Designing for double disadvantages with Led By Foundation
What is LedBy and why a focus on Muslim women?
Shabeena:
LedBy is the first leadership incubator for Indian Muslim women. It was founded by Dr. Ruha Shadab, who spent her early years in Saudi Arabiaand then moved to India. Moving to a country where Muslim women are a minority highlighted the differences for her and she realised how difficult it is for Muslim women in India. Dr. Shadab was able to navigate her way to a successful career because of her exceptional mentors, however, none of them were female or Muslim, let alone female and Muslim. This lack of role models in the community continued to increase in her eyes. About a 100 million Muslim women live in India and they all have aspirations, aptitude and potential, but they lack access, agency and avenues. Only 1% of the 13% of Muslim girls enrolled in primary school make it to university and we want to increase this to 8%. I could have done much more if there were more role models in the community – and this is the story of every Muslim woman.
Deepanjali:
I am not from the Muslim community. I had been working in the corporate space for 14 years, and once I learned about LedBy, I asked myself: how many Muslim colleagues do I know? I realized that I knew one person. This felt both shocking and shameful. The Muslim community is the largest minority in India and yet, their representation is abysmal. Our flagship Fellowship program supports college-going Muslim women who are at the brink of starting their careers. Over 6 intensive months, we provide them with training at 3 levels: workshops, 360 degree mentorship framework, and executive coaching. Our program not only focuses on self-development but has a strong focus on the “pay it forward” aspect built in the program.
What have you learned about women and girls over the years?
Societal challenges play a bigger role for women
Even before the pandemic, we have been running our programs virtually. Bringing a program for our fellows in the comfort of their home isn't only conducive to the needs of the fellow, it also designs for her family. The design of our programs are highly dependent on the familiar pillar – we make sure that their parents and/or husbands are brought in from the beginning and we do our best to make them comfortable.
White-washing of her identity
What happens in our country is that once a woman goes out and makes a name for herself, there’s a kind of white-washing of her identity. This is a result of a fear that you might not be taken as seriously or given the same opportunities if you’re wearing a hijab, for example. Even if this is not true, that internal insecurity always exists given the political and social context in India at the moment. This white-washing is usually not evident to external stakeholders, but is a key point for us as we design for our fellows.
On a lonely journey
Although LedBy is a professional development space, our biggest takeaway has been that this is also a safe space for these women, personally. This is a place they’ve found people they can relate with, in a journey which can feel lonely otherwise. In our first cohort, we had a fellow ask how to deal with a situation in which her boss was asking her to take her hijab off and in which she did not know how to respond. LedBy has provided a safe space to contextualise similar challenges that Muslim women face and have resilence to face them in the real world.
Double disadvantages exist
Muslim women experience their double disadvantages both inside and outside their communities. The fact that you are a woman, and that you are Muslim. Within the community, there’s a ton of expectations to live up to, and if you’re going outside the community, you hold the responsibility to uphold familial values. A Muslim woman also has to grapple with something else: when she starts working, it’s a sense of moving farther from the community and losing your identity within – this is a challenge they face from their families.
What advice would you have for someone creating a product, service, or community for women?
Must design for the family alongside the women
Because the community plays such a big role, we take every opportunity to include them and find ways to make the families of our fellows feel secure. We invite them to the graduations, make sure that our advisors play a role in making the family feel like they’re sending their daughters to a good program, write thank you notes, etc.
Change narratives and the system too
Along with getting the girls ready for the world, we are also preparing the world for our girls. We continuously profile our fellows to show that our fellows are succeeding in big organisations such as Microsoft and Google. We highlight every achievement, big or small. This is by design – subconsciously, by portraying these narratives, we are shifting mindsets, increasing awareness and hopefully creating allies. Whenever we speak to organisations about their D&I agenda, we encourage them to consider Muslim women as a part of it.
Contextualise for the women you’re designing for
A Hindu girl would never go through the experience of being asked to remove the hijab or feel apologetic for needing a prayer room to pray 5 times a day. We were very clear from the beginning who we are designing for. This is true even for our internal team, for example, to never have meetings scheduled during prayer times.
What are some common misconceptions about designing for women?
Not all Muslim women are oppressed. They do not fit in a box: not every Muslim woman wears an abaya or a hijab. A Muslim woman has the same aspirations and dreams as anyone else, all they need is for a door to be opened to welcome them without pre conceived biases.
About Shabeena Shaik & Deepanjali Lahiri
Shabeena Shaik is the CTO at LedBy Foundation. She is an MBA grad from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and an Electronics and Communications Engineer from Andhra University. She has over 3 years of corporate experience spanning Corporate growth strategy, Business Development, Software development with top global companies in Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance domain. She has also worked as an independent consultant and helped set up a co-operative savings society in her hometown. Having come from a rural background, she has gone through and understands the issues of access and guidance for students to reach their true potential.
Deepanjali Lahiri is the Director of Operations at LedBy Foundation. She is an experienced Project Management professional with 13 years of experience across IT, Retail, and FMCG. She has spearheaded large-scale business projects to establish strategic directions for companies in the growth and acceleration stages. She has navigated her career journey with a "learn by doing" mindset since she didn't have the traditional career trajectory one would expect from a Strategy, or Project Management professional. She is passionate about working with organizations and individuals to create a seat at the table for those who need a voice of support. She wants to be a champion of change.