In 2026, the phrase “women in leadership” is not an aspirational buzzword; it is a visible reality. We see women in the rooms that were not imagined for them, driving policies, running courtrooms and navigating complex shifts in modern industry. Yet, while the faces at the top have changed, the underlying ecosystem has not. Discussions dedicated to women in leadership remain a necessity because we are still doing the vital work of structural course correction. Our goal is true parity, a day when the gendered modifier is dropped entirely, and we are recognised as leaders.
But until we reach that point, we must confront how the dialogue around women’s ambitions remains suffocated by the logistics of care work. How do you manage work and home? How do you balance being a mother and a leader? It is an exhausting, cyclical loop. When men reach top positions at the workplace, they are asked about their strategic foresight and the numbers that matter. Women, instead, are asked how they manage the kitchen alongside the boardroom. A woman’s leadership continues to be disproportionately measured by her endurance, by how much unpaid labour she can do without faltering, rather than by her capacity as a visionary.
When we critically examine modern workplaces and the frameworks governing our labour, the questions should not centre on how women can better survive a skewed system. We must interrogate the ecosystem itself. Why do our institutions still struggle to see a woman for her substantive expertise — as a policymaker, a sharp legal mind or a formidable strategist, and not just her managerial capacities at home?
Take, for example, women who are mothers. Work allocation frequently remains gendered, with mothers being subtly sidelined from high-stakes mandates that stall their trajectory to leadership roles. The motherhood penalty is not a relic of the past; it is an active, empirical tax on a woman’s career progression and lifetime earnings. We encourage women to dream, upskill, and claim their space; yet the system actively penalises them for pausing to start a family. This penalty is glaringly obvious when women are routinely denied appraisals or delayed in their promotions following a maternity break, a career stagnation that new fathers simply do not face.
This expectation of ceaseless compromise is baked into our societal fabric. Years ago, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi shared a famous anecdote. On the day she was named President of the company, she came home bursting with the news, only for her mother to send her out to buy milk. “Leave the crown in the garage,” Nooyi’s mother told her. The society continues to laud this story as a masterclass in humility, a charming reminder that a woman’s domestic duties remain unchanged regardless of her professional heights.
It is time to rewrite this narrative. True humility should not require the erasure of our hard-earned authority the moment we cross our own thresholds. Women must begin carrying their crown everywhere — into the living room, the corporate boardrooms, and the courtroom. When we unapologetically wear our achievements and demand our worth, perhaps then the system will be forced to acknowledge them too. Hopefully, the people around us will finally realise it is their turn to step up, share the load, and go get the milk.
Saraswathy Vaidyanathan is an Assistant Professor at the School of Law, BML Munjal University. Views are personal.