AN INTERVIEW WITH DR GEETA SAXENA Persis: Tell me about yourself Geeta: Look, it is a long history.

Tracing 40 years of my life is a long time to go back into, but significantly - I came from Lucknow, born & bred there, studied mainly there too. I shifted to liT Kanpur to study as a Research Associate, but I completed my education from Osmania University many years later. I specialized in Clinical Psychology. In the meantime, I became a counsellor. Did various stints of work in places like Asha Niketan. I counselled various people - retarded and otherwise. I also did a lot of psychological testing which I find very interesting. Persis: How did you develop the interest in 'women'. Geeta: My interest in 'women' started when I was in IIT. In a way all research questions which you tackle, especially something which really turns you on, must have involved certain issues of your life. The same thing happened for me with the question of 'women'. I was always perturbed about the status of women: the example of girls in UP in the sociological system and the psychological impact the society has on them. All my education had to fight against this system. In my family, the opportunity for education was not given - at least not 40 years ago. For me I had to fight every step of the way. In teaching, 'Women in Management' I guess I am trying to compensate for some aspects of my life or perhaps trying to still find out what doesn't make sense. Persis: Why or how did you decide about 'Women in Management?' How did you evolve this course? Geeta: I had taught about the woman question from a psychological framework many times. Focus has always been on the workings of the might. The sociological status of women too had psychological implications. I was a feminist would write in many feminist magazines, but felt too much 'rescuing' going on for my liking. So I designed this course after coming to XLRI and it has been offered now for 5 years. The involvement was with the issue of managers per se. A lot of my students, the women in management would have to face many odds about which I was researching and had written papers. The first course that I designed was like a straight jacket into which I was trying to fit this course. I intended to put together 20-30 issues like Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Differential Recruitment, Promotional Policies, Gender Issues. Discuss them in class with a lot of research papers. Based on it I designed my structure .and course outline. It did generate a lot of interest. 45 students registered for the first class. I had insisted that there be men and women registering as both the sexes complement each other and cannot be studied in isolation. Men came in thinking it was 'Management of Women' and the women came in because, I think, they had a whole lot of pent up grievances that they wanted to deal with. The first session got completely out of hand. There were so many grievances - a lot of mud slinging and name calling. Thank God, I had some process background to process the information. The first four sessions just went dealing with the issues that were brought up. As a psychologist I f-elt that such a course did not make much sense - discrimination is not an issue you see. Issue lay somewhere back, deep in the minds of the people. That year I ran the course as I had structured it, but with the help of the students made it more research based. The next year I redesigned it - and I have not changed it since then. Persis: What is the structure of your course? Geeta: The first session is a briefing session in which I brief them about the lab. This is done so that the lab is not too unstructured. The lab is a 3 day lab of 7 hours each. It is a gender lab designed to bring out gender issues. Instead of issues coming out in class and rip"ping people apart they are brought out in the lab itself. I then give them a week off to write a Personal Learning Paper. This has to be based on the lab. We then go into theories which complement what comes out in the lab and while bring out the inner workings of the mind of the men and women vis-a-vis themselves as well as the opposite sex. The theories go on for about 10-15 sessions during which time we try and cover all aspects. Regular quizzes are given to test their concepts. The high point of the course which is just before the end term examination is the writing of a Concept Paper Le. the students are required to conceptualize on the issues brought out in their own PLP with the help of all the various theories they have to try to make sense of and issues they have come across. This becomes a consolidated and solid experience. Finally, I give them the end-term exam without