A woman in man's profession

“ I ring the door-bells and our customers seem to be shocked. I am wearing the even-cargo t-shirt and carrying their ordered items. They look amazed and I am happy to look at their surprising faces because I am not a delivery man but a delivery woman.”

Being an intern at Even Cargo, I feel the same for my organisation which made a difference in its own unique fashion. I am a gender specialist and I have rarely seen delivery women and is still questioning the social taboos related to masculinity and femininity. I hope the statement which I have quoted is true for every woman who has got a chance to explore a ‘man’s field’.  Many studies have suggested that most women are working in the informal sector which are providing them jobs which are hazardous to women’s health, in-secured, humiliating, and dehumanizing.

When women are employed in garment sector, they are not even knowing the amount of work they have done and their employers usually betray them by saying that their colleagues have sewed more number of clothes. There is a stiff competition inside that dark room and women have to work for long hours without relaxing and they do not even have control over their own work. The gendered notions of work have undermined women’s skills and recognised the jobs done by males as skilled and men are paid more than women in most of the sectors.

The project undertaken by Even Cargo is not just about training women for developing their communication or inter-personal skills but they are given an equal opportunity to become a skilled delivery personnel like men and get a job which is paying them equally well and helping them to gain social and physical mobility. This platform is a gender just, equitable platform, sustaining itself to empower women and encouraging the phenomenal concept of ‘social justice’. Women, hired as delivery personnel are belonging from the economically marginalised and weaker sections of the society but their self-reliance will definitely create a difference and will help breaking certain stereotypes related to segregation and division of labour in the realm of growing capitalism in the midst of globalisation.

This internship has helped me a lot in building my future career prospects and will certainly lead me towards building a successful career. This platform has raised my standard from being a mere academician to an evolutionary and revolutionary content writer which I aspire to become. This journey is giving me insights pertaining to  creating a gender-just environment wherein women exert their own agency to create a world which runs on the foundation of solidarity, sociality, and humanity.

Content Writer: Anupreeta Chatterjee