Welcome to the T&F India blog

Hello All,

Welcome to the T&F India blog. 

Ever since all of you indicated (through the employee survey conducted last November) that you would like a forum to share and air news and views we have been planning a launch and revival of the blog. However, all good things need the right time and place and women’s day seemed to many to be appropriate. It is nice to celebrate women and womanhood but the fact that we do so is also, sadly, a pointer to the fact that it is a man’s world.

At T and F globally we are privileged to have many women colleagues and leaders and in India the numbers are more or less even. We all know that this is quite unusual, even in the publishing industry, where there have always been a lot of women. We certainly need to strive to sustain this balance but we all also need to do a bit more. What does this mean for professional men and women in the workplace? Well, here are some ideas for thought and discussion:

• Women need to speak up and be heard while everyone else, both men and women, need to interrupt them less and listen more, when they do.
• Men need to share much more in the ‘office housework’, i.e., all the tasks that need doing but getting them done goes unrecognized and often unacknowledged in the workplace.
• Both men and women need to guard against gender stereotypes (so ingrained in us all) while performing at work.

We have women managers leading all boy teams and visa versa, we have departments where women are a minority and other where men are so. Gender stereotypes are at work all the time, whether we realize or acknowledge it or not. Awareness is the first step but it is not enough, we need actions to follow.

I once worked with a manager whose attitude to gender I remain ambivalent about to this day: “I want whose best for the job, man, woman or monkey”! Well, I was chosen above the monkey and did work with him for years but always wondered about the nuances of that remark. What do you think?

Once again, welcome to the blog and I hope it will be used as a platform to share, be heard and to listen.

Nitasha Devasar, Managing Director T&F India