“What do women want?” It is a question that has alternately vexed and fascinated the world!

At a recent conference, a global marketing head travelling from the US to India for the first time, remarked with a smile after his first consumer home visit: I learnt today that the emotional feeling of being the father of three daughters is universal. His meeting, serendipitously, happened to be with a dad who, like him, had three teenage daughters. The meeting ended with a smile: Two dads from different corners of the world, and at opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum, and with totally different experiences were basically going through the same journey!

In short, that fellow feeling of trying to understand today’s evolving woman unites us all.

And it is not just fathers, but also mothers, husbands, and the women themselves too, who are striving to get a good grasp on this present-day universal quest. All needing to step back, ponder, and understand, at least a little bit, about what women really want.

For marketers, who have skin in the game and realise the game is evolving rapidly, the question is more imperative than ever.

Past Asian studies have shed some light on this rapidly evolving target group. For instance, summarising Asian women rather optimistically as “holding up half the sky” or, more pessimistically, and worryingly, as “simmering within”. The slant of this thesis by JWT (across India, China, and Indonesia) is to provide a more holistic view, rather than a simplistically positive or negative one.

This JWT study (across women SEC A, B, age group 20-45 years) aims at drawing out a well-rounded picture of the emerging chrysalis and then sharing some of the implications for those aiming to help our target to fly. What follows is an individual focus in three parts on what is on women’s minds, what is in their hearts and finally, what is in their pockets.

We learnt that what is on women’s minds is a widespread and nuanced realisation that their role in society, and more intimately, at home and in family has improved for the better. In short, they agree that women’s voices are being heard but they want more! Let’s unpack why and how this is so.

Changing role First, an overwhelming 90 per cent of women agree that women’s role in society is changing for the better. This point of view is evidently based less on whimsy or wishful thinking than ever before. Education and independence are cited as the underpinning of women’s new, improved role in society. Nearly 50 per cent of women believe that access to work and career and better education are the top most influential reasons for their role in society changing. “Feel that women today are more independent and are able to express themselves better” as a respondent in this study put it.

Second, and very significantly, less than one in five women agrees that better portrayal of women in the media is a positive influence. In other words, when women were asked “Thinking about your generation compared to your mothers, which three of the following do you think have been most influential for women?” their answers are revealing. Women’s top influencers were grounded and real ones – education and career. (Women’s portrayal in the media is not a top influencer for this generation of women. Is there an opportunity for better role models being portrayed, is a topic for discussion at another time?) Both the influencers – education and career, have their rewards and their challenges. Making women who are influenced by them and traverse their paths alive to their possibilities, yes, but in a very real sense. Hence words like “rights, challenges, equality, respect, brave” pepper their feedback on women’s evolving role.

It’s complex What is most heartening is that women’s point of view on their role in society is a nuanced view, not at all blind to the challenges on the path. This was evident across several comments like this one, on the same question: “They have a better say in family and financial matters though the respect that they should get in the society is yet to come.” Or another like-minded one. “Better living standards, more working women, more educated than before, courage, brave, facing problems, working in all fields.”

We learnt from them, that what is on women’s minds is neither a simplistically optimistic view of their role nor a pessimistic one. Happily, women of today embrace a grounded “you gotta have what it takes” view on their generation’s role in family and society at large. Hmmm. Makes “rose-tinted” a thing of the past, doesn’t it?

Third, we learnt that a natural corollary to their realistic and clear-sighted world view is the desire women have for their voice to be heard more and their opinions to be valued more. Given that their world view is not a rose-tinted one, but objective, realistic and grounded, alive to both rewards and challenges, women expect and want their realistic, grounded voice to be heard more. This unfulfilled desire for women’s opinion to be valued more came marching through the numbers in the study. Nearly 50 per cent women (that is one in two women) agreed with the statements “I wish my opinion at work was valued more” and “I wish my opinion at home was valued more”. That is a big shift – because earlier researches for decades highlighted women want to be valued more (alluding to the self-esteem, worth, and related issues); the recent research is highlighting women want their opinions to be valued more. Yearning for recognition beyond simply their “place” to a recognition of their perspective or point of view.

To recap, women believe their role in society has improved thanks to education and career. But there is still room for women’s opinions to be valued more both at home and in the workplace. Simply put, ask the ladies! And then heed their wisdom. What is your opinion about that? That is worth thinking about, till we share what is in their heart.

The next module moves beyond what is on women’s mind to understanding what is in their heart - on women’s aspirations.)

(Shaziya Khan is Executive Planning Director & Vice-President, JWT)

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