How about Work-Life Balance in Men?

India scores high on Hofstede’s Masculinity index which indicates how our society does not give as much importance to quality of life (virtue of a feminine society) as it does to competition and achievement. Not surprisingly, work-life balance – a measure of quality of life is more often than not, directed at women in our Asian societies. The population who bears the brunt of this lop-sided understanding is obviously the other gender – male.

We all are aware and acknowledge that women who are ambitious, or those who would simply love to have a career as much as any other male counterpart, don’t have it easy in our society where they are the primary care-givers, and are making constant ‘adjustments’ to fulfill their personal & professional roles. To put it simply it our society throws uncountable challenges at women – especially if she has dreams to achieve.

However, we hardly ever talk about the pressures of being a man in the great Indian workplace. It would help if we consciously give a thought to how our own attitudes towards men have been – especially towards those who are trying to achieve a harmony between their work and family life.

Many a times we witness a reverse bias towards such men at work. Those taking time off to tend to a sick child – or coming late due to PTMs are laughed at, are considered unambitious, and are labelled non-serious about their work. While a woman worker is praised for staying up late to finish a deliverable, commuting for an hour to reach work, or travelling overseas for a client presentation; for men, these are a ‘given’ and expected. Anything less becomes a potential arsenal for the manager to be used during future appraisal. Moreover, men as a gender discuss these issues much less than women. Consequently, they suffer from stress, burnout and related ailments such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, headaches, gastrointestinal problems, depression and anxiety to name a few.

Come to think of it, this is a vicious circle – where women don’t get a respite from their family/home/social responsibilities because the men who try to share these responsibilities are mocked at. Unless we have working arrangements & job designs which address the flexibility needs for all genders; along with a major change in our own mindsets and biases against men, they might continue to suffer in silence.

Things no doubt are changing for good – workplaces, managers, beliefs, value systems – both for women and men; and we certainly have positive examples and aberrations to this norm – but there is still a long way to go in achieving a truly ‘balanced’ society.