'men' roles in
society. This also has a domino effect for these same children later become
educated parents and continue this behaviour. Simply put, our school textbooks
are sexist.
Parenting: According to a 2004 UNESCO study, girls consistently match
or surpass boys' achievements in science and mathematics in schools across the
world. Despite this, in India, even though roughly 45% of students in
engineering colleges are women and many graduate with honours, less than 10% go
on to pursue full time careers as engineers. In the educated Indian middle class
society, degrees in engineering and medicine are either used as a status symbol
for girls to land a husband, after which the girl is asked to give up her career
as 'we don't need the money' or forced to give it up for the 'well being of the
children'. Otherwise, the woman is labeled 'a bad homemaker' because in
dual-income families, women still do most of the 'homework'. Another disturbing
trend which has been recently bombarded is that crying is a sign of weakness and
not sadness! Slowly we are becoming a society where we actually have the gall to
ban tears! Parents teach children to ignore the tears and thereby refuse to let
the child or its peers acknowledge sadness! Once you get to be a teenager,
crying is not considered okay at public places. This has only led to alarming
increase in stress, depression and obesity in Indian society as youth can't find
their emotional release in tears.
Workplace Behaviour: In the last two decades, acceptable workplace has
undergone a slow and silent but radical change. Workplace has become one of
those environments where tears and laughter are viewed as inappropriate,
especially tears. It can have detrimental effects on reviews and executive
promotion. Suddenly, tears and laughter are bad and have become indicators of
incompetence and low confidence! While it is true that laughing or crying where
we are displaying an emotion arising due to a personal issue at home and has
nothing to do with the workplace or the job at hand which is inappropriate, it
is completely crazy to ask people to hide their sadness or happiness even when
they are directly affected due to situations at the workplaces. This directly
contradicts the loads of research on 'emotional intelligence' which says that
the ability to express your emotions through laughter or tears also makes us
better, more effective leaders. Vulnerability makes us human and not
incompetent. Bosses need to be trained to handle crying and laughing. If we
continue on as before, others would be justified in saying engineers or techies
are robots.
The above three factors greatly influence social perception of the role of
technology and the technical workplace. Crying is considered unprofessional and
as a sign of weakness or inability to do the job! At times, it is considered
feminine when a man cries, and he is made fun of or ridiculed! This is
illogical. Emotions are not irrational. You don't feel happiness without having
achieved something. The same is true for sadness. Also, is it humanely possible
to be happy at the workplace all the time? At times, even laughter is considered
wrong. This kind of changing rules makes it mandatory that engineers should be
robots at the workplace-efficient and inhuman. What kind of message are we
sending out to the next generation with such content, parenting and behaviour?
Be happy all the time or you are unprofessional? Ignore your fellow worker or
colleague's tears at the workplace instead of finding out what is bothering
them? Are we telling the future generation that to be perceived as strong, we
should not empathise or feel sad?
Way Forward
Check accuracy of textbooks: Have authors rework their textbooks or get new
ones which are more accurate. Knowledge is power but ignorance is death.
Rethink your parenting: Learn to listen and acknowledge both happiness
and sadness in your children. Don't ban them from expressing sadness through
tears as otherwise they find the emotional release in violence, suicide,
slashing, self torture and screaming.
Change the workplace rules: People who succeed in their careers are
people who are their true selves. Bosses who are secure with themselves can
actually deal with employees crying just fine. So any person at the workplace
who cannot deal with crying needs some therapy or needs to learn techniques as
to how to deal with it as they probably have never learned to deal with
sadness-their own and others.
Together, let us build a society where people are truly educated and
healthier.
Source: DQ