December 28, 2023

By Poornima Balasubramanyam

Most of us in India have heard (and read the comics version) of the Panchatantra fables - in which animals are imbued with human vices and virtues to express and clarify certain moral principles. So, let us make one up along the same lines.

Once upon a time, in a jungle ruled by a mighty lion king, there rose a conflict among some animals – how to ensure a fair distribution of food among them. The lion called them to the conference table. There they sat, the lion at the head, surrounded by the tiger, the mongoose, the leopard, the wolf, the jackal, the cheetah, and the cobra. The lion told them that at this table, they were free to air their views on the conflict without fear of being eaten by another at the table mid-argument. So, guided by the wise king, they came to an amicable distribution that divided the land in such a manner that all at the table could get their meals without untoward competition. They left the table satisfied, congratulating each other on their sagacious decision making.

But the elephant, the rhino, the deer, the yak, and the rabbit watched the conference adjourn from afar with a considerable amount of distress and disquiet.

“What about us? Who will ensure our rights?” they muttered amongst themselves.

Moral of the story: If you are not seated at the table, you may be part of the menu.

Women constitute roughly half the population. Central government policies have many policies that protect and empower women, and yet, compliance is a different game at every level. This can only happen when women are present at every table –be it policy-decision making loci at national, state, city, town, or village levels or be it company boardrooms – at every single table that wields any power, no matter how little, at every stage of society. Because power and influence go together - no amount of influence alone can cause the change that power can.

And it is not enough to have one woman at the table. That reek of tokenism, no matter how competent she be. When late US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was asked how many women justices she would like to see at the court, she said: "… when I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the supreme court]? And I say when there are nine, people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that."

We need a herd. As a woman rises to a table, bring other women up alongside. Do not just lean in, lean together and in. Every woman should actively seek the opportunity to guide and mentor the younger women, be it a woman at the c-suite guiding her employees, a professor guiding her research students, or a mother-in-law guiding her daughter in-law – with compassion and in the spirit of sisterhood. The sisterhood needs to be strong, across generational divides, and present at every table.

Poornima Balasubramanyam lives in Northern California. A BTech graduate of IIT-Madras, after completing her MS/PhD in Computer Sciences from University of Massachusetts, she has had a varied career working in the fields of computer vision, autonomous navigation, biophysics, mobile adhoc network security, and sensor security. Subsequently, she has worked on intellectual property issues for many of the leading computer technology firms in Silicon Valley, including Apple, Google, Meta, Salesforce, Intuit, Oracle, and Sun. Presently, she works in a pro-bono advisory capacity for small inventors and non-profit scientific research facilities. She also writes on a variety of issues