Choose to Challenge Financial Dependence on International Women’s Day

Choose to Challenge Financial Dependence on Women’s Day

The theme for this International Women’s Day 2021 is Choose to Challenge. I love this theme, because it primes you for action, rather than merely repeating a slogan. It prompts you to break your existing thought patterns and make a choice. This starts by heightening our powers of observation. It should be followed by a state of conscious mental alertness. In this state, we can question things that we normally take for granted. If we follow this simple cycle, we can Choose to Challenge. And, once we do this consciously and consistently, the miracle of change starts to unfold on it’s own. Here is an anecdote that illustrates how we can Choose to Challenge financial dependence on International Women’s Day.

A Seemingly Innocuous Incident on International Women’s Day

This morning, my wife had scheduled a blood test for herself. I was sitting in the drawing room too, engaged in some inconsequential activity. The routine unfolded and my wife went to another room for a few moments to fetch something. All this while, I had not even exchanged greetings or made eye contact with the lab technician who had come to collect the blood sample. I was quite busy staring at my mobile screen.

However, the moment my wife stepped inside, the lab technician immediately struck a conversation with me. He had a single point agenda and only one question to ask. “Sir, how will you make the payment?”

Irrespective of whether you are a man or a woman, has something similar ever happened to you? And, do you pause to reflect on the same? Do you question why people presume that a man who is not even involved in a transaction is more likely to deal with the payment? And, especially when a woman is coordinating the entire transaction and appears to be more than capable of handling things on her own?

Who Makes The Payment?

In case you are wondering what happened next, here it goes. I politely reply to the lab technician that he needs to check the mode of payment with my wife. As soon as my wife is back, they strike a conversation and she insists on making the payment digitally. His preferred mode of payment was by cash. Finally, after a call with the supervisor of the lab, the mode is changed to digital payment.

My wife probably did not even notice anything unusual about this. One of the reasons is that she was inside while the payment related query was directed to me. Another reason is that she is a dual qualified professional, a Chartered Accountant and a Lawyer, who can surely handle money better than many, irrespective of gender! However, with the International Women’s Day theme ringing at the back of my head, I had to Choose to Challenge financial dependence of women.

An Interesting Social Experiment on Financial Dependence

As luck would have it, my wife showed me an inspiring video, created by none other than Paytm (the app that she had just used to make the payment). Please do watch this before continuing to read further.

On the occasion of #InternationalWomensDay, we invited 30 people to participate in a social experiment.

The results, were striking. pic.twitter.com/rDWjWGDvy4

— Paytm (@Paytm) March 6, 2021

Now, all the dots started connecting. It was a sign from up above that we need to consciously choose to challenge financial dependence of women on this International Women’s Day. The video shared above presents quite a few prompts to help us start challenging the existing norms in the society.

Choose to Challenge Financial Dependence

I have a barrage of thoughts emanating from today morning’s episode and also after watching the video of this social experiment. For instance, do we make differential assumptions about women handling money? What is our perception towards women and their command over finances? Has the treatment changed across generations and is the treatment meted to today’s girl child any different?

However, being prescriptive will defeat the purpose. Let us take advantage of the thoughtfully crafted theme on this International Women’s Day. I find the above two examples pertinent and I choose to challenge financial dependence on this Women’s Day.

You are free to choose to challenge anything. If I may humbly suggest, choose to challenge the habit of liking and sharing social media posts without bringing about actionable change.

The International Women’s Day 2021 theme Choose To Challenge shows us that a challenged world is an alert world and from this challenge comes change.

About The Author

Rajiv Maheshwari is a business and start-up advisor, and the co-founder of From The Experts Mouth. He is a management professional with over 25 years of experience, and worked as CEO for a decade, and in leadership roles with NYSE listed companies such as Accenture and WNS.

He is a Chartered Accountant and MBA (Director’s Merit List from IIM Bangalore) and an autodidact, who is on the path of self-directed life long learning and sharing. He is a thought leader, author and keynote speaker and has developed several frameworks to bridge the gap between academia and industry.