| | OCTOBER 20219primary earner, so they are easier to let go and of course to lessen the boss's guilt of firing them. In many companies, paid maternity leave is considered a burden that they don't want to take. So they don't either hire women who are of the childbearing age or simply let them go. Imagine, if Virat Kohli, India's biggest cricketing icon, got slammed and shamed for taking paternity leave, how hard must it be for women. Just taking legitimate time-off to take care of a new-born is looked at as a sign of weakness. This attitude needs to change.Clearly something needs to be done. Just getting women into the workforce is not enough, under-standing that their trajectory is going to be differ-ent from the traditional male workforce is import-ant. The unconscious bias against women and lack of mentorship affects them deeply. Companies just don't understand that the journey that working wom-en take is not a linear line up to the top. There will be breaks in their growth, but that doesn't mean that they are incapable of making it all the way up.Working women don't need platitudes. What they need is systemic change in attitudes and processes. Organisations need to understand this and take extra effort to keep women in the workforce. Understand what truly works ­ flexible work timings, work loca-tion close to home, equal opportunities on all proj-ects. Removing the stigma and biases attached to wom-en working, gender sensitising the organisation and the male workforce, helping with the second shift will go a long way in keeping women back. More im-portant is having enough women role models at all levels. No one makes it alone, least of all women. When there is no understanding of the unique situations that women face, when there is no representation of women at the highest level, the fight gets harder. We need to use every opportunity to tell women that you are unique, and your voice matters in the workforce. Time to change the rules. It's no longer mentor-ing. It's time for womentoring.
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