Questioner (Q): A very good evening, sir. According to the world bank, out of the total economic growth of India, women contribute only seventeen per cent. However, their Chinese counterpart country put forty per cent into their nation’s growth, as we are aiming to be a five trillion economic country in the near future. What can we do as an Indian society to enhance the economic woman workforce in our country, apart from the education sector?
Acharya Prashant (AP): If I get you right, what you're saying is that compared to Chinese women, Indian women contribute far less to the Indian economy in percentage terms, that's what you're saying? Okay. So, you're saying how to amend that. See, how you expect somebody to express herself to go out, work and produce something worthwhile if you have defined her value by the time and energy she puts into keeping your home and raising your kids. If that's how society will assess a woman’s worth, what incentive does she have to go out and work? What are you telling your women? You are telling them to stay at home, take good care of the nest, and be a nice mother. We will accord you respect. You will see how good a homemaker she is and she is doing all the fabulous things, and this and that. Now, if this is how her worth is to be determined both economically and psychologically, then tell me, what is the incentive to go out and work?
Even women with great professional degrees in India coming out from IIT, and IIMs decide to sit at home, many of them, obviously not all of them. They decide to sit at home after a point and say, “This is fine.” Why is this fine? “Because the husband is earning, and my worth is being determined by several factors other than my economic productivity. So, why do I need to take all the hassles and go out in the sun, break the heat, hit the road, and do something?”
I'll give you a very dangerous statistic. Have you heard of something called the female labour participation rate? It refers to the percentage of women who are out there working and earning. So, we say the Indian economy has liberalized, and Indians are much more liberal-mind today, right? We say there are far more institutes of professional education today than there were, let's say, twenty years back. There are just too many seats now and the percentage of women entering those institutions has also increased, right? We say the girl of today is very forward-looking. These are the things that we say. Having said all these things, what do you expect regarding the number of working women today vis-a-vis the number of working women that were there twenty or thirty years back? What would you expect? Tell me. Let me say if there were women working in the 1980s or 1990s, what would you expect to be the number in 2022? A thousand? The number is only slightly greater than one hundred, and in percentage terms, it has actually dropped steeply as a percentage of the total population because the female population itself has increased over the last thirty years.
As a percentage of the population, the FLPR (female labour participation rate) has actually dropped and is dropping every year. Women are getting educated and empowered and everything and are choosing to sit at home. When they were not so educated and not so empowered, they were actually going out to work. Now, why is this happening? This is so counter-intuitive and mind-boggling, is it not? How is it possible that women with all the opportunities available to them today, with all the education that is available to them today, qualified and knowledgeable women, are opting to sit at home? What is happening? What’s happening is that the husband's income has increased and the husband and the wife mutually decide that now that they are earning enough, why do I go out? And this is a mutual decision, mind you.
“I was working for three years post-marriage, but now that the baby has come, why do I need to work anymore? I take a break from work to take care of the baby. I think that I'll return after a year,” and I never return because the home is such a comfortable place. Let's face it, the home is such a comfortable place especially if there is sufficient money at home.
We might say that you know the labor participation rate will increase if there is more security in the workplace. If the workplace conditions are made more favorable for women, and those arguments do hold some weight, I fully agree. I agree that some women do not go to work because workplaces are unsafe or because workplaces are not paying them enough or there is discrimination in the workplace, so some women are not going to work. But tell me, was there less discrimination in 1985? Then, how is it possible for more and more women, educated women and empowered women are opting to sit at home? This is again the prakritik tendency, what does Mother Prakriti tell you? She tells you that the purpose of your life is relaxation and consumption. Now, if relaxation and consumption are happily, and coolly available at home, why work?
And that's the same thing that even a man would do. If today somebody comes and puts a hundred crores in your bank account, there would be many among you, who might decide to opt out of this program and just sit and lead a happy life. Intellectually, if you think about it, you might not agree. You’d say, “No, I'm not like that.” But when it happens, when you know that you have easy access to comfortable money, then there is no incentive to work. I am not saying that is the case with all women, but increasingly a large cross-section of women are following this route, and it is a very dangerous route. How do you change this situation? By changing the thought that consumption is the purpose of life; that lying down on the bed, munching expensive fries, and watching Netflix is the highest pleasure that life can give you — obviously, wearing diamond jewellery.
Can you imagine? Now, if you have been trained to think that this is the pinnacle of life — a diamond bracelet, an expensive bed, wonderful air conditioning, a large room full of amenities, a two hundred-inch TV and you're watching the spicy program of your choice — many of us would salivate at this prospect. No? Wish life was like this. This is not the kind of life to be desired. This is exactly the picture of hell. Hell is where you don't have to work. Hell is where you don't have any purpose in life — any purpose worth exerting yourself for, worth laying down your life for — that is hell.
More and more media, education, and the entire culture is feeding this into our mind: that you exist just to be happy. And where does happiness come from? More and more consumption, more furniture, a bigger car, five houses, a foreign vacation. We are being told that we exist not for our liberation but for consumption. And if consumption can be somehow available for free, then why work at all? Because consumption is anyway the end purpose. It's just that the things that are going to be available to you for consumption never come for free. They come at the cost of your entire life. And being a woman, you know very well why somebody would give you easy access to his money and his property. You know that, don't you? It's the body that is being sold for the money. That kind of life is despicable; that is worse than hell.
Are you getting it? What kind of liberation can be there if you are dependent on somebody else, even for your physical survival? What kind of freedom is possible if you don't have even two rupees of your own and then you say, “You know, his money is my money”? So, if you want to change the situation, if you really want more women to come out and make a mark in life, then you have to, first of all, challenge the overarching philosophy, the dominant narrative of this day. It is a very poisonous narrative: capitalism and consumerism; have money and consume. It puts no emphasis on the right work. In fact, it says that you are in the greatest position if you can consume a lot without having to exert even a little. That's the reason why everybody wants to have very nefarious sources of money because ultimately, it's the money and the consumption that counts, not the source of money. How does it matter where the money is coming from? I can lie, cheat, kill, and murder.
I should get something to consume. I can sell my life, provided the buyer feeds me with gold. Challenge this narrative, otherwise, this narrative will keep more and more women at home. Because the economy is progressing and men are getting richer. And as you get richer, you want to indulge in certain luxuries. One of the luxuries is to keep the woman permanently at home. It's a luxury of life. You know, “I keep my girl at home; she's always available at my beck and call.”
If she goes out, who knows what may happen? She may taste freedom, she may taste success of her own, she may develop a life of her own and who knows if she goes out, she may actually go away from me. So, it is great that she stays at home. I'll provide for her. I'll give her whatever she needs. Anywhere the property remains mostly in the men's name. You very well know that women own less than three per cent of the world's assets. They don't own anything; they are just given something. Why do you want to adjust to this situation? Do you want to be given something on a weekly or monthly basis from somebody else's bank account? The property belongs to somebody else, but he says, “Whenever you'll ask me something, darling I'll give it to you.” Is this an honourable situation?
Unfortunately, more and more Indian women are falling for it because of the absence of any kind of wisdom. It is the pop philosophy that is ruling our minds. We have no Vedanta in our life. We have nothing called wisdom literature in our life. Then what is the philosophy that rules our minds? It is the philosophy that comes to us from social media, from television, when you are watching a commercial or when you are watching a movie. Anything that you are watching is not merely a picture or a video or audio, it is a philosophical package. And when you are watching that, you do not even know that you are actually buying into that philosophical package. Apparently, it is just the shape of the woman on Instagram, and that's what you're keenly watching, right? It's good fun. It's not just the shape of the woman's body in that post. It is a philosophy that you have bought into, and it's a very toxic philosophy.
But we do not come to know of that at that moment because, under the impact of lust and ignorance, our discretion takes a back seat. There is so much glamour on the screen. How will you even know that you are being indoctrinated? To know that you are being indoctrinated, you need to be conscious. And the first thing the media does is that it makes you unconscious with songs, with all the spice, and when you are unconscious, then you can absorb anything, and that which you absorb becomes your life.
I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible, and it's actually simple. There is nothing complicated in this, right? A lot of this that I'm saying, I understood even when I was your age, so there is no great complexity here.
Q: Sir, like you were saying, many women from so-called well-known institutions holding a very good degree sit back at home because their husband earns some good money. They stopped working and sat at home doing nothing, but there is another perspective to it. Many times, it happens also because they do not have an interest in the work they were doing. I will give you one personal example. There is a relative at my own house. She is doing a job currently, but I can see that she does not have any interest in it. Even if she doesn't work, it is not going to make any huge difference, but she does not have any interest in working day and night. She is looking for a holiday or whatever things like that. So, is it sensible to say that just because your husband earns more, so you do not want to work?
AP: If there is nobody to feed you, and you are not very interested in your job, will you still leave your job? Nobody is fully interested in his or her job. Even though men are not very interested in their jobs, nobody is. They won’t leave their jobs and sit at home. They won't because they know there is nobody to feed them, so it is the presence of the other party ready to feed you. This is the primary factor in your saying, “Oh, I'm not interested, therefore I'm dropping out.” Nobody is interested. Are you fully interested in your MBBS course? Nobody is hundred per cent interested. Why don't you drop out then? Because you have something to take care of; there is a deep responsibility towards something. When you give up that responsibility, then you can say, “Oh I am not interested.” Even if I am not extremely or absolutely interested in talking to you, what do I do? Run away? Nothing is absolute in this world. If you'll ask me, am I one hundred per cent invested in this conversation? I am not, but certain things are done because they need to be done.
Q: You earlier said there is a biological mandate. It seems to look like a mandate.
AP: The mandate is liberation, and you cannot be liberated if you are dependent on somebody else to feed your stomach. So, if you are disinterested in your work, your responsibility is to go out and create the right work for yourself. This is a very bad apology — “I am disinterested in work so I'm sitting at home.” If you're disinterested and you are being true to yourself, go out and create an alternate work. First of all, try to find the right work for yourself, and if you cannot find it, then create it. What is this behaviour that “I'm not interested, so I'll sit at home, now you feed me.”
The day he stops feeding, all your disinterest will vanish, and then you will go out and pick up whatever job is available, irrespective of your interest or lack of it. So, this is a very bad apology, don't be fooled by it.
