The transformers challenging the monopoly of linemen
Here’s what we call a power move. Two women in Telangana have fought for their equal right to be considered for the job of electricity lineman. Having passed a written aptitude test, their plans had been thwarted when the state’s power company insisted that women were not eligible for the job. Apparently, the power utilities had once considered reserving a third of the jobs for women, but reversed this decision after worrying about women’s pole climbing capacities.Linemen – or rather, line workers – install and maintain electricity lines. They scale tall poles or underground vaults carrying their gear. Telangana HC has now ordered a field test, rightly pointing out that women are being recruited in the armed forces now, and that there was no basis for denying women any jobs if they could prove their fitness for it.
It is not easy to break into a male dominated profession – and not just because of open hostility. Often the devil is in the defaults, which are designed for male bodies. And yet, women have persisted, broken the norms. We have seen women become toddy tappers, drive trucks and buses, command the CEO suite. When they do so, the pay gap tends to narrow – as opposed to fields like care-work coded as female, which are under-valued and underpaid. Not everybody is a fit for every job, but gender is a crude and inaccurate way to sort people’s capacities for even physically demanding jobs. The only qualification should be doing the job well.
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