• First there was the TechCrunch post “Three Israeli Femme-preneurs To Keep an Eye On” and the outrage and twisted comments on it.
• Then there was this article on Harvard Business Review on “How women have changed  Norway“.
• Then I heard about MIT’s 2nd Annual Photo Contest, the theme for which is Women’s Entrepreneurship: Empowerment through Innovation.
• Finally, there was an email invitation to the Delhi chapter of TIE India’s latest initiative a Special Interest Group (SIG) for Women.

I appreciate all of these initatives on one side – they encourage and showcase women in action in their respective fields of work. From the daily wage construction laborer to a small business owner to a CEO – they all should be applauded for their hard work and success.

On the other hand, does sex need to be a part of it? Is a person’s genetical framework relevant to their work? May be entrepreneurs should be applauded regardless of the sex they were born with. We all know there is no such thing as a man or woman entrepreneur. Yet we sometimes qualify professionals like doctors as male or female. Same goes with CTO, CEO, founder, Prime Minister, President, etc. Why do we do this?

Do we make any changes to the job requirements when its a man vs a woman?  No. Then why do we need such so called prefixes? I think these are just signs of how different people percieve. Personal biases remain a part of the normal social fabric worldwide, but it matters how we apply them in our decision making. If person X is paying for massage services, the person may prefer a masseuse or masseur as a matter of comfort. This may be a personal preference but to what extent is it valid? a> the gender based preffered service provider may provide worse quality b> in today’s age since you can’t tell a person’s sexual preferences, the same sex service provider might possibly cause you more discomfort. While this was a simple example of daily life biases, by the same token can people rationally apply the same comfort based bias while choosing a President or a Board Chairman?

History has taught us globally and specifically in India, that creating special fast track programs and/or reservation laws (for educational institutions and jobs) based on candidate sex, caste, religion, etc. creates more boundaries than the imaginary glass ceilings they break.

In that vein, a special interest group for women indicates to me that there is something lacking with all the existing groups @ TIE, Delhi and the avenues they offer to women for professional growth and networking are limiting in some fashion or the other. If such is not the case, then women can and should participate in the TIE groups of their industry and interest areas.

As a matter of logic, if one considers a woman an equal then by defintion she needs no special treatment. Having special groups is akin to segregation, which Dr Martin Luther King aptly explained to the entire world – is not an acceptable solution to any problem. What is the best way to treat the problems at hand:

- fewer women in higher ranking roles

- fewer women in certain industry sectors

- fewer women in the workforce than men

Is the solution to:

- ignore the problem, ensure law provides equal opportunity to men and women alike and then let the equally empowered women create their own destinies?

- or to create special rules, special groups, special laws to artificially push up the number of working women?