Beyond Glass Ceilings and Brick Walls - International Labour ...

such as secretaries, who may be provided with taxi fare/transport when they
work late.
The requirement of employee interaction in company activities outside
working hours impinges on workers’ family life/time. Non-participation on
such occasions can result in women employees being discriminated at work.
Malini relates how a senior travel executive was not granted her due
promotion, because, she contends, the executive did not participate in
the extracurricular activities of the company due to her responsibilities
towards her three small children.
As far as job tasks are concerned, possibly due to strict notions of job
positions and staff tasks as well as a strong code of respect in certain
instances, women workers were hardly asked to do tasks that are extraneous
to their jobs. Except for one instance, where a salesperson was required to
do some heavy unloading.
However, women workers were sometimes asked to perform tasks that are
founded on gender-based expectations of women’s roles and responsibilities;
these include activities such as decorating and preparing food for functions.
In one instance, a Guest Relations Officer in a hotel (along with other female
staff) was solicited to help out with Vesak Day decorations.
Usually, both male and female employees participated in fellowship activities
such as sports. However, the study did come across one company where
only males were involved in sports activities while females were merely
spectators-reinforcing gender role stereotypes of male participation and female
spectatorship.
Furthermore, “Informal networks/networking” such as socializing with
superiors after work hours, in restaurants and/or bars or other settings, do
not always include women due to their care responsibilities and/or social
norms and other concerns. The inability of women workers to engage in
such informal networking limits their scope of being “recognized” by seniors
at the workplace. Given this state of affairs, work enterprises need to put in
place measures to promote networking during office hours.
None of the case studies communicated the existence of gender friendly
work practices-especially ones that take into account the domestic
responsibilities of employees. For instance, the study does not record any
instances of employees enjoying flexi-time for the benefit of workers (of
course, there were instances of flexi-time for the convenience of employers);
none worked part-time, or was involved in job-sharing or in working from
home with the aid of modern technology.
On the other hand, employees at senior management levels were seen to
enjoy more flexibility in working hours. It is ironic that management who
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