Smriti Irani recalls quote on the ideal woman

Brut India

“Behave like a lady, think like a man”. Smriti Irani recalled a quote she heard while speaking about women in business and her reaction to online abuse. She was speaking at India Global Forum London. Brut is the culture partner for #IGFLondon2024

Transcript

00:00If you're a woman, you need to behave like a lady, look like a girl, work like a horse,

00:06and think like a man.

00:08Now, I can't possibly look like a girl.

00:11I try to behave like a lady.

00:14But when you work like a horse, you do tend to kick around a bit.

00:20There has been research which has validated that when women are in positions of authority,

00:26the spend on issues of education, health, infrastructure for communities, that spend

00:32goes higher as compared to men who sit in office.

00:35So you personally have had to suffer some really pretty pitiful and terrible abuse online,

00:42really ugly stuff, media.

00:44How do you deal with that personally?

00:45How do you cope with it?

00:47I'd read a very interesting quote once, that if you're a woman, you need to behave like

00:51a lady, look like a girl, work like a horse, and think like a man.

00:57Now, I can't possibly look like a girl.

01:00I try to behave like a lady.

01:03But when you work like a horse, you do tend to kick around a bit.

01:08When you think like a man, you do tend to be assertive.

01:14And when you're assertive, it's a very fine line between a gentleman being assertive.

01:19He's known of robust nature.

01:21When a woman is assertive, she tampers with possibly being anointed as arrogant.

01:29But I still would say to women across the globe,

01:32Oh, worse, huh?

01:34Oh, worse.

01:35Maybe.

01:36But that is something that you live with if you want to succeed.

01:39So kick away if you're a woman, think on your feet, and you'll land on better prospects.

01:46When you look at women as CEOs in India, we have 8% women CEOs in India, which is better

01:51than the global average of 6% and the Asian average.

01:55What is also fascinating is that it is mandated by law that if you have a listed company,

02:00you have to have women on the board.

02:03And of all the women who are on boards in various companies across India, women who

02:08serve on more than one boards, that number is up by 22% as compared to men, which is

02:13at 12.8%.

02:15So I think that when we find competent women, even in the corporate sector, they tend to

02:19get more opportunities.

02:21250 million women have a bank account.

02:25And banks now, after much deliberation and access to all the data that they have gathered

02:31through these accounts, have come to the conclusion that the female bank account has a lifetime

02:37revenue of 12% more than men.

02:40And 300 million women received bank loans for small businesses, SMEs.

02:48What is again fascinating is the NP on such accounts is less than 2.5%.

02:53We've just made a case for why women are great investments, societally and financially.

02:59So my ambition is to have 100,000 businesses owned by women at the forefront in the next

03:04five years.

03:05Let's pin her to that ambition, yes?

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