March 8th vs. March 9th

International Women’s Day is beautiful. Genuinely. The speeches about equality are moving. The social media campaigns are well-produced. The panel discussions feature accomplished women sharing powerful stories. Companies make public commitments to fairness, inclusion, and breaking down barriers.

And then the celebrations end. The banners come down. Normal operations resume. And somewhere in the organisation, an email goes out to a training vendor: “For our upcoming women’s safety workshop, we require a female instructor.”

The person writing that email is not trying to discriminate. They are trying to be considerate. But the effect of their action is discrimination. It is the exclusion of a professional from a job based purely on gender. And it stands in direct contradiction to everything the company said on March 8th.

This is not about blame. It is about consistency. Equality is not a theme for one day. It is a standard for every day. And if that standard does not apply to how you choose your trainers, it has a gap that needs attention.

“You cannot stand on a stage on March 8th and talk about breaking barriers, and then sit in a meeting on March 9th and build one. Equality is either a principle or a performance. Your vendor procurement emails will tell you which one it is.”

– Specialist Franklin Joseph

The Double Standard That Hides in Plain Sight

Let me put this as plainly as I can.

If a company announced that it would only hire a male leadership trainer because “our male employees feel more comfortable learning from a man,” every HR professional, every DEI committee member, and every legal team in the country would flag it immediately. It would be called out as discrimination. It would be seen as regressive. It would be inconsistent with every modern workplace standard.

Now take that same scenario and change one word. Replace “male” with “female.” Replace “men” with “women.” The logic is identical. The legal issues are identical. The discrimination is identical. But somehow, nobody flags it. Nobody questions it. It is accepted as thoughtfulness.

Discrimination does not become acceptable because it targets a different gender. It does not become progressive because it is wrapped in the language of care. It is still discrimination. And it still has consequences, both for the professionals being excluded and for the employees receiving less effective training as a result.

Everything That Gets Violated

Let me lay out, clearly and without exaggeration, what is potentially being violated when a company makes a gender-based trainer specification.

Indian Constitutional Provisions

Article 14 guarantees equality before law. Article 15(1) prohibits discrimination on grounds of sex. Article 16 guarantees equal opportunity in employment and explicitly bars sex-based discrimination. These are not aspirational statements. They are constitutional rights.

Employment Legislation

Section 5 of the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 prohibits discrimination in recruitment for the same or similar work. Section 3 of the Code on Wages, 2019 reinforces this prohibition. Both apply in spirit to service engagement and procurement, not just permanent employment.

The POSH Act, 2013

The Act requires awareness and safety training. It does not specify the gender of the trainer. The Act’s entire purpose is to eliminate gender-based bias and stereotyping. Requiring a female-only trainer runs counter to that purpose.

BFOQ (Bona Fide Occupational Qualification)

Gender may be specified as a requirement only when it is genuinely essential to the job. Self-defense instruction is based on knowledge, communication, and expertise. Gender is not essential to performing it. The BFOQ exception does not apply here.

Corporate DEI Policies

Most major corporations have DEI policies that explicitly state: we do not discriminate based on gender in hiring or vendor engagement. A “female instructor only” requirement directly contradicts this stated policy.

Corporate Governance Standards

The Companies Act, 2013 and SEBI corporate governance guidelines expect fairness, transparency, and non-discrimination in all business operations, including procurement.

International Legal and Ethical Frameworks

• ILO Convention No. 111 (Discrimination in Employment and Occupation): Prohibits any distinction based on sex that impairs equality. Ratified by India.
• CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women): Specifically targets gender stereotyping. Requiring a female trainer based on comfort assumptions is a textbook example. Ratified by India.
• UN Sustainable Development Goal 5: Calls for gender equality and ending all forms of discrimination.
• UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Expects businesses to respect the right to non-discrimination in all operations.
• ESG Reporting Standards: The Social component assesses non-discrimination and equal opportunity in procurement and business practices.
• Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act, 1964: For companies with U.S. operations or clients, prohibits gender-based employment discrimination with only very narrow BFOQ exceptions that do not include training and instruction.

This is a substantial list. And it is not theoretical. These are enforceable frameworks that govern how businesses operate. A well-intentioned email asking for a female instructor touches all of them.

The Three Phases of Getting It Wrong

I keep coming back to this because I think it captures the problem perfectly.

For years, the women’s safety conversation has been going through phases, each one focusing on the wrong thing.

Phase one focused on the victim. Her clothes, her behaviour, her choices. As if she caused the crime.

Phase two focused on martial arts. Karate, kickboxing, Krav Maga. As if learning to fight in a controlled gym would prepare someone for an uncontrolled street attack.

Phase three focuses on the instructor’s gender. As if the most important thing about the person teaching you to survive a crime is what gender they happen to be.

At no point in any of these phases has the primary focus been on the crime itself. On how criminals think. On how fear operates. On what actually happens during an attack and what determines whether someone survives it.

That is the conversation we need to be having. And it is the conversation I have been trying to start for decades.

“We have managed to make the women’s self-defense conversation about everything except the one thing it should be about: the crime. The victim’s clothes do not matter. The martial arts style does not matter. The instructor’s gender does not matter. The crime matters. And until we focus on that, we are not protecting anyone.”

– Specialist Franklin Joseph

What Equality Actually Looks Like in the Training Room

If your company genuinely believes in the equality it celebrates on International Women’s Day, here is what that looks like when applied to self-defense training.

It looks like evaluating every instructor, male or female, on the same criteria: expertise, methodology, track record, and relevance to real-world crime.

It looks like selecting the instructor who will give your employees the best possible preparation for real danger, regardless of that instructor’s gender.

It looks like trusting your women employees to learn from the most qualified professional available, because you believe in their strength and their ability to engage with anyone who has something valuable to teach them.

It looks like challenging your employees to grow, not shielding them from growth opportunities.

It looks like making sure that the principles in your IWD speech are the same principles in your vendor procurement email.

“Equality in the training room means one thing: the best person teaches. That is it. No gender filters. No comfort-based assumptions. No double standards. Just competence. If you can do that, you are practising what you preach. If you cannot, the speech on March 8th was just a speech.”

– Specialist Franklin Joseph

The Empowerment Argument

I want to end with this, because I think it gets to the heart of everything I have been saying.

Empowering women is not about removing challenges from their path. It is about building their capacity to handle those challenges. It is not about curating comfortable environments. It is about developing the inner strength to function effectively in uncomfortable ones.

When we assume that a woman cannot learn from a male instructor, we are not empowering her. We are limiting her. We are drawing a boundary around what we think she can handle, and that boundary is based on her gender, not her ability.

Real empowerment says: you are strong enough to learn from anyone. Real empowerment says: your ability to grow is not limited by the gender of your teacher. Real empowerment says: we trust you to handle this, and we are going to give you the best training available, because you deserve nothing less.

That is the message your women employees need to hear. On International Women’s Day. And on every other day of the year.

“Empowering women means believing in their strength, not organising the world around their assumed fragility. The moment you stop underestimating a woman is the moment you start empowering her. And that is a moment that has nothing to do with a calendar date.”

– Specialist Franklin Joseph