WAR OF THE SEXES: Are the Contradictions actually Complementary?

When a guy says “I have nothing to wear!”, he needs to do his laundry. When a gal says that, she needs to go shopping. As true as my friend’s status message is, so are the differences between men and women. So “are men & women equal?” Hell no! I would argue that the notion of equality of two things so fundamentally different seems very strange. So if equality is not possible, what is our route to the high decibel noise generating topic of women emancipation in a ‘male dominated world’? Is it one sex victimizing the other or does the answer lies within the woman herself?

As a principle I believe, it is always easier to get to the answer to a problem if we ask the right questions. Here are a few of mine related to this issue:

• How different are the sexes or rather are the sexes different by design?
• Does the concept of couple/ family give us any clue in cracking this case?
• How did the women who actually did break the proverbial glass ceiling do so?
• Is the MCP – Feminist war a solution or a problem?

I feel analyzing these questions (one by one) could possibly lead us to something worthwhile. Read on!

How different are the sexes?

Dr John Gray said most problems will be solved if you consider that your opposite sex is from another planet, in his best seller ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’. Now, he is talking of a big gap there! Basically Men & Women think, feel, perceive, react, respond, love, need and appreciate differently. We could enlist biological, parental influence, culture, media, education or history (Or some other factors I could have missed) for this difference. But the highlight is that the difference is indisputable and only the degree varies from individual to individual.

It would be too much of a generalization to discuss in detail character traits of a male and female but we could assume (at least for the majority) males are often associated with aggression, risk, adventure and females by contrast usually embodies the ideals of inner dignity, security, subtlety and compassion. But were these differences coincidental or part of a larger intelligent design? Let us look into how a couple works to crack this one.

What clue does a family/couple give us?

I have grown to believe that ‘family’ is the ultimate concept; we are indebted to our progenitors for conceiving it (particularly in the Indian context). Family is the smallest and most powerful part of any social structure. It is a cell or microcosm of the larger social setup. Ever wondered how a family or

How does a couple work?

couple works? A couple consists of two parts which act or think differently but in the process complement each other. Any phenomenon can be expressed as the sum of two opposing forces and the family is an epitome. The point I am coming to with the aforementioned differences of the sexes is that they (the sexes) may appear contradictory to the intellect but the deeper you dig into it you find that these differences are compensatory. They some how depend on each other; if one disappears the other will not be there. Life adjusts in such a way that it makes contradictions complementary. It is the self compensatory or complementary forces of male and female attributes that gets the family setup working. This is the cornerstone of my argument.

If we accept this argument, may be it might help us understand people who really cracked the glass ceiling in the corporate world in a better light.

How do women break the proverbial glass ceiling?

Revered people like Indra Nooyi, Kiran Bedi and Chanda Kocchar may have become the poster girls of woman emancipation but few have bothered to analyze why they could crack the glass ceiling. People talk about their education, qualification, background and so on (of course they do add value) but why are we not willing to consider the possibility that they made it because they were women and exercised their feminine qualities, which added tremendous novelty value in a heretofore male dominated corporate world? Confused – Let me explain. Indra Nooyi famously said ‘I am a mother first, then a CEO and then a wife.‘ There is scope to take a few inferences from that statement. But I am going with Chanda Kocchar to elucidate my point.

Chanda Kocchar took the reins of ICICI bank when they were undergoing an unprecedented crisis after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and speculation was rife that it was going to wreck the bank. K.V Kamath who preceded her as the CEO was all in for aggressive growth and a bulging balance sheet. He also maintain

K V Kamath and Chanda Kocchar

ed a vast network of collection agents with muscle power as their weapon to collect credit card dues. When Chanda Kocchar came to power she made shockingly contradictory motions like cutting out on unsecured high risk credit and embarked on major internal cost-cutting measures. She placed capabilities ahead of business objectives. She changed the high risk philosophy and gave stability and security its due by working from within. She said “Growth can mean various things. It isn’t just about growing the balance sheet.” What I am coming to with this is that even though Chanda Kocchar’s philosophy seems diagonally opposite to K V Kamath’s it is the best considering the climate of the time because in the long term the high risk growth cannot sustain itself without stability.

So this is how K V Kamath and Chanda Kocchar complement each other over the long term. This is exactly how the cell of society (Family) works with each different element complementing rather than contradicting each other.

This is where the woman makes her way into the male dominated corporate world. You see, they think differently and for all you know that could bring in diversity of perspective, enrich discussion, enhance decision making and make the whole setup more sensitive than an ‘Old Boy’s Club’. So evidently if the world is seeing the dawn of a competent and experienced woman it is because of nature’s law of complementing, which makes it more of a necessity than anything else. Why else do progressive economies like Norway require 40% of the board to be occupied by women? Sadly in India only 5% of the directors are women.

MCP – Feminist war a solution or a problem?

Having said all this it would be totally impractical if we were to close our eyes to the fact that women in India are victims of years of suppression and they still face problems like unequal opportunity, work condition safety, sexual harassment and so on. It will only be fair to say that men on the other hand have been victims (repeat victims) of generations of privilege and superiority bestowed on them by the society. It is also going to take time to change the habits of an entire generation.

Feminism is the retaliation to years of suppression but the question is: is the solution worse that the problem itself? Even though the text book definition of feminism sounds good to read, the concept has diluted itself. May be at the dawn they were able to create awareness and pride towards better acceptance but that is where the glory ends. Over the years it is just become an extremist idea of female sex victimizing the other sex for everything  they face. If MCP’s survive on downplaying the idea of competent women, contemporary feminists (majority taken into consideration) make a career out of  stirring up hatred towards men. If MCP’s suck, feminist suck too! Dilution has killed feminism (Taking the holistic picture). Is replacing the ‘Old boy’s club’ with an ‘Old girls club’ a solution or a problem?  The answer is anyone’s guess.

If men are changing from their MCP ways, it is not because they fear a crazy girl club making noise, it is because the idea a competent woman is an idea whose time has come and this generation is used to it and has seen genuine value in the way thing are. MCP’s and feminists are like two people sitting at two ends of a boat rowing in opposite directions. They either act as agents of stagnation together or sink together. The earlier they sink the better!

Conclusion:

Men and women are fundamentally different by design and that is how the law of nature works. Each sex has its strengths and traits and both these qualities are required for long term sustainability of any venture be it family, business or society as a whole. Over they years an imbalance has been created with concepts like ‘superior sex’ which has resulted in crap like MCPs and feminism. But what is our way forward in bridging this gap and restoring nature’s law?

You can’t brute force your way into a problem of generations. The solution is answering to the need where your strengths are coherent. In a beautiful age of meritocracy we live in time has shown us an age where qualities natural to women are respected and required for any sound practice and debate. Women should convert their natural strengths if they are to gain their due. Neither aping men nor blaming them is a way forward in this predicament. The solution lies within the woman. Chanda Kocchar opined that she dealt with the glass ceiling relying on her strengths. It all the same, nothing challenges the laws of nature – The contradictions are actually complementary!

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