What ‘professionalism’ means

I continued to work over the past week even as I wrestled with COVID. This is a part of being ‘self-employed’. But I continue to ponder what it could mean to truly feminise work places to make them more inclusive

Covid finally arrived like a thief in the night. I was already swirling in its haze last Thursday morning as I was writing my column. I’d spent the night in a state of restlessness. I was sure I was coming down with something, but I felt sure it was possibly seasonal. Our child had had a fever that had lasted a day and a half, recovering so quickly, regaining strength and mood with such ease, we couldn’t fathom he’d in fact fought COVID. I couldn’t sleep a wink the night before. I had a headache, a backache, a throat ache—every part of my body felt besieged by something. It was a choppy night and I barely made it through. Painkillers felt meaningless and by noon I wasn’t surprised when I tested positive. My first thought was that the timing couldn’t have been better. Of course, there is no such thing as a good moment to be ill. But we had been protecting ourselves from the virus with such tenacity from the beginning, intensifying efforts during my pregnancy and immediately postpartum. Now, between the Granny Smith and the Pink Lady harvest, we could afford to be incapacitated.

As I wrestled with every symptom associated with COVID (my sense of taste remained more or less intact), I continued to work, because I had some immovable deadlines. It was intellectual work, not easy to perform when one is coughing one’s guts out. Having to stretch my body, coaxing it to be able to think through illness, forced a reflection on the notion of professionalism. It’s a subject I’ve a lot to say about since I have been a ‘self-employed professional’ since 2010. As a feminist, I have frequently thought about how the contours of what it constitutes have been doggedly framed by patriarchy. We are expected to follow unspoken rules, and we usually do so without ever questioning their parameters.

The more you think about what we imagine to be allowed and not allowed within the sphere of the professional, the more evident it becomes that this is still a ‘man’s world’. I always felt incredibly drawn to that scene from an episode in Sex in the City when Samantha, who usually performs her PR consultant job with elan, is thrown off by casual sexism at the workplace. You see how she is struggling to hold herself. But she finds it in her to wait until the elevator pulls up and for the doors to close before she allows herself to break down. Emotions are supposed to be left at the door, when it comes to the workplace, we’re often told. We’re supposed to maintain an atmosphere of calm collectedness.

I grew suspicious of full-time jobs right when I was starting out. What ticked me off from the beginning was the concept of buzzing oneself through a door, not to gain entry, but as a way of logging in your entry and exit so your employer could track how many hours in a day you were spending at the office. This struck me as totally odd, having to account for one’s pay through the body’s movements, not through the quality of one’s work. Working from home was a way for me to counter all of this. I could do my meetings in my pyjamas, if I wanted, and stream an episode of some inane comedy while eating my freshly cooked lunch. As a freelancer, though, I began to encounter other confusions around the notion of professionalism. Take deadlines, for example. As a writer, you are expected to deliver your piece by a certain time. It is a mark of how seriously you take your work. Funnily enough, there’s almost no organisation that is so careful or cautious about paying on time. This meant that half my energy went in signing paperwork, couriering it to publications concerned, waiting for my cheque to be sent by mail, then going to the bank to deposit the cheque. Online payments smoothened things, but it meant one had to keep a roster of invoices issued, else you lost tabs on who you had yet to chase.

So, while I had the privilege of working from home, wherever I wanted that home to be, and defining what constituted professionalism for me, unlike my salaried friends who worked full-time with organisations, I was frequently broke. It’s taken me twenty years and moving to a European country to finally break even. But the real change transpired when I began to find in me the courage to say no to any work that wasn’t worth my time or that didn’t remunerate me enough, and to streamline my commitments, narrowing my engagements to the people and institutions that truly respect me. Increasingly I am finding myself working with those who are mothers or fathers, who therefore completely understand the intricacies of infant caregiving. It helps significantly to not have to apologise for our child being in the background of a Zoom call, or when I’ve had to breastfeed in the middle of a televised scholarly conversation, or when I’ve had to take our child to university with me, or conduct my long call with a student who asked me to be their thesis advisor while I’m on our evening stroll.

The last week was the most demanding and challenging of my life. Being sick while having to continue caregiving and isolating ourselves while having to strictly enforce self-care as a discipline so as to get better sooner… was exhausting. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I’m patting myself on the back—another professional act I take care to practice. I continue to think about what it could mean to truly feminise work environments to make them more inclusive to bodies that are not conventionally abled, or that have always been kept outside of professional spaces. 

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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