Outliers EP 17: Sairee Chahal says sexism is a ‘cancerous phenomenon’

Pankaj Mishra May 17, 2017 1 min

 

Sairee Chahal is building “a full stack mahila (women) network”. Yes, that’s how she describes Sheroes, an online networking platform for women looking for work that helps them balance career aspirations with personal responsibilities.

As we settle down to our chat at the Sheroes office in Delhi’s Lado Sarai, on a street teeming with art galleries, Chahal remarks that sexism is “a cancerous phenomenon” that has existed for a long time, much before journalists like me started discovering sexism in the startup ecosystem.

Apart from providing a platform for companies to outsource their projects to women on the Sheroes network, Chahal also offers counselling services and helplines for women facing issues at their workplace.

After the recent reports of sexual harassment surfaced against the founder of TVF, Sheroes launched a new product for companies to assess their internal systems and ensure the compliance and sensitivity required.

In this episode of Outliers Podcast, we stay with the topic of sexism and sexual harassment  at the workplace, which we have been talking about consistently, and discuss how Chahal and Sheroes are attempting to change that.

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Podcast produced by Anand Murali.

Disclosure: FactorDaily is owned by SourceCode Media, which counts Accel Partners, Blume Ventures and Vijay Shekhar Sharma among its investors. Accel Partners is an early investor in Flipkart. Vijay Shekhar Sharma is the founder of Paytm. None of FactorDaily’s investors have any influence on its reporting about India’s technology and startup ecosystem.