Poop-coloured balloons and the replication of the Indian household in the workplace
Imagine the spiderman meme but the Indian household and workplace are pointing at each other
Perhaps one of the most memorable bits on the hit American TV show, The Office, is Dwight and Jim planning Kelly’s last minute birthday celebration in the Dunder Mifflin office. The two are made members of the Party Planning Committee due to a conflict between Angela and Phyllis. Dwight and Jim, clearly having no idea on what goes into planning a birthday celebration, arrange for poorly blown poop-coloured balloons, toilet roll streamers, and a banner memorably saying, “IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY”. While the bit garnered laughs and became extremely memeable, it also reflected the stark reproduction of gender roles in workplace culture.
With offices reopening after COVID, workplace culture is in full swing again. Celebrations for holidays, cake cutting on birthdays, and retreats in lavish hotels have become part and parcel of the workplace experience once again. While these events are arranged for the supposed enjoyment of all who work in the company, it is often the women working tirelessly and thanklessly behind the scenes for them to go without a hitch. Women who are already expected to take on the brunt of housework in their private lives are additionally then expected to enact their gender roles in the office as well. Planning and executing these events rarely translate to career advancements making them less lucrative for men to take on these roles. Similar to the household structure though, men are ever-present to critique women who take on the might task of handling these events along with a full-time job! On top of that, men extend their learned helplessness from their homes to the workplaces where simple tasks like heating food and washing dishes cannot be completed without the help of the office peon.
Work is school-like in nature as well. Women are appreciated for their work by receiving praise which refers to them as “fastidious”, “hard-working”, and “conscientious”. Men get to be the rockstars and the stand-out geniuses. Even in women-dominated workplaces, the recognition given has to conform to gender norms and roles. As Sharayana Bhattacharya noted in her brilliant piece on the celebration of women’s day, women have be “masculinized” and learn the language of their male colleagues to climb up the corporate ladder. There is rarely room for recognition of collective effort as success in our workplaces is increasingly equoted to individual effort. A sort of winner takes it all approach (cue the Abba song playing in the background).
As India grapples with increasing representation of women in the workforce, we must decide if we wish for women to be mother, daughter, and worker all between their 9 to 5 (and overtime!).