Women in the civil services: Gender and workplace identities in India

Abstract

This book explores the personal and professional lives of women in the Indian Civil Services and analyses the dynamics of gender and their workplace identities. Based on fi rst-hand interviews of women civil servants at various levels and career stages, the book is written from a liberal feminist point of view. One of the many goals of this perspective is to level the playing fi eld for men and women and move towards participatory equality via a ffi rmative action so that women are encouraged to join the world of work, politics, and knowledge production. This is followed by presentation of primary data, collected via interviews and survey research for this empirical study. The book presents a narrative of women civil servants and their work conditions, the degrees of authority they exercise and their perceptions about themselves, their children, husbands, families, male and female colleagues, politicians, and the public at large. It addresses pertinent issues like work-family balance, workforce diversity, equal employment opportu-nity, and sexual harassment at the workplace, among others. The author also addresses questions such as whether women in public administration think di ff erently from their male colleagues and if they exercise di ff erent leadership styles, prioritize di ff erent issues, approach problems di ff erently, make decisions in markedly di ff erent ways and play an active representative role? This book helps to identify some major obstacles that hinder the participation of women in decision-making and uncovers the bottlenecks that impede their advancement in the civil services, more speci fi cally for assuming policymaking positions. The book and the fi rst the author introduces the