Work from Home : A Women’s Perspective

COVID-19 has dramatically changed our perspective on so many matters of concern, out of which one such is Work from Home. Let’s try to see it through a women perspective.

With flexible hours and diminution of traveling time, WFH is believed to have opened a wider range of opportunities for women, especially the ones who are mothers and are married, to continue working without deviating from their professional growth while taking care of other responsibilities.

Still, women are often faced by many minute issues that revolve around maintaining balance between household chores and handling office responsibilities through work from home. The pressure, both mental and physical seems enormous and can impact their health in adverse ways. To be precise, below listed are 3 major challenges that women face while working from Home –

1. Maternity Responsibility

Most of the women have to take maternity leave at some point in their life. Resuming work after that is like starting a career all over again. While WFH is at least allowing women to continue with their work in such situations, the preconceived notion that only women are responsible for taking care of the child and looking after the household chores is not helping them handle their professional life effectively.

2. Household Responsibilities

Earlier, women usually took care of the household responsibilities before leaving for work. Now, because of the presence of elders and children, she has to do it all over the day along with her work. Even the liberty of working flexible hours is not going in favour of women since working odd hours has become a trend. While working from home, most men and women with no children are not skipping weekends and tend to work more. This is not possible for women with children. Women have been victims to the “double burden syndrome” where they are now expected to double up on the home chores with increased workload from office, which impacts their mental well-being to a great extent.

3.  Online Harassment, Inappropriate Texts

WFH is not even considered safer as sexual harassment has found its place even virtually. Women have witnessed inappropriate texts, voice messages, pictures, and even intentional lousy behavior during video calls.

Though WFH has offered a plethora of opportunities for women, we can’t ignore that it has also brought new challenges in their lives. Working virtually can actually prove to be helpful for a woman if she gets proper support from her family and the people surrounding her.

A new survey by Pink Ladder, a comprehensive career enhancement ecosystem for women shows that 4 in 10 women are facing high levels of anxiety and stress during the current work-from-home situation. Additionally, over 50% are facing motivational challenges in the WFH scenario. A decrease in performance and a drop in motivation end up extending the amount of time required for each task for 75% of women surveyed.

Looking into this scenario, the best solution we can devise is that along with motivating women to work and be independent, it is also necessary to encourage men to help their partners with household chores. Both men and women are equally responsible in every situation, be it working on a project in the workplace or taking care of the household chores.

Once everyone accepts this, the world will be a much better and safer place for women.

The blog is by Ms. Shweta Shah, Intern – Aambra Foundation.