In 2010, the then prime minister declared December 22 as the National Working Women’s Day. The day was marked to celebrate and recognise working women’s struggle to “secure a dignified, respectful and enabling working environment”.

Whilst the marking of the day is a relatively more recent phenomenon in the nation’s history, and it would seem that the day passes each year rather quietly, especially in comparison (inevitably) with the International Working Women’s Day – a focal point in the women’s movement — it underscores a seismic shift due to the increased participation of women in the labour force. The day marks not just the achievements of women and their continuous struggle in the form of political and social organising and rights advocacy to pave way for this increase in numbers but also a moment to think about work and the conditions that can enable it.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, such questions have gained a greater urgency. The pandemic has necessitated mainstream discussion of a complex discourse that had for too long been relegated to the academia. The concepts of work, labouring bodies and enabling conditions have now been interrogated in nuanced ways. The idea of the workplace when most people were working from home; what rules and protections can or cannot be extended to workers; who all were expendable; how housekeeping and care duties were divided or not became the subject of many a webinar. Several journalistic articles and research studies on the issue were published, with greater fervour perhaps, in the early days of the pandemic. These important conversations also helped inform existing battles and point out contradictions – for instance, if a school teacher hosts a Zoom call from home during the lockdown and she is harassed, should the ombudsperson’s office provide her support? How will the agenda of providing women enabling conditions for work be pursued?

Most notably, this year, there was a surge in gendered violence during the pandemic as many women became more vulnerable being trapped in abusive situations, and the functioning of redressal mechanisms was interrupted with the government’s resources being shifted towards more overt Covid-19 and lockdown related duties. Amidst such conditions, the bifurcation between the workplace and the home, especially in terms of the labour expected of a woman, began to appear hazy. As women workers who still had jobs during the pandemic worked from their homes, several complained that they did not get any free time and that their work was being interrupted and not taken seriously because they were available at home.

Whilst there have been some encouraging reports as well according to some NGOs who report a greater appreciation of women’s work and more proportionate distribution of housekeeping duties, there’s still a long way to go. As the fear of the virus spread, working-class women who have historically been behind nearly every well-managed middle-class or upper-class household, were suddenly either fired or sent back home to villages with meagre amounts or no salary at all fell even deeper into precarity. Additionally, care and housekeeping duties that were outsourced to working-class women so that women belonging to the upper and middle classes could have “careers”, fell again to the latter’s lot. It reiterated not just the conditionalities of work, but also the “assigned” gender roles within the domestic sphere as well as the conditions that keep women belonging to various strata of society alienated and away from developing meaningful connections.

This year, as we celebrate the National Day of the Working Woman during the pandemic, perhaps we can reflect on all the important discussions and conversations that we have had on the rights of the woman worker. Amidst slipping gender parity rankings and a lack of focus on women-centred policies, we can try to realign our focus as a nation. Let this be a year of uncomfortable conversations and of growth.