Women in Civil Services

In contemporary Kashmir the female literacy or education is not that bad but the women employment statistics is far from encouraging.  Most women in Jammu and Kashmir are concentrated in class III or clerical level jobs. Profession-wise most women are teachers followed by doctors. Of all female teachers about 70 per cent are engaged in primary teaching.  In medicine majority of womenfolk specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. The proportion of female administrators, directors, managers and executives is miniscule. Whereas the percentage of woman in IAS is 10-15, it is less than 5per cent in Kashmir Administrative Services. Personally I feel that more and more women should join civil administrations. This is for the simple reason that women officers would be more sensitive towards women’s issues. There would be speedy redressal of crimes against women if there are sufficient female SHOs, SPs, lawyers and Judges. Many more cases of exploitation, crimes and grievances go unreported due to simple reason of insensitive handling. Women have shown considerable mettle in all these spheres but there number is far too few. There could be several reasons for this lopsided gender representation but the biggest reason to my mind is that women fear to dream big. They are happy and content in playing secondary role. There could be socio-cultural reason for this type of inhibition. Dear female graduates and undergraduates free your selves from glass ceiling and stereotype, start taking decision of your life and career, dream big, take social responsibility, be pro-active and participate in large number in state and national level competitive examinations for senior and executive positions in public administration. It is heartening to note that stakeholders from valley have awakened to this challenge. There was a special counseling session in DDK on female candidates in civil services exams on last Sunday. Female KAS officers like Tazayun Mukhtiara and Tabasum Kamili did great job as panelist and role model. To awaken female graduates and undergraduates from slumber more and more such efforts are needed using different mass medium. Girls should be motivated from secondary and higher secondary level itself for embarking on careers in administration. Practicing administrators should be encouraged for establishment of support network. The motivation of establishing a network is to strengthen the role of women administrators working in a particular field. The experienced member of the network may be able to offer aspirants practical solutions based on their experiences regarding balancing career and motherhood, overcoming discrimination, breaking through the glass ceiling to get a senior position. Many girls with ability and potential do not opt for a career in civil services, often because they lack knowledge of the career possibilities and have few or no female role models or mentors.