It's International Women’s Day and we normally celebrate womanhood in all its avatars. It's not just mother, daughter, wife, grandmother but now, we are also hailing them as leaders. Three such women at the top of their respective careers — law, entrepreneurship and bankruptcy — talk about what it means to be a woman in their fields.
Avaantika Kakkar is a corporate lawyer who has specialised in competition law and has been associated with top law firms like Khaitan & Co. and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. She is one of the few women working as a partner in Indian law firms.
Avaantika feels that the reason she has been able to do well is because of her association with cosmopolitan law firms and not practising as an independent lawyer.
“I think I have been lucky enough to have had a corporate and more cosmopolitan set up because of which I did not have to deal with gender biases,” says Avantika. “Even when I had my children my employers were quite supportive and maternity leave and sabbaticals did not affect my paycheque.” “I know that others may not have been as blessed,” she adds.
A World Bank report has been quoted by Bar and Bench to state that 71% of women working in law feel there is pay parity.
Entrepreneur Surga Thilakan, the founder of SalesKen, says that the difficulty with women in her area — technology — is that they are normally not found in high-paid roles. “Our leadership team comprises eight people and has mostly men in it. When I was on the lookout for the team, I realised there aren’t any women out there I could hire for those roles,” says Surga. “Also, the problem I see with women is that when they come from maternity leave or a sabbatical, they are more hesitant to ask for better pay.”
Mamta Binani, one of India's first insolvency professionals, feels that while gender inequality in the field of insolvency is not open and explicit, it does exist. She feels that there is some amount of inequality in payment to female insolvency professionals versus their male counterparts. But she feels that the bigger problem is how women are perceived in the profession.
“The broad feeling is that if a woman is an insolvency professional then she might not be able to interact informally,” says Binani. “I feel their work should be the focus and not whether they can interact informally with the IP or not.”
She adds that most of the work she has got has been through the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), therefore not having to bid for any company that will undergo insolvency resolution.