That was five years ago. But it’s still difficult for her when the rehearsals carry on till late at night. Public transportations aren’t available and cabs are unsafe. These are the times when she wishes she owned a private vehicle. “Under such circumstances, I ask my male co-artists to drop me home,” she says. [break]
Keshab Thoker
At Mandala, her job is not limited to stage performance. Within the theater, the artists do everything from sweeping the floor to changing the light bulbs. It’s a job that demands a lot of time, energy, skill, effort and patience. “We always have so much to do in here. Hours have just become numbers to us,” says Adhikari.
In our society, women have to provide elaborate details about their whereabouts if they are to stay away for the night while men don’t. “The male artists can simply go to sleep on the stage but I can’t do it because I’m a woman,” she says with a laugh.
Nowadays, however, her family has become more understanding about her nature of work. She believes that she has finally established herself albeit after a lot of personal hassle and struggles of almost half a decade.
There has been a paradigm shift in the way our society thinks and operates in the past few years. It may be due to the development in the mass media and the increasing effects of globalization that people have become more accepting and tolerant in terms of cultures, values and beliefs. Nonetheless, it’s rather difficult to bring about a drastic change when multiple generations born and brought up in completely different eras are involved, and live under the same roof.
Shanti Gautam, a schoolteacher, strongly opposes the idea of women staying out after dark. Her daughters are studying in day colleges and her daughter-in-law is a government officer. “Kathmandu is just a village with tall buildings. A woman has to be careful if she is not to be frowned upon by the society,” she says.
Being a teacher herself, she is completely in favor of female education and empowerment. “But integrity and family matter the most. Women must have education and jobs but should follow certain norms and being home on time tops the list,” she adds. The same rule, however, does not apply for men. She believes that men can have a more “liberal” life because our society is “just like that.”
Though a large portion of the older generation is still rigid in its views, there’re women today who sign up for a career knowing what it demands and manage to convince their families into providing them full support and encouragement.
Sangya Paudel, a medical student at Nepal Medical College (NMC) never had any problems with night shifts. “I’ve had round the clock shifts at the hospitals and various health camps outside the valley but my family has always supported me,” she says.
Similar is the case with Ishwari Tamang, a nurse at NMC. Unlike doctors, as Tamang puts it, there’s still some prejudice related to nurses in society. But Tamang’s family has always been extremely supportive. She loves helping the children, the old and the ailing but at times, things tend to get nasty at the hospitals.
“At night, young male visitors come to the hospital drunk. Sometimes, they misbehave and are warned or at times, physically removed,” says Tamang. She, however, blames the mindset of the people for these incidents rather than the hour of the day.
Even the conservative families tend to be more supportive of the odd hours and outstation schedules when it’s a part of the academics. One such example is the chartered accountancy course which demands “articleship” or internship.
Shikha Bagla, a CA student who comes from a traditional family explains, “Technically our timings are from nine to five. But towards the end of the fiscal year, we start much earlier and work until much later.” They even have to go out of the valley for auditing at a very short notice; sometimes even for an entire month. Working independently in a new environment has its own challenges though, especially for women.
“Sexual harassment at office might be a problem for the females when they’re in a new workplace,” she says adding that men, on the other hand, don’t have to face such risks. She believes that such cases are rare but can happen with anybody at any hour and the only way to prevent them is to remain on guard constantly.
Anita Silwal, newsreader at News24, believes that one should be smart enough to avoid such instances and that kind of wisdom comes with years of professionalism.
She was just 11 when she did her first movie “Aadikavi Bhaanubhakta.” She remembers shooting until two in the morning. Currently, the newsreader has had to stay until midnight and also come to office at the crack of dawn. Days and nights have ceased to mean anything to her as well as her family.
“There aren’t many women in hardcore journalism because of late hours, marriage, babies and lack of family support,” she says adding that if her family wasn’t so supportive she would have probably changed her profession a long time back.
Sociologist Padma Lal Devkota associates all these varying perspectives with two distinct terms: social security and social stigma. He believes that there’s more social security attached with jobs like medicine, chartered accountancy, teaching and journalism than with those at casinos, pubs, bars, restaurants and hotels. Also, he opines, the way people look at the former set of occupations is somewhat more reverential than the latter.
“Society is a structure of systems and beliefs. It can undergo alterations with time and circumstances. But one or two individuals cannot immediately and drastically change something that has already been in practice for so long,” says Devkota. Women, he says, are more prone to societal scrutiny than men. Although things have changed a lot, there’s still a long way to go before we achieve gender equality in practice and mindset, and not just in law and theory.
Late Hours What’s at Stake?
Some men have had to fight their own share of battles while working against the clock in terms of societal prejudices, health status, and job description. The others, on the contrary, are quite happy being the night owls because it helps them balance both sides of the world; professional and academic.
From electricians to theater technicians and from bouncers to students, every man doing an odd hour job or study has his own story to tell. There are several factors like the nature of the job, the kind of family one belongs to and the preconceived notions of the society related to a particular field of work that make all the difference.
Keshab Thoker
“Our kind of work demands masculinity,” shares Tanka Bahadur Majhi, an electrician at Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). “In the three decades I’ve been working, I’ve never seen a woman hanging on the electric poles in the middle of the night and testing wires and changing them.”
It’s more a matter of expertise and experience, he believes, rather gender or time. One occurrence of negligence can cost someone their life. “There’re no female experts in our field and that’s why we can’t risk having female workers,” he explains.
Nature of work indeed makes a difference for men more than the odd hours of duty. There’re still some prejudices associated with some professions in our society. And some families seem more concerned about them than the others.
Mohammad Nazeer Hussain, an actor, designer and technician at Mandala Theater, remembers having to battle his sister just because he wanted to join theater. “Odd hours, of course, became a problematic issue since everyone wanted me home on time,” he reminisces.
“Even today, some of my family members want me to give up theater and start a regular nine to five job that will ensure a stable life and secure future.”
Hotel business is another walk of life that has received a lot of scrutiny. Min Kadel, an ex employee of Hotel Radisson emphasizes that although things are changing academically and professionally, the perception towards hotel workers still needs to be worked upon. After spending almost a decade in the hotel business, he still thinks that the employees are frowned upon by a large chunk of the society.
He remembers that male employees at Hotel Radisson had to stay for the night shifts while the female employees were dropped home in the hotel’s van at eleven o’clock. Currently, running a hotel of his own at Pokhara, Kadel shares his experiences at the casino where people, at times, tend to get verbally abusive after getting broke or drunk. “Foreigners don’t seem to mind the abusive language that much. But most Nepalese girls need time to adjust to this kind of environment,” he adds.
Khem Kuwar, a bouncer at Casino Royale has had similar experiences. There are many women working in the hotel and within the casino as front desk managers, house keeping staff and waitresses. “It’s rather difficult for those who work in the gaming section. They’ve to bear the brunt of the losers’ anger,” he explains. As a bouncer, he has even had to physically remove people when the situation got bad.
The scenario seems completely different in the case of students though. Night classes seem to provide a good way to continue working while studying. This appears to have nothing to do with professional expertise, area of occupation or gender differences as such.
Shamesh Joshi, an EMBA student, enjoys his night classes a lot and believes that it’s the same for his female classmates who spend quality time at the canteen even when the classes are over. “After a long day’s work, we feel it’s an amazing way to refresh ourselves as it feels like college days are here again,” he says.
Sushant Dhakal, a night shift employee at the Nepal Telecom’s Call Center, agrees with Joshi. He thinks night shifts are good for people who have multiple jobs and are also juggling studies with work. “Yes, it can make you exhausted physically and mentally but this is the time and age to learn and work and working night shift is a very practical option,” he says.
Working is as much a matter of individual choice and necessity for men as it is for women. However, it cannot be denied that our society has more males working during odd hours than females perhaps due to the societal constructs and psychological as well as security issues. The situation is gradually changing but it might take a while to bring about a more drastic transformation.
“For late night shifts, we´ve only male employees
Shesh Bhakta Shrestha, Proprietor, Nepal Telecom Call Center
How’s this call center any different from the others?
The whole concept is different. We’re more service oriented. The others are business oriented. As a telecom company, it’s our duty to provide customer care service. We provide help with landlines, cell phones and even internet. We answer all the queries related to our services via phone round the clock. We’re the bridge between NTC and its customers.
Is everybody given training before they join?
Yes, training is mandatory. And from what I’ve found, women are more polite, patient and soft spoken than men over the phone. They’re as efficient as men and that shows from the early days of training. With time and experience, our employees get more polished.
What’s the ratio of your male and female employees?
We’ve around two hundred staff working with us at present and seventy percent of them are females.
And the working shifts?
We’ve multiple shifts. We’ve early morning shift that starts at half past six and late night shift that starts at nine. We provide twenty four hour service and for that, people have to work in shifts. We serve dinner and pay extra to those who work late at night.
When do you have female employees’ shifts?
Female employees work during the peak hours in the morning or midday. We’ve calls coming in from all over Nepal and they handle the extreme pressure with confidence, patience and expertise.
Don’t you have women working night shifts?
We’ve women extremely willing to work night shifts. They’re fully capable of performing their duties too. Most of them have been here for a while. We’ve some ladies working till half past six and beyond. But for late night shifts after nine, we’ve only male employees.
Why’s that so?
It’s due to the structure and system. First, we don’t have our own vehicle to drop people home. It’s not possible since we have strikes and bandhs ever so often. Most of our employees walk home since they live nearby. Second, our society still wants to see their daughters and wives back home on time and it might be difficult for some of our female employees to follow this pattern of work. Third, during late hours there’re chances that inebriated people might call and the moment they hear a female voice over the phone, they tend to get verbally abusive. Sometimes, harassments make situations really difficult.
So aren’t there any difficult calls during the daytime?
They’re less frequent than during the night but there’re a few every now and then. We’ve a list of numbers that our employees don’t even entertain. And we’ve a call tracer for all calls. So, if someone makes an intentionally irritating or abusive call, we try to talk to them so that these kinds of activities aren’t repeated in the future.
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