A Book for the Selected Few
‘Woman on Top’ should not be an intriguing title for a book that proclaims itself as ‘the essential book for every working woman’. The title is a bit sexual. It reverses the missionary position, that is ‘man on top’. Man on top is metaphorical and it connotes not only the conjugal act but the social hierarchies. In that sense, woman on top is a rebellious metaphor. It rejects the prescribed hierarchy. Hence, a book that carries a title like this should be read for the rebellion that it contains.
Unfortunately, neither does ‘Woman on Top’ titillate nor does it provoke the moral angst. Only question that you are left with while you finish the last page of the book is ‘What is the meaning of ‘working woman’? Does this category include only ‘the media women and corporate women?’ The author, Seema Goswami comes from a journalistic background and she translates her experiences into the wider realm of the working women. But Goswami is on a slippery ground. She fails in accommodating the large section of working women who include teachers, office clerks, stenographers, call centre workers, domestic helps, vendors and women from agriculture and industrial sectors. She does not even look at the women who work in the unorganized sectors. Interestingly, she talks about the domestic helps. She appreciates their role in the lives of the successful careerist women.
My interest in this book came from two reasons: one my interest for the title as I like this particular position within and without the domestic realm. As a chauvinist I can be passive and make the woman work for me even in the conjugal act. Two, my general interest for whatever written on and by the women. While going through the book I could feel that this one is an ideologically loaded book. Seema Goswami commits the same error of making the ‘woman a man or for man’ while donning the garb of a post feminist. She says that she is not a sloganeering type of feminist. But she looks for the liberation of women in work place.
This book has ideological connotations in a very deep way for several reasons and the prominent being the acceptance of the chauvinist view that woman is nothing but a ‘sexual’ being and she cannot transcend herself, unless she uses her sexuality for reaching goals. Goswami talks about the women who have aspirations to reach the top post of their field of working and for her the top position is to become a ‘boss’. She starts from the woman who prepares for a job interview. Then she describes the woman as a novice in the office, as an ever pleaser, a task master, a time manager, as a team worker, as a wife, as an aspirant for the top post and finally a ‘boss’.
The ideological undertones become overtones when the author delves deeply into suggesting ways of dressing and keeping good health. The standard is international with an hourglass figure. Seema Goswami envisages her working woman as a woman with universally accepted vital status, which Naomi Wolf calls as a symptom of anorexia. Goswami does not want to get into the politics of this internationalism. She does not compare the income of an intern with the expenditure incurred in the collection of accessories that she suggests for a successful career woman.
Goswami’s advice becomes a bit shrill when she says that the workplace harassments should be overlooked, if you really want to progress in your career path of salvation. Eat your bitter pill with a smile intact on your lips. Then there is a good advice, of course, if you really want to take revenge on your tormentors you can do that when you actually become the boss. But why should you take revenge, forget the past, and become a benevolent boss, but always send out the message clear that you are not the same person who was sharing the same desk with you yesterday. Today you are the ‘boss’. Good advice.
The author’s political correctness becomes very evident when she pinpoints the symptoms and remedies and legal outlets of and for the workplace harassment. Anyway that is a good piece of advice. But this political correctness becomes a bit unbearable when she talks about the ‘eating and shitting’ regime of a career woman and her ‘sacrifice’ of the family life for the career betterment. At one point she comes out to say that the feminists’ argument of taking charge of ones own life is a stretched one. In the case of dressing, you cannot dress the way which would provoke your male colleagues. That means, if you are bottom patted at the work place, it is not the male hormones to be accused for going berserk but your dressing style. Take care of that part.
My curiosity went further as I progressed in reading and to my surprise I found that Seema Goswami has not included women artists in her working women category. May be working women artists are not working women for her or if they are artists they need not be included in the category of women. She excludes a whole lot of working women like doctors and lawyers. Then how is this book, an essential for the career woman, one would wonder.
Above all this book is sexist, racist, ageist and against the people who are obese. It is sexist because it talks about using ones sexuality to further the career (though she talks about work place bitching in a condescending manner). It is racist because it does not talk about those women who are dark complexioned. It is ageist because it does not address the problems of woman as an ageing human being. It is against obese women because it talks about those dresses (as ideal for furthering your career) that would never fit to the body of a fat woman. In total it is an anti-woman book written by someone who claims to belong to the post feminist era. This is a book about those women who do not menstruate, shit and sweat. It talks about those women who are hard task masters and ambitious and go back to home with fat salary packets. |
