666.2
Marginality Perception of Women Techies in Kolkata: A Bottom up Approach
individualism and egalitarianism across the globe and in different arenas. This paper attempts to test the above claim by analysing the cases of women software
professionals in the much-hyped Information Technology sector which is supposed to be an offshoot of new globalisation having progressive ideology of being a
non-discriminatory workplace. This paper brings forth women techies’ anecdotes and tribulations on their path of achieving career progression within the highly
acclaimed egalitarian workplace where gender equality is perceived to be a business imperative. The said research captures the contemporary workplace context,
by articulating both the organisional approach as well as the employees’ perspectives towards the prevailing gender equation in the concerned industry. The objective
of our study is, therefore, to explore the extent to which the discrepancy is experienced by the female software professionals in terms of the above-referred dimensions vis-a-vis their male counterparts. Field observations encapsulated through using anthropological mode of inquiry from among 250 women software
professionals from the sundry software firms located in Kolkata, during the period 2010-2011. The outcome of the research revealed that there is definitive
existence of discrepancy in relegating female employees to marginalised position, in a subtle and implicit manner in this industry. However, the study paradoxically
unfolds the way women techies in this industry gets empowered sufficiently to break age-old jinx notion for being excluded from participating in the technological
sector but gets entangled in various stereotypical typecast within the industry rendering them to subsidiary roles in the workplace without having much promotional
prospects. The study evolves the intersectional feminist theoretical underpinnings for understanding the marginalised position of women employees in this new-age
industry.