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Unmasking the Masked Gendered Sociability: A Case of the Indian Software Industry

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Marginalities in India

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Abstract

Information Technology Sector, an offshoot of new economy, unleased a new form of workplace situation and work conditions and mirrored the global image of being an egalitarian one. This study contests the claim that this sector, as being a non-discriminatory workplace by analysing the real-life cases of women software professionals working in the Indian Industry. Previous studies, mostly encompassing the Indian contexts, have articulated the existence of gendered marginality in this sector due to familial and professional reasons. This paper brings forth an in-depth analysis and has tried to analyse the nature, form and content of gendered marginalisation operative in such workplaces but largely masked under the overbearing equalitarian principle. The study is based on articulation from snow-balled 250 women techies of software industry in Kolkata. The outcome of our studies reveals the existence of subtle form of discrepancies in respect of money and perks, allotment of challenging projects and promotional avenues with respect to female techies vis-a-vis their male counterparts. The covert form of discrimination evidently reduces women employees to the marginalised positions. These stereotypical constructions in this new-age industry are interpreted in the light of the intersectional perspectives of gender, class, marital status, patriarchal ideology and capitalistic motives interplayed within their marginalised social location and practices.

This paper has been adapted from the paper ‘Marginality Perception of Women Techies in Kolkata: A bottom-up Approach’ presented at the 3rd ISA Forum held in Vienna, Austria, July 10–14, 2016.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Poggendorf and Kakar (2001: 126–27, 131) pointed out that during the pre-independence era, gender identity of Indian middle-class women was based on their affairs centring round their homes and their identity mainly derived from men. During the material period, Chatterjee (2001: 119–21) identifies prevalence of two separate spheres for men and women being demarcated, respectively, by ‘bahir/ghar’ or ‘material/spiritual’ arenas. This segregation is validated by prevailing patriarchal ideology. Furthermore, Karlekar (1991: 103–04, 113) observed that modernisation in women was initiated through education like ‘stri-skisha’ but within home domain and in seclusion from the public sphere. It was meant to uphold feminine values rather than questioning the existing hierarchy. Finally, Kakar (1978: 117, 120) poignantly explains hierarchised structure based on sex constructs the mental plane of an individual and is imbibed through socialisation process. In consequence, women derive their secondary identities from their very childhood times from the process.

  2. 2.

    Techies, referred to in this text, stand for technocrats working in IT firms. Lexical meaning of ‘techie’ is a technician who is highly proficient and enthusiastic about some technical field (especially computing) vide http://www.thefreedictionary.com/techie.

  3. 3.

    Software firms, chosen as samples, are selected from the list of IT/ITES companies registered with STPI, West Bengal, for the financial year 2009–2010, having their annual turnover and total workforce strength duly recorded and maintained by the IT department, Govt. of West Bengal. Based on annual turnover for the financial year of 2009–2010, all the 47 software firms are stratified into large-sized (above 100 crores of annual turnover or more), mid-sized (between 20 and 100 crores of annual turnover) and small-sized firms (annual turnover below Rs. 20 crores).

  4. 4.

    NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) is a trade association of Indian Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. NASSCOM is a non-profit organisation, which was established in 1988. It facilitates business and trade in software and services and encourages the advancement of research in software technology (refer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASSCOM).

  5. 5.

    The cases depicted in the text are the observations made by different concerned respondents. The names quoted as the respondents’ names in the relevant cases are actually pseudo-names with a view to maintaining ethicality and confidentiality.

  6. 6.

    ‘Muri and beedi’ session is a typical contextual recess in Bengali culture that includes having tea, cigarette and light grain food generally during work-breaks in the nearby tea shops.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal, India

    Asmita Bhattacharyya

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  1. Asmita Bhattacharyya
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Correspondence to Asmita Bhattacharyya .

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  1. Department of Sociology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal, India

    Asmita Bhattacharyya

  2. School of Social Sciences, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

    Sudeep Basu

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Bhattacharyya, A. (2018). Unmasking the Masked Gendered Sociability: A Case of the Indian Software Industry. In: Bhattacharyya, A., Basu, S. (eds) Marginalities in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5215-6_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5215-6_13

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