Women empowerment and the Gig Economy

The world is celebrating International Women’s day today.

And a key focus area of discussion today is: Women in the workplace, and opportunities available (or denied ?) to women in the workplace.

 

Women all over the world face huge challenges.

The most major challenge is to break traditions & cultural norms.

 

In most cultures, the men have traditionally been the hunters, and the women have been the nurturers.

Even our physiques have been moulded to support this – Men are typically larger & more muscular; Women less so.

 

The world has evolved, and the dangers that humans faced in earlier times are now tranforming to the less physical.

And women are breaking the mould, and taking on roles & opportunities that were never in the woman’s domain in the past.

This is all for the good.

 

But there is one area where women have a stranglehold – That of childbearing.

No man is physically capable of handling this function. And so it must be performed by the woman.

 

Which means that the world over, societies expect women to step up to this function.

Further, societies also expect the mothers to be the primary nurturers, taking care of the family while her partner takes care of the earning for the family.

Even where the women are educated and have viable sources of earnings, she is expected to step back & handle the family nurturing function after marriage – often compromising her career.

 

What are some of the most prevalent expectations from women today, that impact their careers?

  1. After marriage, move to be with the husband, possibly abandoning their existing job. (Note: Where the Boy’s & Girl’s parents are more educated, this expectation is slowly reducing).
  2. When a girl becomes pregnant, avail maternity leave immediately before, and for some time after delivery. The legal mandate is that the girl is able to put her position on hold for the duration (typically 3-6 months). But in reality, when the girl returns to work, the original position may now be handled by someone else, and the returning employee will need to take on a new responsibility so that her employment continues unabated.
  3. After delivery, many girls prefer (or are forced by their family, by society, etc) to take extended leave, to care for the children. This may continue for several years, until the children are ready to be admitted to a school.
  4. Even when the children are off to school, there may be a persisting expectation that the girl continue to nurturing role, which may mean that she cannot take on roles that need extended working, travel, etc.

Bottomline is: For a woman in the workplace, expectations from the family & society frequently overpowers her ambitions & her need to contribute more intellectually.

 

Should this change? Yes, absolutely.

The more important question is: Will this expectation get diluted during this generation.

 

However:  Women do have viable alternatives to continuing in her career, even as she handles the nurturer function.

The Gig Economy looks to be custom-made for this context.

 

So how does the Gig Economy help ?

 

The benefits offered by Gig Economy:

  • Shorter-term assignments: Typical Gig assignments are  short-term & fixed. This would make the assignments convenient for both the Customer as well as the Freelancer to manage.
  • Management by objectives: You are not tied to a fixed set of working hours – You choose your working hours, and you shall be measured by your outputs only. So you can opt for flexible work hours at your convenience.
  • Remote work: Since Gig assignments are mostly remote work-based, you may not need to take extended career breaks. You can also catch up on your commitments at your convenience.

There are several domains where Gig economy is booming:

  1. Information technology – Web & mobile Development, Testing, Analysis, Data science, etc.
  2. Creative – Graphics, 2D/ 3D animation, Voiceovers, Video creation, etc.
  3. Creative writing – Blogging, Ghost writing, Web page content creation, Copywriting, etc.
  4. Digital marketing, SEO, etc.
  5. Sales & Marketing.
  6. Branding, PR, etc.
  7. Tutoring.
  8. Translations.
  9. Administration, Virtual office management, etc.
  10. Market Research.
  11. Engineering & Architectural design.
  12. Data entry, transcriptions, etc.
  13. HR services.
  14. Legal services.
  15. Accounting services.

 

However, you must take care of some standard health-check items, in order to be successful:

  • Identify your core skills that you want to pursue. Build a strong Work portfolio that can attract customers. Build your profile on the Freelancing platforms of your choice, and connect that to your Portfolio.
  • Be sure to always be professional. Offer high quality products, and always deliver on time. Your reputation is what will get you future business.
  • Manage your bandwidth availability carefully, so that you are able to meet your commitments.
  • Consciously work to build up your brand. Use Social media to your advantage.
  • Consciously work  to build up your network of business customers. Your loyal customers can be your evangelists.

So…. This International Women’s day, take charge of your life !