And trends are already set.

One wonders what are the `new' career options for women. There aren't any, for the simple reason that women have made it in every sphere and a woman now doing something different is no longer news. When Kiran Bedi became India's first IPS officer she was raved about. She deserved it she had set a trend. Today we have budding Bedis all over our police department. In sports, Bachendri Pal hit the headlines for climbing the Everest, now there are several more enthusiasts following her footsteps.

In the `other' fields where interference of the female sex would've raised eyebrows earlier, women have made it there too. Take for instance, Kalpana Chawla, who became the first Indian woman to go to space. Creative fields like film-making and advertising have not remained unexplored either by the `F' gender species. Conventional jobs like those of a teacher, typist or a secretary are passé now. A woman as the CEO of a big multinational might just be reason for some to say "wow''. But that's it. Women entrepreneurs are making it big in the corporate world. Some do tell us stories of how they were earlier regarded in the industry, but the fact that they've made it to that level makes everything else plain history. Be it in the field of virus probing (research) or even driving an auto rickshaw, women are there, everywhere.

Colleges and institutions offering professional courses being thronged by equal numbers of boys and girls is a clear indication of the need being felt by women to realise their dreams. Also, unlike earlier where most went for courses like engineering and medical, there are quite a few opting for other careers like advertising, public relations, social service, journalism and those with a bend towards the intellectual side of living also take up professions with subjects like environmental science. There are also those business-oriented women cashing on the Internet boom. From doing web designing to launching a dot com, from being the strategic planner of a website to becoming its creative head nothing seems impossible and nothing that hasn't been done by a woman so far. Even in Info Tech, be it programming or software developing, the fairer sex is no rare species.

So is there a new career that a woman can have? Surely, one that she perhaps creates for herself. One that is close to her heart and dreams. All others seem to be redundant!