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| HER WORLD | Sunday, August 3, 2003, Chandigarh, India |
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Fifty
and done!
Global vignette Social monitor Racket
of school uniforms |
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Fifty and done! The Supreme Court ruling
that restricts the flying age of Air India hostesses to 50, as opposed
to 58 for the male cabin crew, has been forced to assume discriminatory
connotations. It has been projected as a glaring example of gender-based
discrimination and sparked off a fiery debate over the righteousness of
the decision. But little do they realise that while levelling
allegations against the Union Government, Air India, The Air India
Officers Association, The Air India Cabin Crew Association and even the
Bench of Justices of the apex court, of blatantly propagating the gender
bias, they did not even spare ‘God Almighty’ who constructed the
human biology in such a way that the female is mellowed down faster by
age than man, at least, in the physical respects. Ageing is a natural
process. It is natural for every job to have an age bar. But owing to
the nature of work of an airhostess, this bar is bound to be greater.
Besides being physically taxing, where she is in a constant flurry of
activity and literally at the beck and call of every passenger, an
air-hostess is considered to be a kind of brand ambassador for the
airlines she is flying. Therefore, she has to be remarkable in
appearance and would be a little unnatural to expect a 58-year-old woman
to be that way. It would also be unnatural to expect her quality of
service to remain unaffected by her debility and slackened pace. For
those who feel looks is a very flippant reason, there is something more
serious. Older airhostesses imply compromising on safety. We cannot
dispute the fact that advancing age robs one of alertness and slows down
the reflexes. The cabin crew being precisely the one in direct contact
with the passengers is entrusted with their safety on board. Regular
upgradation and refreshment programmes on handling emergencies and
crisis management are conducted to keep them in tune with the growing
needs and complexities. But anything done over an extended period of
time renders it liable to monotony. With the result, the staff turns
slack and laidback, which is nothing short of crime when we talk
safety. However, it may not be difficult to gauge why our airhostesses
refuse to see reason. They are hell bent to use ‘discrimination’ as
a pretext to have it their way. Discrimination, as a matter of fact ,can
only be between likes. There can be no question of discrimination when
the rules for the male and female cabin crew are separate from the
start. While the flight stewardess can enter service at the age of 18
with class 12 being the qualifying exam, a flight steward cannot join
before 21 and without a graduate degree. The promotion rules are also
different for the two. Yet Air India has been kind enough not to
emulate most of the international air carriers that have fixed the
ceiling at around 40. Virgin Airways allows air-hostess between the age
of 18 and 33. Besides, Air India will offer ground duty assignments
after 50 till the age of retirement which according to Rahul Mishra,
Branch Manager of AHA (Air Hostess Academy) should come as a very
natural and happy choice rather than forced one. A flight attendant’s
job becomes especially gruelling because of the long international
flights that are, more often than not, at odd hours in the night with
very little time to unwind between successive flights. One is better
suited for a management job post-40 that can afford one a sedentary
lifestyle. It entails relatively lesser physical activity but more
application of the mental faculties. Nobody complains of a 87-year-old
Prime Minister. Years only add more experience and proficiency needed to
turn him into a seasoned administrator. And we do not mind the gray
hair! Therefore, it becomes very important to understand that every job
has its own specific requirements. Like it or not, that has to be
complied with! |
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Is the decision to ground airhostesses older than 50 discriminatory?
— Anmol Rattan Sidhu, President of High Court Bar Association (Punjab & Haryana)
— J. S. Butalia, Captain, Merchant Navy
— Vishaka — Aspiring airhostess
— Shikha Chadha, MBA student
— Himanshu Pushkarna, Capt Jet Airways
— Geeta Mohan,
Vice-Principal GCG 42, Chandigarh |
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Global vignette SEVERAL recent studies point to the thirty-something, single woman as sad, lonely and drinking more than is good for her health. These young women, who are more educated, better paid and have more freedom than previous generations of women are, according to some studies, miserable. Barely a month passes without the British Press informing the public about the unhappiness of the "Bridget-Jones generation". The nickname is based on the best-selling novel and film that outlined the weight, drinking habits and romantic life of a London singleton. The bad news for Bridget keeps on coming. Professor James Tooley of Newcastle University in northern England announced late last year that careers have made women depressed, and young girls should be pushed toward art and domestic science at school and steered away from the sciences. "Women are finding themselves successful in their careers and unhappy in their lives," says Professor Tooley, author of "The Miseducation of Women". In a study of alcohol intake, market analyst company Datamonitor found that drinking among young women was on the increase. Alcohol intake among British women is 9.4 units (nine-and-a-half glasses of wine) a week, and is expected to rise to 11.8 (12 glasses) by next year. Richard Robinson, a drink industry analyst, says a system of good and bad credits has evolved among young women: Good credits for trips to the health club are traded for indulgences in alcohol. "This makes them feel more comfortable about their alcohol intake as they feel able to justify it to themselves," he says. A spokesman at the Institute of Alcohol Studies said, "Women are increasingly contributing to alcohol problems in families, a field where men have long had the dubious distinction of leading." However, the majority of alcoholics are still men. A recent wide range study that followed 40,000 people born in 1946, 1958 and 1970 shows that the generation of women now in their thirties have higher incomes and a better education, but they are more unhappy and alienated from society. Only 40 per cent of the thirty-plus women regularly vote compared to 60 per cent of women in their fifties. In addition, only eight per cent of the group born in 1970 belong to a community or volunteer group compared to 60 per cent of those born in 1946. A spokesman for the study said this was because the younger women were less likely to be mothers, and it is motherhood that often propels women to join community groups. Only 52 per cent of women born in 1970 were parents by age 30 compared to 90 per cent of the women born in 1946. Of the married women, 24 per cent of those born in 1970 said they were unhappy in their marriage, compared with two per cent of those born in 1958. The last few decades, say the study’s authors, have seen greater emphasis put on emotions rather than the social obligations of marriage. "This links with the rise of individualism, in which relationships are seen less in terms of social responsibilities and obligations and more in terms of personal resources and fulfillment." But the problem isn’t marriage alone. Among cohabiting couples, 25 per cent of women do not expect to marry their partner. In a study of couples who live together, the Institute for Social Research found that 33 per cent stay together for less than a year and only 10 per cent of the relationships last longer than five years. Sociologist Pamela Smock, author of the report, says cohabiting often means that couples get "caught in limbo" and "don’t move forward". She said these couples are less happy, the relationships were more likely to be abusive, and unmarried partners were more likely to have affairs. All this analysis of thirty-something women should be depressing, but many dismiss the findings. "I’m 33, unmarried, and I’m not depressed," says Shelagh Norris, a business manager in London. "My job gets me down sometimes, but I have to let that pass. I did live with a guy for a while, but it didn’t work out. And now, when I look back at it, I think I was lucky I didn’t marry him because it would have been a disaster - so I saved myself some anguish there." Her friend, Lisa McGrath, a fashion retailer, agrees. "There are a lot of people putting our generation down because they are jealous. We have more opportunities than they had. We don’t have to feel a failure because we haven’t settled down in suburbia to have 2.4 children by the time we’re 25. We can do anything we want. Sometimes we fail at what we try to do, but at least we’re out there trying." Freya Sim, a 32-year-old medical
writer, finds the studies annoying. "We’re doing fine. I think
our generation expects a lot more out of life than previous women did.
And, as a result, when we don’t achieve what we think we should
achieve, we feel like failures." Sim also says her generation is
more likely to express their feelings. "We don’t hide anything. I
think previous generations had to keep a stiff upper lip and pretend
everything was fine." WFS |
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Social monitor
Dhadigam is a tiny, nondescript hamlet in western Gujarat that hardly ever shows up in any tourism map. Yet, to behavioural scientists and ethnologists, it is a very important place. For it is here, that the practice of polygamous marriages has survived since time immemorial. Almost every able-bodied youth in this tribal village boasts of four to eight wives, living in perfect harmony. Some elderly males have married as many as 20 times and are still looking out for "suitable brides". Little wonder, there are around 30 members (including children) to a family in most households. However, with changing times, Dhadigamis are getting increasingly wiser about polygamy and over the past 18 months or so, no male has brought a second wife home. "Marriages are taking place, but once is more than enough," clarifies 36-year-old Amarsinh Rathwa, whose father, Kutarsinh died six month ago, leaving behind four wives, 16 children and 60 grandchildren. He was 65. "The practice of having multiple wives is over," says 42-year-old Naikda Bada, who claims to have put his wife through a tubectomy operation to limit his family to three daughters and one son. "We are not living in those times when our forefathers could afford to feed many mouths." Sociologists however, believe that the custom began out of economic necessity for this largely agrarian community as more children meant more working hands as farm labour. Each household was thus regarded as a self-contained production unit, not having to rely upon hired workers from outside. "There is also a religious angle to the practice of polygamy," explains Sushant Jha, a field study worker with Baroda University. "Our scriptures have generally upheld the virtues of a woman being able to bear a hundred sons. And when they fail to deliver, they become accommodating towards a new woman, so long as it pleases the husband and maintains domestic peace." But today’s Dhadigami woman is a changed person. As Amarsinh’s wife, Kadliben puts it: "I want to remain the only wife of my husband. I see frequent fights, sometimes ending in deaths, where husbands have taken more than one wife. Life becomes a living hell in such families." Amarsinh’s two unmarried sisters, Kunakiben and Sangitaben are equally assertive about their marital preferences. "I would prefer to remain single and die as a spinster, than marry a married man," says 20-year-old Kunakiben, who has rejected all polygamous proposals in her village. Such defiance towards established social norms has obviously come after some hard thinking, rather than any persuasion from government bodies and social activists. In fact, these were the same villagers who set fire to a family planning camp distributing free condoms in Dhadigam in the early eighties. Says Lalia Sotia, whose father married seven times: " He owned ten acres of land and therefore needed extra help to work on the field. That also freed him from working in the mines to earn his livelihood. But that is not the case today. More children bring more poverty." Adds Naikda’s wife, Jaminiben: "Polygamy is all a game of money practiced by prosperous people in the past. Where is the prosperity now? Expenses are mounting every day. In the past, demands were few and so it was easy to support six or seven wives on eight to ten acres of land." Apart from diminished land holdings, the reach of the media and spread of education also led to the change in social thinking. Most unlettered families are now sending their children to school — some having to trudge five km every day to the neighbouring township of Broaj. Then there is the aspect of regret and realisation seeping into men with large families. "I had a tough time searching for a match for my eldest son Sublo," says Bhavla Chikha. "Nobody was willing to give his daughter in marriage to him. Everybody said that since I have three wives, my son would do the same. It was the worst kind of humiliation I faced." "We are witnessing
the emergence of an upwardly mobile middle-class section in Dhadigam
having high awareness and aspiration levels," observes Jha.
"Already advertisers of consumer goods and soft drinks are
targeting at this segment. In another five years, everything in this
village will change beyond recognition." (MF) |
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Racket of school uniforms
IT'S a multi-crore business without controls. And every year, it adds to the burden of the beleaguered parents as they struggle to give their children a decent education. The business of school uniforms and accessories in India has evolved into what parents allege to be a huge racket, with schools and dealers working together to rake in big moolah. The extent of the growth can be gauged from the fact that some two decades back there were only 10 to 15 wholesalers and manufacturers in this business. Today, the figure runs into thousands, though only 10 per cent of them are manufacturers in the real sense of the word, with their own manufacturing units. The rest are either retailers, dealers or suppliers or those who outsource manufacture of various items from schools. Despite such phenomenal growth and expansion, however, this business of school accessories, which encompass a wide range of items from uniforms, to badges, to belts and ties and tie-pins to shoes and bags— totalling up to more than 25, continues to be totally unorganised. Not only does it have no concept of ISO certification, it does not have even a semblance of quality checks to ensure the comfort of the young bodies and the care of their sensitive skin. Though no specific data is available, doctors admit that many of the skin and other problems among school kids could be directly linked to the poor quality of what they wear. Says Sanjay Dhingra of Central Delhi : "We often get kids at our clinic who have some or the other skin ailment. It's quite possible that these are caused by bad quality of the fabric used in school uniform." Another thing he has noticed relates to 'aching feet'. While parents generally dismiss it as the result of over-exercise or too much running around, Dhingra feels ill-fitting school shoes could well be a reason. Surprisingly, schools themselves are no stickler for quality and usually authorise suppliers or dealers to sell the uniforms and other accessories of their schools without bothering to check out their credentials. As one dealer, who did not want to be quoted, admitted : "It's all about money. Schools charge us a certain percentage for every student we cater to. So they usually end up going to the dealer who gives them the biggest percentage." From that point onwards, begins a vicious cycle. The bigger the percentage offered by a dealer or a supplier to a school, the deeper it cuts into his own profit margin. And to compensate for that, he either simply passes on the loss to his customers or compromises on quality. Usually, it's the second route a dealer or supplier opts for, since the high level of competition existing in this field prevents him from an exorbitant hike in pricing. This compromise generally begins with the quality of material used in the manufacture of uniforms, belts, badges etc. A glaring example of it is the fabric used in school uniforms. As of today, S. Kumar's is the biggest supplier of fabric for uniforms for school children. But poor quality fabric of similar design is easily available in the market at a much lower price. What's more, a lot of it comes with S. Kumar's logo stamped on it, so it becomes quite easy for the dealers to cheat schools as well as parents into believing that they are getting the best quality stuff. But more often than not, it's only the parents who are at the receiving end, with the schools and the suppliers/dealers usually hand-in-glove in the business of making money out of this lucrative, though somewhat seasonal, trade. How deep-rooted the nexus between schools and dealers is can be evidenced from the fact that there are several schools that have different uniforms for different branches, despite a common management at the helm of the school affairs. Apeejay is a prominent example of this in Delhi, with each of its branches having a different uniform, procured from different dealers. Neither the Apeejay management officials nor the principals of the various branches of the school are willing to explain this strange practice but dealers are quick to put the blame on the school management, whose bargaining power, they point out, gets strengthened by the competition among the various dealers. An equally interesting case is of Delhi Public School. Though it has maintained a certain level of uniformity among its various branches by sticking to a common uniform pattern, the DPS Society has introduced a system of different monograms. X'perto suppliers of school uniforms, who are dealing in uniforms for nearly 50 top schools of South Delhi and the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, including DPS, have no explanation for this strange system. The school monogram is considered to be the biggest problem. Parents say that because the monogram is mandatory, the shirt has to be bought from the school or from a shop authorised by the school management. In the business of school uniforms for the last 34-odd years, Xperto in Lajpat Nagar Central Market also admits that the growth in this business has been whopping in these last more than three decades. Besides volume, there has also been a massive transformation in the variety of uniforms. Earlier, according to X'perto, uniforms were mostly plain. Now, it's a much more elaborate affair, with all kinds of accessories thrown in. Being a seasonal business, concentrated mainly in the months of April-May for summer uniforms and November-December for winter, schools and dealers need to keep coming up with newer ideas to keep the business going all year round. One way of doing that is to go in for frequent changes in uniform, or some odd item of it. As one beleaguered parent put it, "Every year the school decides to change a part of the uniform. It is either the belt or the tie. In some cases, it is the colour of the trousers or the shirt. There is no option but to buy new ones.'' According to one estimate, 30 per cent of the schools across the country indulge in such a practice. Never mind if it's an unnecessary burden on the students and their parents. And interestingly, this is a pattern noticed throughout the country, even in the relatively more quality-conscious schools of South India. What has really gone to the advantage of the schools and the dealers is the absence of any organised market for school uniforms and accessories. How atrociously money-centric this system is came to light in Delhi a few years ago when students of Tagore International School actually resorted to corporal punishment to penalise students for not sourcing their uniforms from the school store. The incident had outraged parents, who alleged that schools are raking in huge profits through these ventures. According to Delhi Abhibhavak Sangh, "Children are always punished if their notebooks don't have the school's name on the cover or if the shade of their uniform does not match the school's. Teachers don't correct notebooks if they don't conform with the one sold in their school shop. At a number of schools, the inside of the shirt's collar is checked to ensure that it has been bought from the shop suggested by the school or the one in the school. Parents have no choice but to give in to these pressure tactics.'' Lack of quality consciousness and control is not the only negative aspect of this market. Absence of any concept of designing is another problem that plagues this business. According to Rohit Malhotra, proprietor of Meeta Enterprises, that has been in the business of making school uniforms and accessories for the last 22 years, the only time he was required to take design into account was when he was dealing with a Dubai customer about a year ago. So far as India is
concerned, uniform continues to be considered a necessary drudgery -
monotonous and dull, and not something that could add a touch of the
smart or the chic to the otherwise boring routine of going to school, or
add to the confidence level of the young ones. |
Is the decision to ground
airhostesses older than 50 discriminatory?
WHAT
comes to the mind at once when one describes an airhostess? Young,
petite, agile. Could you necessarily associate the same attributes to a
58-year-old woman? "Yes" if you ask The Air Hostesses’
Association and myriad women activist groups.
I
completely agree with the rationale behind the decision. Nobody is
retrenching them. It simply calls for a diversification of duties after a
particular age, which is only in the fitness of things. At the same time it in
no way justifies the unlike treatment meted out to the male and female staff. It
violates Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Men and women must be equal in
the eyes of law, without exception at all times and in all circumstances.
When I board a flight I expect to be greeted with smiles and not wrinkles and frowns! It is very important to be amiable for anybody to be in the service industry. The older folk by and large suffer from the handicap of being unfriendly as they are weighed down mentally by household and other worries that sap them of amity and inhibit them. The passengers also shy away from talking to elderly staff. A lady is already a grandmother by 50.
How would it feel to ask your grandmother to fetch a glass of water?
I don’t see how can women accuse the decision of being biased. We must not forget that we also have a host of domestic liabilities and duties to discharge that we cannot afford to sideline. The physical constraints only make them more demanding with the passage of time. Therefore, it makes all the sense to ground the airhostesses early.
A girl becomes an airhostess because of the glamour attached to it. Whereas glamour can afford a lot of attraction, it is short lived too. I think even 50 is too high. She must be prepared to quit even before the faintest lines of ageing become visible to the naked eye. For she knows it all too well, she is here for her looks. But if she doesn’t we are only too sorry for her!
I think beauty is not the issue or the big issue. It is more about the safety of the passengers, which is at a risk if the persons in charge of it are not prompt. Old age invariably leaves you less active mentally and physically. And life is certainly not something we can take chances with!
The decision is a very appropriate one. A woman’s body, unlike that of a man’s, undergoes a lot of hormonal changes around 45 that affect her entire biology. She does not remain strong enough to be subjected to the stress and fatigue of an airhostesses’ untimely routine. No, the decision cannot be called discriminatory as a man’s and woman’s body function differently. They should welcome the verdict wholeheartedly and not grudgingly!
