A number of studies and newspaper articles offer insights into the perceived moral dangers for women in India when working night shifts and travelling home from work late in the night. For instance Phadke (2007) talks about how women‟s families worry about how neighbours will perceive their daughters when they come home at the nightscape. According to scholars lone women‟s presence in the night are contradictory to traditional norms (Patel, 2006), where women are supposed to be in „gated communities‟ to which entry of outsiders is controlled and monitored (Phadke, 2007; Patel and Parmentier, 2005). Thus women being seen alone in the nightscape are often linked to prostitution (Patel, 2006). Phadke (2007) highlights how women workers travelling home at night are often stopped by distrustful policeman and watched by inquisitive neighbours. She mentions that women in India are frequently compelled to negotiate with all these concerned parties although she doesn‟t illustrate how exactly they negotiate.
Phadke (2007) argues that cities in India are often constructed as rather dangerous places for women. However the discourse of safety for women is actually a discourse of sexual safety where concerns are on whether women will be sexually assaulted or engage in consensual sexual relations rather than being murdered or robbed. According to Phadke (2007) promiscuity and women engaging in consensual sexual relations before marriage threatens the normative culture of Indian society, and thus women in India are in danger of all men who are not potential marriage partners. This becomes an especially significant concern to women‟s careers given that they are compelled to interact with various men from all walks of life at the workplace.
In the context of the new call centre industry in India, people have voiced concerns over the
„informal, American-style college campus atmosphere‟ in these workplaces encouraging promiscuity and casual sexual liaisons amongst young employees (Dhillon, 2003). The rising number of abortions in the city of Bangalore has been blamed on the westernised organisational cultures of these centres and many parents are deemed to be reluctant to allow their daughters take up employment in this industry (Dhillon, 2003). However it is important to note that middle class women in India are increasingly joining the professional workforce in multinational organisations, despite prevailing norms of moral conduct for women classifying working in the night and liaising with men at work as unrespectable. This raises the question of how women in these contexts manage prevailing behavioural norms.
In a study of professional women in the new software industry in Mumbai and Bangalore, Radhakrishnan (2009: 211) provides insights into how women articulate themselves as the
„culturally appropriate‟ yet „modern‟ women of the New India in terms of exercising just the
„right‟ amount of freedom for women, confirming to „appropriate‟ sexual behaviours and
striking a balance between work and family. Radhakrishnan, who captures this phenomenon through the term „respectable femininity,‟ highlights how these women distinguish themselves from promiscuous western women and from Indian women of previous generations „through a discourse of balance, restraint, and „knowing the limit‟ (2009; 211).
For instance, the women in Radakrishnan‟s study had explained the value they placed on career development for women as well as their attachment to modern consumables, while emphasising the need to balance work with family life and adhere to norms of good behaviour for women in Indian society which included not travelling alone in the night.
Radhakrishnan (2009) argues that these modes of femininity are complementary with being a top professional woman in India. However in another study she suggests that women trying to live up to the respectable identities they craft in terms of balancing home and work may lead to them making compromises in career (see Radhakrishnan, 2008). She does not specify exactly what these career compromises are.
In an ethnographic study of female workers in the new garment industry in Sri Lanka, Lynch (2007) highlights how working class women from rural villages in Sri Lanka attempt to distinguish themselves from female workers from urban Sri Lanka, as the respectable women who work in garment factories. In her very interesting book „Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka‟s Global Garment Industry‟, Lynch demonstrates how female workers use their residence in rural villages to craft respectable identities as good, disciplined and sexually inactive workers who are not too modern like „Juki‟ girls (i.e. girls from urban villages) but neither too rural like their fellow sisters in agriculture, thereby positioning themselves as the „good girls‟ of the new Sri Lanka. Lynch discusses the dilemmas faced by female factory workers in terms of agency and resistance, where „good girls‟ often flirt with boyfriends, dress in fashionable styles and engage in love affairs (i.e.
acts that are frowned upon in rural villages) thereby diverting from the „good girl ideal‟, although they shape their behaviour through self-discipline due to concern over their own and their families‟ reputations. While Lynch (2007) provides rich insights into the struggles Sri Lankan female workers encounter in attempting to position themselves as the respectable women of the garment factories, her work doesn‟t capture the consequences of these moments of rupture from the „respectable woman‟ ideal. That is, do these moments of rupture redefine norms of moral behaviour for female factory workers from Sri Lankan villages, or do they simply reinforce the existing social order? These issues are still to be addressed.
In another ethnographic study of Sri Lankan women in garment factories, Hewammanne (2008) similarly explores how single working class female workers negotiate alternative identifies in numerous social spaces such as the shop floor, boarding houses, social outings and village homes, in their struggle to make sense of societal ideals of respectable femininity.
But as Lynch (2007), Hewammanne doesn‟t illustrate how exactly „respectable femininity‟
plays out in terms of the iterative relationship between individual agency and representations of moral behaviour for women in Sri Lanka.
Studies elucidate the measures families, national states and organisations in South Asian countries take to protect women from perceived moral dangers and preserve their respectability. Phadke (2007) talks about how fathers, brothers and husbands in India accompany women at most times to demonstrate to the public that they are unavailable for sexual liaisons and thus maintain their moral honour. In the context of national state policies, Samita Sen‟s (2010) study of women plantation workers in colonial India demonstrates how the law required prospective women workers to obtain permission by a male family member to work in plantations due to plantation work being associated with risks of sexual assault and
thus presenting moral dangers. Sen (2010) argues that the Indian state attempting to protect women from perceived moral dangers disadvantaged them from earning a livelihood and further reinforced patriarchy. Until recently article 66(b) of the Indian 1948 Factories Act stated that no women would be allowed to work in any factory except between the hours of 6 A.M. and 7 P.M (Office of the Labour Commissioner, 2006; cited in Patel, 2006), possibly in pursuit of protecting women from perceived dangers to their moral reputations. This act was amended on only March 2005 to allow women work a night shift (Patel, 2006).
A few studies provide insights into the measures organisations in India take to safeguard women employees‟ moral honour. For instance, scholars talk about how workplaces in India arrange private transportation and male escorts for women employees travelling at night (see Phadke, 2007; Patel, 2006; Radhakrishnan, 2009). Patel (2006) highlights how call centre managers in India personally visit female employees‟ families and explain to them that the working conditions and transportation are safe for women in order to convince the family to allow the daughter or wife work the night shift. All these studies suggest that organisations work hard to protect their female employees‟ respectable femininity. However a few studies note that some companies are reluctant to hire women employees due to being obliged to see to their safety concerns (see Nath, 2000; Budhwar et al., 2005). Thus norms of moral conduct for women in South Asian societies obviously have career consequences although only little attention has been given to this in the extant literature.
Significantly, although studies highlight the measures organisations, national states and families take to protect women from perceived moral dangers, they do not consider the consequences of these actions. For instance would these actions encourage patriarchy and reinforce existing norms of moral behaviour for women, or would they have an effect on
changing the extant social order? Most importantly although scholars argue that women in South Asia frequently negotiate around norms of respectable behaviour (see Phadke, 2007;
Radhakrishnan, 2009), only few of them illustrate how exactly women negotiate or address the possible consequences of women‟s actions on their careers. Thus the literature reviewed so far raises important questions about how exactly norms of moral conduct for women in South Asia, plays out in the context of women‟s careers.