The “Application and Enrolment Report 2020” by the Association of MBAs (AMBA), after having analysed 223 B-Schools from around the world, highlights the dismal gender disparity in application and enrolment in Indian B-Schools. Contrary to China that had almost an equal proportion of men and women in their business courses, India, the report reads, “had the most unequal cohorts for gender – only 19% of both applicants and enrolees in 2019 were female”. However, the same report also indicated that “despite India’s low proportion of female enrolees, its conversion rates (which is 1000%) show women are just as likely to progress from application to enrolment as their male counterparts”. Reports such as these compel us to rethink the vision of the elite, executive, pro-corporate MBA courses in India.
Yet, the concerns are not merely that of the “second sex” aspiring and succeeding in gaining entry to such courses but the courses themselves. When interrogated properly, such courses are strongly gendered masculine, making it difficult for women to appreciate such courses or fit into their prevailing culture. Business education in India at large seeks cosmetic skill development, rather than penetrative knowledge enhancement, and such skills are tailored to serve a corporate setup that serves the purpose of a predominantly patriarchally designed system. Such a formidable barrier in management studies, encountered by women, demands an overhauling rectification. A gender sensitized course, ready to cater to a postgendered corporate scenario, is the need of the hour.
Gender diversity had eluded most of the top B-Schools of the country, thanks to the rigid socio-cultural paradigms, stereotypical outlooks, and the flawed design of the course. Most of the syllabi designed in MBA schools of India are task based and quantitative in rigor. Such a left-brain-heavy syllabus fends off women to apply for such courses (there were 80,135 female candidates compared to 1,47,699 male candidates for CAT 2020). Even when a few women crack the coveted CAT/XAT/NMAT/GMAT etc. to gain entry to the course too quickly they realize the always already privileged position of their male counterpart, especially when it comes to the placement. Even the course thus chosen by women drives more towards core competencies and fail to encapsulate and nurture the right brain “softer” attitudes: multi-tasking, emotional response to the situation, empathetic understandings, strong intuitive quotient, compassion, relationship building, verbal/nonverbal acumen building, consensus development, democratic/collaborative approach to work and networking, and finally aesthetic approach to business/organization/market. Thus, what becomes important over here is to gender sensitize the syllabus and the approach to business education. Beyond gender equality in business education, the call today is towards gender equity. The B-Schools of India must create an equal right, opportunity, benefit for women pursuing the courses. Exemption in fees for women, female student scholarships (both at graduate and undergraduate levels), more opportunities to women in placements, flexible study hours for female students, incentivizing projects/performances by female students, firm pay parity clause for organizations coming for placements in the campus, maybe few of the ways.
The decosmeticized syllabus should balance between the quantitative and qualitative so that the trained professionals are fully balanced from both the perspectives of the right brain and left brain. A recent NASSCOM report acknowledges towards these holistically trained technical professionals: “the passed-out graduates who need jobs and their struggle to up-skill or become employable to the industry needs, every research report highlights on the employability quotient especially lack of their domain skills and softs skills relevant to industry needs”. Further, the course must in all its subject specializations and syllabus incorporate and mainstream perspectives of the woman in the business/organization/market (especially those from the subalternized and marginalized subject position).
The “Gender” initiative of Harvard Business School that “brings together a global, multidisciplinary community of Harvard Business School faculty, alumni, and students to champion projects and programs that advance understanding, generate tools and solutions and grow a network of leaders who are advancing equality in business and society at large” may be a wonderful prototype for the B-schools of this country. In a recent interview with the author of this article, Prof. Laurel Steinfield (a specialist in marketing and gender studies) said that B-schools should rethink their syllabus and its content. For Prof. Steinfield, teachers must address cases with women protagonists and issues around the concerns of gender. One approach towards gender parity in the B-schools is at its very administrative levels where more women must be given key portfolios to drive its education system, admission, and placements.
Greater representation of female students in various student bodies/cells in the B-schools may also be a viable possibility to counter the gender disparity issue. Hence to promote a productive learning environment through an inclusive and diverse campus-classroom-administration scenario the above-raised issues and solutions may be investigated. This is not to say that the B-schools of the country have closed their eyes to the gender disparities but perhaps it’s a long way to go, especially when there was only one transgender in the CAT 2020 (an issue we would discuss in a later post)!
Dr. Arindam Das
Associate Professor, General Management
Alliance School of Business
Alliance University, Bangalore
