Safety or Career? The Dilemma Faced by Working Women || Acharya Prashant, at AIIMS Nagpur (2022)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...  ~~~~~  Video Information: AIIMS, Nagpur, 08.03.2022, Nagpur, India  Context: ~ How to set priorities? ~ How to be free? ~ What is freedom? ~ How to bring woman's revolution? ~ How to bring about a Total Women's revolution?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00A very good evening sir. Sir, according to World Bank, out of the total economic growth

00:09of India, women contribute only 17%. But there are Chinese counterparts contribute 40% to

00:16their nation. As we are aiming to be a $5 trillion economic country in the near future,

00:22what we as an Indian society can do to enhance the economic women workforce in our country

00:29apart from education sector.

00:33If I get you right, what you are saying is that compared to Chinese women, Indian women

00:41contribute far less to the Indian economy in percentage terms. That's what you are saying?

00:47That's what you are saying? Okay. So you are saying how to amend that?

00:52See, how do you expect somebody to express herself, to go out, work, produce something worthwhile?

01:09If you have defined her value by the time and energy she puts in keeping you home and

01:23raising your kids. If that's how the society is willing to assess the worth of a woman,

01:32what incentive does she have to go out and work? What I am telling your women, you are

01:41telling them, you stay at home, you take good care of the nest, you be a nice mother and

01:54give her all the respect. You will see how good a homemaker she is and she is doing all

02:01the fabulous things and this and that. This is how her worth is to be given, both economic

02:10and psychological. Then tell me what is the incentive to go out and work?

02:17Even women with great professional degrees in India, coming out from IITs, IIMs, they decide to

02:26sit at home. Many of them obviously, not all of them. They decide to sit at home after a point

02:33and they say this is fine. Why is this not fine? Because the husband is earning and my

02:42worth is being determined by several factors other than my economic productivity. So why do I need

02:49to take all the hassles and go out in the sun and break the heat and hit the road and do something?

02:58I will give you a very dangerous statistic. Have you heard of something called female

03:05labour participation rate? Have you heard of it? It refers to the percentage of women

03:15who are out there working and earning. So we say the economy has liberalised, the Indian economy.

03:27We say Indians are much more liberal even in mind today. We say there are far more institutes

03:43of professional education today than there were let's say 20 years back. There are just too many

03:52seats now and the percentage of women entering those institutions has also increased.

04:02We say the girl of today is very very forward looking. These are the things that we say.

04:10Having said all these things, what do you expect regarding the number of working women today

04:18vis-a-vis the number of working women that were there 20 or 30 years back? What would you expect?

04:23What would you expect? Tell me. Ok, let me say. If there were 100 women working in 1980 or 1990,

04:40what would you expect would be the number in 2022? What number would you expect? 1000? Yes? Yes?

04:57The number is only slightly greater than 100 and in percentage terms it has actually dropped

05:06steeply. Percentage of the total population because the female population itself has

05:12increased over the last 30 years. As a percentage of the population, the FLPR has actually dropped

05:19and is dropping every year. Women are getting educated and empowered and everything and are choosing to sit at home.

05:27And when they were not so educated and not so empowered, empowered within quotes, they were actually going out to work.

05:35How is this happening? This is so counter intuitive and mind boggling. Is it not?

05:41How is it possible that women with all the opportunities available to them today, with all the education that is available to them today,

05:47qualified women and knowledgeable women, they are opting to sit at home. What is happening?

05:56What is happening is that the husband's income has increased and the husband and the wife mutually decide

06:03that now that you are earning enough, why do I go out? And this is a mutual decision, mind you.

06:12Okay, I was working for 3 years post marriage, but now that the baby has come, why do I need to work anymore?

06:21Or I take a break from work to take care of the baby and I think that I will return after a year and I never return.

06:30Because the home is such a comfortable place. Let's face it. The home is such a comfortable place,

06:38especially if there is sufficient money at home.

06:46We might say that the labor participation rate will increase if there is more security in the workplace,

06:55if the workplace conditions are made more favorable for women and those arguments do hold some weight, I fully agree.

07:02I agree that some women do not go to work because workplaces are unsafe or because workplaces are not paying them enough

07:09or there is discrimination at workplace so some women are not going to work.

07:13But tell me, was there lesser discrimination in 1985?

07:19Then how is it possible that more and more women, educated women, empowered women are opting to sit at home?

07:28This is again the Prakritic tendency. What does Mother Prakriti tell you?

07:36She tells you that the purpose of your life is relaxation and consumption.

07:43Now if relaxation and consumption are happily, coolly available at home, why work?

07:49And that's the same thing that even a man would do.

07:53Today, somebody comes and puts 100 crore in your bank account.

07:59There would be many amongst you who might decide to opt out of this program and just sit and lead a happy life.

08:07Intellectually, if you think about it, you might not agree. You will say, no, no, no, I am not like that.

08:13But when it happens, when you know that you have easy access to comfortable money, then there is no incentive to work.

08:26I am not saying that is the case with all women.

08:28But increasingly, a large cross-section of women are following this route.

08:39And it is a very, very dangerous route. Very dangerous route.

08:46How do you change this situation?

08:49By changing the thought that consumption is the purpose of life.

08:55That lying down on the bed, munching expensive fries and watching Netflix is the highest pleasure that life can give you.

09:10Obviously, wearing diamond jewellery. Can you imagine?

09:14Now, if you have been trained to think that this is the pinnacle of life.

09:18A diamond bracelet, an expensive bed, wonderful air conditioning, a large room full of amenities, a 200-inch TV,

09:31and you are watching the spicy program of your choice.

09:36Many of us would celebrate at this prospect, wish life were like this.

09:42Now, this is hell. This is not the kind of life to be desired.

09:48This exactly is the picture of hell. Hell is where you don't have to work.

09:55Hell is where you don't have any purpose to life.

10:00Any purpose worth exerting yourself for, worth laying down your life for, that is hell.

10:07More and more, media, education, the entire culture is feeding this into our mind that you exist just to be happy.

10:22And where does happiness come from? More and more consumption.

10:26More furniture, a bigger car, five houses, a foreign vacation.

10:34We are being told that we exist not for our liberation but for consumption.

10:39And if consumption can be somehow available for free, then why work at all?

10:45Because consumption is anyway the end purpose.

10:48It's just that the things that are going to be available to you for consumption, they never come for free.

10:55They come at the cost of your entire life.

11:00And being a woman, you know very well why somebody would give you easy access to his money and his property.

11:07You know that, don't you? It's the body that is being sold for the money.

11:13That kind of life is despicable. That is worse than hell, I say.

11:20Are you getting? What kind of liberation can be there if you are dependent on somebody else even for your physical survival?

11:32What kind of freedom is possible if you don't have even two rupees of your own and then you say his money is my money?

11:43So if you want to change this situation, if you really want more women to come out and make a mark in life,

11:56then you have to first of all challenge the overarching philosophy, the dominant narrative of this day.

12:07It is a very very poisonous narrative. Capitalistic consumerism.

12:12Have money, consume. Have money, consume.

12:16It puts no emphasis on right work.

12:19In fact, it says that you are in the greatest position if you can consume a lot without having to exert even a little.

12:32That's the reason why everybody wants to have very nefarious sources of money.

12:39Because ultimately it's the money and the consumption that counts, not the source of money.

12:46How does it matter where the money is coming from?

12:48I can lie, cheat, kill, murder. I should get something to consume.

12:55I can sell my life provided the buyer feeds me with gold.

13:08Challenge this narrative. Otherwise, this narrative will keep more and more women at home.

13:18Because the economy is progressing and men are getting richer.

13:28And as you get richer, you want to indulge in certain luxuries.

13:36One of the luxuries is keep the woman permanently at home.

13:42It's a luxury of life, you know.

13:44I keep my girl at home. She is always available at my beck and call.

13:48If she goes out, who knows what may happen.

13:52She may taste freedom. She may taste success of her own.

13:55She may develop a life of her own.

13:58And who knows, if she goes out, she may actually go away from me.

14:01So it is great that she stays at home. I will provide for her.

14:05I will give her whatever she needs.

14:07Anyway, the property remains mostly in the male's name.

14:14You very well know that women own less than 3% of the world's assets.

14:21They don't own anything. They are just given something.

14:25Why do you want to adjust to this situation? Do you want to?

14:32Do you want to be given something on a weekly or monthly basis from somebody else's bank account?

14:40The property belongs to somebody else.

14:42But he says, whenever you will ask me something darling, I will give it to you.

14:46Is this an honorable situation? Yes.

14:51Unfortunately, more and more Indian women are falling for it.

14:56Because in absence of any kind of wisdom, it is the pop philosophy that is ruling our minds.

15:05We have no Vedanta in our life.

15:08We have nothing called wisdom literature in our life.

15:13Then what is the philosophy that rules our mind?

15:17It is the philosophy that comes to us from social media, from television.

15:21When you are watching a commercial or when you are watching a movie or anything that you are watching,

15:28it is not merely a picture or a video or an audio.

15:34It is a philosophical package.

15:37And when you are watching that, you do not even know that you are actually buying into that philosophical package.

15:46Apparently, it is just the shape of the woman on Instagram.

15:50And that's what you are keenly watching, right? It's good fun.

15:54It's not just the shape of the woman's body in that post.

15:58It is a philosophy that you have bought into.

16:00And it's a very toxic philosophy.

16:03But we do not come to know of that in that moment.

16:08Because in that moment, under the impact of lust and ignorance, our discretion takes a backseat.

16:20There is so much glamour on the screen.

16:22How will you even know that you are being indoctrinated?

16:26To know that you are being indoctrinated, you need to be conscious.

16:29And the first thing that media does is it makes you unconscious with songs, with all the spice.

16:39And when you are unconscious, then you can absorb anything.

16:44And that which you absorb becomes your life.

16:59Am I going too fast for you or too ahead of you?

17:03I am trying to keep it as simple as possible.

17:06And it's actually simple. There is nothing complicated in this, right?

17:10A lot of this that I am saying, I understood it even when I was your age.

17:18So there is no great complexity here.

17:21Sir, like you were saying in the middle of the discussion, like many women from so-called well-known institutions withholding a very good degree.

17:34They sit back at home and because their husband earns some good money, they stop working and lie, sit at home doing nothing.

17:48But there is another perspective to it.

17:52Many a times it happens also because they do not have interest in what work they were doing.

17:59Like I will give you one personal example.

18:03There is a relative at my own house.

18:06She is doing a job currently.

18:12But I can see that she does not have a great interest in it.

18:17Even if she doesn't work, it is not going to make any huge difference.

18:22But you know, she does not have any interest working from day and night.

18:29She is looking for holidays or whatever, whatever things like that.

18:33So is it very sensible to say that just because her husband is earning more, so they do not want to work?

18:42If there is nobody to feed you and you are not very interested in your job, will you still leave your job?

18:49No.

18:51Wait, answer this.

18:53Nobody is fully interested in his or her job.

18:57Even men are not very interested in their jobs.

19:00Nobody is.

19:01Do they leave their jobs and sit at home?

19:05They won't.

19:06Because they know there is nobody to feed them.

19:09So it is the presence of the other party ready to feed you, which is the primary factor in you saying,

19:17Oh I am not interested, therefore I am dropping out.

19:19Nobody is interested.

19:21Are you fully interested in your MBBS course?

19:23Nobody is 100% interested.

19:25Wait.

19:27Nobody is fully interested.

19:29Why don't you drop out then?

19:31Because you have something to take care of.

19:34Because there is a deep responsibility towards something.

19:38When you give up that responsibility, then you can say, Oh I am not interested.

19:43Even I am not extremely or absolutely interested in talking to you.

19:46What do I do?

19:47Run away.

19:49Nothing is absolute in this world.

19:51If you ask me, am I 100% invested in this conversation?

19:53I am not.

19:55But certain things are done because they need to be done.

19:59Then isn't it like you were earlier saying a biological mandate.

20:04It seems to be like a mandate.

20:07The mandate is liberation.

20:09And you cannot be liberated if you are dependent on somebody else to feed your stomach.

20:15So if you are disinterested in your work, then your responsibility is to go out and create the right work for yourself.

20:23This is a very bad apology.

20:25I am disinterested in the work, so I am sitting at home.

20:27If you are disinterested and you are being true to yourself, go out and create an alternate work.

20:33First of all, try to find the right work for yourself and if you cannot find it, then create it.

20:38What is this behavior?

20:41I am not interested, so I will sit at home, now you feed me.

20:45Now you feed me.

20:46The day he stops feeding, all your disinterest will vanish.

20:51Then you will go out and pick up whatever job is available, irrespective of your interest or lack of it.

20:57So this is a very bad apology, don't be fooled by it.

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