Shiksha Opinion: Is reservation for women in B-schools a fair deal?

Gender diversity looks like a hot topic in the IIMs. To bring in more women on campus and in classrooms, the IIMs have started awarding extra points to the ‘she’ factor during admission rounds. IIM Kozhikode has even gone ahead and declared a 51% reservation for women.

I brought it up in my team. We are a bunch of six, energetic women who love to discuss anything and everything in the world (much to the chagrin of others working around us). I thought they’ll be happy about it. Instead, I got an earful of ‘this is wrong’. Their primary arguments were:

• Merit should weigh over reservation
• Compromising merit can affect the overall ranking, placements and quality of the institute
• Men have a grudge against this preferential treatment and end up becoming ‘sexist’
• Men – both classmates and office colleagues – refuse to take women’s point of view seriously
• That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.

I mean, if reservations or awarding points to women is such a bad thing, why are the institutes doing it? And the phenomenon is not just limited to India. Insead is doing it. Harvard (without any reservation) has a cool 41% women candidates in the MBA class of 2015.

On the other hand, it is plain shameful that good Indian B-Schools cannot boast of even 25% women candidates in MBA.

Also, companies are aggressively trying to improve the gender diversity in workplace. This reflects in placements and hiring too. Sharmin Chowdhury, placement committee member of IIM Shillong, pointed it out to me that companies are specifically looking to hire more women during campus placements. As a result, institutes also lean towards admitting more women.

My reasoning is every reservation has a well-intentioned ideology behind it. One can deem it either useful or not depending on its impact but you cannot question the potential it has for the larger good. The same goes for reservation in B-Schools against women. My team-mates think this is wrong. I also found enough people who seem to agree with them.

Well, I say, this is not wrong. I can think of atleast three instances where reservations for women would make a very tangible impact in people's lives.

Back in 2010, when I was really sick, I hired a cook. She had a five-year-old daughter and was forced to take up an extra job to make ends meet. Like any mother, she wanted the best for her child and planned a bright future which included a good education, preferably from a good college.

Then, I met another woman working as a live-in house help. Thanks to the employers (my dance teacher), her daughter went to a ‘convent’ school. Though grateful, she wasn’t very sure of the girl’s future. “Let her do 12th. Then we’ll see. Maybe we’ll even let her go for graduation,” my teacher once casually mentioned. But the fact remained that the girl's education depended on the employer's generosity.

The third girl is a current PGP student at an IIM. She confided off the record that she escaped a possible marriage at 21 years of age by getting into a school of repute. Her family decided to let her pursue her education thanks to the reservation that enabled this.

When I look at these three girls, I am more than aware of how reservations in good B-Schools can change the future of millions of girls. Afterall, it doesn't combat only poverty but also societal hang-ups.

The reservations are meant to give an extra nudge for women who need it... not to help those already privileged like me, my colleagues and others like us. The problem though is that these reservations are often exploited by the ones who do not really need it. And unfortunately, as things stand, I see no way to correct the course of reservations or their usage to really reach those who can use it.