Women in the workplace: A psychological viewpoint.

In today's world a lot of women are stepping out of their homes to work. Women of all age groups, from all strata of society and even those who can live a fairly comfortable life even if they don't work are entering the work scenario. So basically working is more often a choice for women rather than an option and a lot of women are choosing this path for a varied range of reasons which may range from a desire for financial independence to just being able to keep oneself busy. Whatever the reason may be, you can see women at all levels of positions in the work environment and in all kind of work settings.

Men go out to work and they have a set of problems to deal with. Well similarly, if women are going out to work they will also have a set of problems to deal with. And it's no surprise that women have to deal with not only the problems at work but also problems at home. We will talk more about that in later articles. 

There is a lot of stuff online about the various challenges and pressures that women face while working. Since I have been invited to write for the magazine as a psychologist, I will leave the commonly written about issues aside. Instead, let's look at the various challenges at work for women which manifest themselves psychologically and may affect the female worker's mental health. In this article we will look into these factors briefly and in the future articles we will try to look into each one with greater detail. 

The list of the psychological issues faced by women at work is exhaustive. More often than not, these issues also contributes to or takes away from their mental health. Let's look at some of these key issues keeping in mind that each is a result of and contributes to some other factor which may or may not be mentioned here. Let's also keep in mind that not every woman may face these issues and some of you out there are probably not facing any issue, which is great! 

Women the world over are susceptible to a range of mental health issues. Working women have their own set of mental health problems. To quote the WHO "There is no health without mental health." Work pressure accompanied with pressure from home, work timings, relationships with colleagues, nature of the work, etc., can lead to mental stress. This can be accompanied with depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, to name a few. Most of the times, people don't seek help for these concerns. And the various issues keep piling till one day the person experiences a breakdown. 

Women work two jobs. One is more acknowledged where we get paid in monetary terms and the other is rather a silent job where given the society we live in its supposed to be a duty entrusted upon us simply because we are women.  This double shift adds not only a lot of physical strain but also a lot of mental stress. Imagine if the men were to work 9 to 5 in one place and then come back "home" where they would work 5 to 9. How would they react?

Many a times I have female patients who are bright women but gave up work post marriage because there families would not like it. In the other scenario, where the women are allowed to work, there is often a lack of understanding on the part of the family regarding her work timings, the list is endless. Not only at the home front but often at work, women don't support other women. At the beginners level women are often cooperative but when it comes to competitive environments, women often want to pull down the other women. And then of course there is a lack of support sometimes from the male coworkers who may not take easily toward a female superior. The lack of social support is pervasive. 

Some research suggests that when it comes to achieving targets in the work world, women are their own worst enemies. They have a lot of self imposed barriers. I have met women in therapy who imagine all the boundaries they talk about, and these boundaries have never been spoken of or discussed by their families. They just assume that's how it is. Apart from hindering their professional
growth, these self imposed barriers also give rise to anxiety, low self respect, undervaluing one's achievements, and the like. 

Any form of harassment at work or even at home is a serious offence. Dismally, however, a large portion of women the world over believe that it's right if their men physically or verbally abuse them if they didn't do something as per desired. At the workplace, harassment can take several forms, the most serious of them all being sexual in nature. Whether as a superior or a subordinate, sexual harassment is a grim reality faced by women in most work settings. If someone dares to press charges of harassment against one's boss or company, it may first of all take years for the case to come to a conclusion and by that time, the society has made enough judgements about the victim that she will be haunted by it for the rest of her life thus getting mentally scarred in the process. 

There is a lot of hue and cry over the unequal pay that women receive for the same amount of work as their male counterparts. More than anything else, this inequality of pay is causing a lot of psychological harm to women. Low and unequal pay contributes to the entire cycle of reduced sense of self worth, undervaluing one's own capacity thus eventually trickling down to low productivity and the cycle continues.

Mental health is a largely ignored area and mental healthcare for women is even more sidelined. It's time we acknowledge the various mental health issues that pose a challenge for a working woman and do something to tackle them. 

(Article first published in Evescape, November, 2014)