"Diversity is being called to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance"
NOTE: A note to all men reading this article. I urge you to keep an open mind while reading the responses of the women here. This article does not aim to undermine your claims, but to highlight the viewpoints of women.
It has become a common practice in interviews at various institutions to ask women whether they deserve academic diversity points or not. It is indeed a difficult situation to be in. The interviewer may be insinuating that you stand here because of the diversity points and it truly is intimidating to defend the validity of your chance.
Here is a collection of thought-provoking and eye-opening answers by the women of IIMK to help articulate your opinions and tackle the question successfully.
Omaima – B.Arch
“For a guy if he wants to go to a coaching, he has to get up and go.
For a girl, if she wants to go to a coaching, she has to convince her parents (I aspire to study at a top b-school, not get married), check whether it’s not too far from home, see if classes are not at night, see if the classes are in a good locality, make sure that she dresses appropriately, see if there is safe transport around and then she may get to go”
Gender diversity marks should exist. Even a mature woman from an upper-middle-class family goes through many difficulties in getting higher education as parents believe that it would be better to marry her off rather than have her pursue an MBA. Despite a privileged upbringing, women are given an ultimatum to get into a good MBA college quickly or get married. And when we take it down to the grass-root level, the choice does not even exist. A girl is not allowed to develop herself, her soft skills, her personality; all her life she is told what to do, how to behave, what to dress up in and how to live. After all this, somehow the girl completes her schooling and decides to go to college. And somehow manages to score a 97 against all these structural barriers and is pitted against a guy with a 99 without such barriers. I believe the diversity marks
are justified.
Malavika – B.Tech (ETE)
“By giving gender diversity marks, you are not curing the problem but putting a bandage on it”
Giving away such gender diversity marks creates a social divide between men and women in which the men believe that women don’t deserve to be there and make women believe that they aren’t worthy. And instead of having the desired social outcome, this step creates more inherent discrimination!
This isn’t a long term solution at all. Furthermore, this promotes the glorification of problems of women as compared to actually solving the issue. The actual issue is lost out in the “glamour” associated with gender diversity.
We need to be more analytical in our approach. An example would that long time back a premier b-school used to have Group Discussion and Personal Interview without any marks for Gender. It was noticed that mostly men were dominating in the results. This was traced to having a male-dominated panel interviewing and hence WAT was introduced and surprisingly this boosted the number of women getting through. Changing the assessment methodology helped instead of giving freebie marks.
Maitri – B.Sc (Finance)
“You don’t want to push women in the college, you want to pull women in”
I do not feel that gender diversity marks are justified. People perceive these women as non-deserving and undervalue their achievements. If you want more women, evaluate them as individuals with stories that need to be heard, and not give away charity points. A more robust evaluation process and criteria needs to be made that can account for the differences.
Not everybody deserves these marks. The evaluative criteria should be promote equity as compared to equality For example: account for rural and urban backgrounds.
These charity marks undermine the value of hard work done. It is harsh on the women who are hardworking and reach heights post their college life. Society should perceive these women as individuals who deserve to be there and the title should not be taken away from them. Having gender diversity marks takes this privilege away from them.
Women should be here because they deserve to be and not to fill up the gender diversity quota.
Manvi – B.Tech (CSE)
“I wanted to be an automobile engineer, but the first question thrown at me was that how many women are Auto Engineers. Likewise, we barely see the representation of women in management”
Gender diversity points are necessary. Historically, females have been discouraged from education. Furthermore, there exist many structural and societal barriers against women. There have been negative points of patriarchy against us and these gender diversity points help compensate for the same. Having only GEMs in management schools promotes a unidirectional male mentality. Consequently, it leads to male-dominated offices and this perpetuates a culture insensitive to the needs/problems of women. Male managers need to be conscious of these structural inequalities and being in the same circle as women will help expose them to women’s point of view. This will, in turn, sensitise them and make them understand why such criteria need to exist. Having gender points allows B-Schools to simulate a gender-sensitive environment for men and women. Furthermore, CAT is unidimensional in it’s selection. It does not measure the variety of intelligence that women bring to the table such as emotional intelligence.
Hence gender diversity points are needed.
As is evident from the above that women do need empowerment but whether gender diversity points is the way to go is debatable. Furthermore, the number of marks given is also under question.
We all have a long way to go to make this society an equal place for women. We hope that this article was enlightening and would help women in their interview process.
Stay tuned for what men have to say about the marks!
NOTE: Names have been changed on request.