BEYOND BINARIES: REDEFINING EQUALITY IN A GENDERED WORLD

YOUR POWER IS YOUR RADICAL SELF, FIND IT

Hey guys I am back with yet another not so talked about topic that we should definitely be talking about. I hope my last article was fun for you guys. I do realise that it was pretty long but I just couldn’t shorten it much because everything I wrote made a lot of sense to me and I wanted my readers to understand and realise what I was trying to say here. So today I am going to talk about Gender Equality and why I think it is important.

Growing up, I never truly questioned the roles society expected me to play—until I did. A simple conversation, a missed opportunity, or even a casual remark about what "women should" or "men shouldn’t" awakened me to the invisible lines we all walk daily. These lines, etched by centuries of norms and biases, dictate how we live, love, and lead.

But as I navigated through my own experiences—both as a woman striving to break stereotypes and as a human advocating for fairness—I realized something profound: equality isn’t just about men and women. It’s about dismantling the rigid boxes we’ve all been placed into.

"Beyond Binaries" is not just a phrase—it’s a call to action. A journey to see people, not labels. A world where we redefine what it means to truly be equal, beyond the constraints of gender.

This blog is my reflection, my hope, and my invitation to you—to join the dialogue, challenge the norms, and together, build a world that celebrates individuality over conformity.

What is gender equality? A group of people fighting for a right between men and women. So first of all let me tell you that I am not going to support just one gender and get biased towards the other here because the actual issue of gender equality has occurred because of the society not giving correct rights and equality to women.

In India when a girl child is born most families of my parent's generation or even my generation's grandparents were not much happy or I would say elated as much as they would have been if it was a male child. Now there are many reasons to this. The most popular being that a male child would carry on the family’s legacy and surname whereas a female child would marry off into another family and drop her surname and adopt her husband’s surname. Few of the other reasons being that a girl can’t do most things that a man can do which has been proved otherwise by most women who have made a mark for themselves in their chosen fields while being someone’s wife or mother or daughter in law. Not just in India but a lot of misconceptions have been there since ages about women in other countries as well and this whole women vs men debate has gone on and is going on everywhere since long. No matter how much we do there’s always some negativity and a whole lot of debates and questions surrounding it.

My parents were elated when I was born and I am a single child as opposed to many people around us who wanted my parents to try for another child who would miraculously turn out to be a son this time. My dad had distributed sweets in the hospital because he was content with me. I might have been a disappointment to many people but not to my parents. They never treated me differently or told me that I can’t do things that a guy can do. They brought me up to be an independent person who has a mind and a voice of her own and who is immensely strong. I just got lucky in my parents department which I know isn’t true for a lot of other people out there. But yes for some people around me excepting my parents it is as if they had a Time Machine and already knew the trajectory of my entire career and life and decided that I had less to offer because I was a female. It sucked. So why am I telling you this heavy story? I am telling you this because although this is my lived experience, it’s also the reality that millions of girls face everyday across every culture and in every country. And I am telling you this because being born into this reality set me on a lifetime mission of trying to prove myself and just feel like I was enough. What did I want to be when I grow up? I wanted to be treated equally. And I am not alone in this mission. In fact, us girls, what we desperately want is a seat at the table. It’s what every motivational poster, Tumblr post, Instagram account you follow, business card tells us : Success is a seat at the table. And if they want to be extra spicy, they say, “ If there is no seat, drag your own seat.” I am sure you have heard this, right? And so my marching orders were clear. Get a seat at this coveted table by any means necessary. And that’s been the driving force behind my entire career. I remember thinking, “ Oh, I am going to talk to talk at this table, I am going to join the dinner conversation. “ I learned very quickly that whenever I spoke of money, people got a little uncomfortable. There’s gender gap in almost all fields across the world. There are tons of articles printed every year about the pay gap between men and women across different industries and fields. Time and again we are reminded that you can be on even the Forbes List or any other list out there but don’t try to start any conversations about the inequality on these lists.

I have achieved so much in my life but the most talked about topic around me is why I am not in a relationship even at this age. A lot of the men at the table didn’t like me telling them why I didn’t need a boyfriend. I quickly learned that there’s an invisible gatekeeper called culture, and the table is smack dabbed in the middle of it. For the first time in history, we had a woman, not to mention half South Asian Woman, become Vice President of the United States. Now we witnessed one of the greatest protests in human history with the farmer protests in India. These are not everyday occurrences at all but we as a society don’t talk of it much. We feel like What’s great in this? It’s just regular stuff happening. I have been trying to join the dinner conversation. I kept trying to ask for a more supportive seat. But every time I would be told that I should be grateful to have a seat in the first place. You know, the strange thing about having a wobbly seat is that you spend so much time trying to keep it upright that you can’t never bring your full self to the table. So now, why am I telling you all this? Because you see, my goal was always a seat at the table. It’s what women are conditioned to believe success is. And when the chair doesn’t fit, when it doesn’t reach the table, when it’s wobbly, when it’s full of splinters, we don’t have the luxury of fixing it or finding another one. But we try anyways. We take on that responsibility, and we shoulder that burden. What I have learned is, when you get the seat, trying to fix the seat won’t fix the problem. Why? Because the table was never built for us in the first place. The solution? Build better tables. So, allow me to be your very own IKEA Manual. I would like to present to you a set of guidelines, I very eloquently call : “ How to build a table that doesn’t suck. “ Now, right off the bat, let me tell you, this assembly is going to take more than one person or group of people. It’s going to take everyone. Are you ready? Should we dive in? How do we do it? Up first, don’t weaponise gratitude. Now, don’t get me wrong, gratitude is a great word. It’s nice, it’s fluffy. However, let’s be clear. Although gratitude feels warm and fuzzy, it’s not a form of currency. Women are assigned 10% more work and spend more time on unrewarded, unrecognised and non promotable tasks. Basically, what this means is all things men don’t want to do are being handed to women, and a lot of those things largely include things that advance inclusivity, equity and diversity in the workplace. So hear me when I say, a woman shouldn’t be grateful to sit at a table. She should be paid to sit at a table. Especially ones she largely helped build. And a woman’s seat shouldn’t be threatened if she doesn’t feel “grateful” enough. In other words, corporations, this step involves a woman doing a job and being paid in money, opportunity and promotion, not just gratitude. And women - yeah, go ahead, live it up, live your life. And women, a moment of real talk, trust me, I have been there and I know it is so tough, but we have to understand and remember that being grateful and being treated fairly are not mutually exclusive. I can be grateful but still know exactly what I deserve. And that’s the way to do it. Up next, invest in potential. When investing in women, Invest in empowering something different. Invest in a new voice. Give them the support they actually need. Cultural change takes time and money. So a true investment is one that values potential over proof. Because so often that proof doesn’t exist for women. Not because we aren’t qualified, but because we haven’t been given the opportunity. In other words, if you are trying to be inclusive, don’t give someone new a seat made of straw until they prove they deserve a better one. Don’t hold something called a “prove it again” bias, which requires less privileged people to constantly keep proving themselves, even though white men tend to get by on just their potential. Give them a seat that they can thrive in, that they can do the job you hired them to do in. Allow them to contribute to the table, and they will make it better.

Up next, my most favourite one. Make space for us. You know, for every three men at a table, there’s only one place setting for a woman. People are used to more men showing up that they plan for it. There’s an extra seat in the corner. When more men show up, the table gets longer. But when that extra RSVP is a woman, more often than not she’s encouraged to compete against the only other woman that was invited to the table. Instead, we need to build multiple seats for multiple women, not just one or two, so that women are not sitting on top of each other’s laps, fighting for one meal. We already know that more diverse teams perform better. A recent study shows that corporations that have more gender diversity on their executive teams were 25 percent more likely to experience above average profitability. And more racially diverse companies had 36 percent more profit. So really, no matter how you look at it, it’s time to build longer tables and more seats. And I want to say something, and I want to admit something, I want to be vulnerable for a second. Because I have fallen victim to this so many times, and women, let me know if you have experienced this. We have to get rid of the scarcity mindset and champion each other, you know, because I have learned what’s the better win? Me sitting at a table or us sitting at a table? Don’t be convinced to fight for one spot. Instead fight for multiple spots. And let me lead by example right now and say, I know there’s many other women that are going to join this debate or talk, and I hope they all nail it, and I will be cheering you all on because we can all win. And I am going to be your biggest cheerleader when you are up here.

Last, it’s time to upgrade the table talk. Now, I believe stories make the world go around. You thought it had to do something with the solar system? Jokes on you, it’s stories. Stories are how we understand ourselves, how we understand others and how we understand the world. And arguably the most important stories are those we see in the media. Because we have seen time and time that they control the narrative and impact culture. Now, when it comes to genre, you can argue that certain genres have certain target demographics. When it comes to the world news, the target demographic is the world, and we know half of the world is female. Yet women and girls make up only quarter of the people interviewed or that the news is even about in the first place. Instead, when it comes to issues that impact women, we not only need to be included in the coverage, we need to be driving those stories and dimensionalizing our own experience. Inviting everyone in on the table talk isn’t just a nice gesture. It makes for better, more productive, smarter conversation with more than one point of view. And that’s how you get better. So this all sounds like a lot of work. And it is. But I am going to tell you why it’s necessary and worth it. To be honest, this is about so much more than just women in the workplace. In fact, I could probably come up with many more guidelines across many other industries. This is about creating a world where half of the population can thrive. You see, the work we do today can create a world where future generations of girls can have equitable access and opportunity. And here’s the best part. Are you ready for it? Everyone listening today, all the men, the women, everyone in between, the big companies, the small ones, the media outlets, all of you, you can help create this future. A future where we have longer tables and more seats that actually work instead of fighting for a seat at the old ones that don’t. A future where everyone is seated at the table equally. And a future where being assigned a female at birth is not a disappointment or a disadvantage, because girls are encouraged, empowered and expected to do great things. And I can’t wait to make that a reality.

What do men have to do with gender equality? Gender equality is about women, right? I mean, the word gender is about women. You know, there’s an explosion of writing and thinking in feminist theory. All women face the same oppression as women. All women are similarly situated in patriarchy, and therefore all women have a kind of intuitive solidarity or sisterhood. Let me ask you a question. When you wake up in the morning and you look in the mirror, what do you see? I see a human being. I am kind of the generic person. Let me know in the comments section what do you see. Privilege is invisible to those who have it. So making gender visible to men is the first step to engaging men to support gender equality. Now, when men first hear about gender equality, when they first start thinking about it, they often think, many men think, well, that’s right, that’s fair, that’s just, that’s the ethical imperative. But not all men. Some men think - the lightning bolt goes off, and they go, “Oh, my God, yes, gender equality”, and they will immediately begin to mansplain to you your oppression. They see supporting gender equality something akin to the cavalry, like, “Thanks very much for bringing this to our attention, ladies, we will take it from here.” This results in a syndrome that I like to call ‘premature self-congratulation.’

There’s another group, though, that actively resists gender equality, that sees gender equality as something that is detrimental to men. Without confronting men’s sense of entitlement, I don’t think we will every understand why so many men resist gender equality. Look, we think this is a level playing field, so my policy that tilts it even a bit, men think, “Oh, my God, water’s rushing uphill. It’s reverse discrimination against us.” So, now I have established some of the obstacles to engaging men, but why should they support gender equality? Of course, it’s fair, it’s right and it’s just. But more than that, gender equality is also in their interest as men. If you listen to what men say about what they want in their lives, gender equality is actually a way for them to get the lives they want to live. Gender equality is good for countries. It turns out, according to most studies, that those countries that are the most gender equal are also the countries that score highest on the happiness scale. It is also good for companies. Research by Catalyst and others has shown conclusively that the more gender-equal companies are, the better it is for workers, the happier their labor force is. They have lower job turnover. They have lower levels of attrition. They have an easier time recruiting. They have higher rates of retention, higher job satisfaction, higher rates of productivity. So the question that I am often asked is, “This gender equality thing that’s really going to be expensive, huh.” And I say, “Oh no, in fact, what you have to start calculating is how much gender inequality is already costing you. It is extremely expensive.” So it is good for business. And the other thing is, it’s good for men. Young men especially have changed enormously, and they want to have lives that are animated by terrific relationships with their children. They expect their partners, spouses, wives, to work outside the home and be just as committed to their careers as they are. I was talking, to give you an illustration of this change - Some of you may remember this. When I was a lot younger, there was a riddle that was posed to us. Some of you may wince to remember this riddle. This riddle went something like this. A man and his son are driving on the freeway, and they are in a terrible accident, and the father is killed, and the son is brought to the hospital emergency room, and as they are bringing the son into the hospital emergency room, the emergency room attending the physician sees the boy and says, “Oh, I can’t treat him, that’s my son.” How is this possible? We were flummoxed by this. We could not figure this out. I asked my neighbour’s 16 year old son this question. He was like it’s his mom, right? He said it just like that instantaneously. That’s an index, that’s an indicator of how things have changed. Younger men today expect to be able to balance work and family. They want to be dual-career, dual-carer couples. They want to be able to balance work and family with their partners. They want to be involved fathers.

Now, it turns out that the more egalitarian our relationships, the happier both partners are. Data from psychologists and sociologists are quite persuasive here. I think we have the persuasive numbers, the data to prove to men that gender equality is not a zero-sum game, but a win-win. Here’s what the data shows. Now, when men begin the process of engaging with balancing work and family, we often have two phrases to describe what we do. We pitch in and we help out. And I am going to propose something a little bit more radical, one word: “share”. Because here’s what the data show: when men share housework and childcare, their children do better in school. Their children have lower rates of absenteeism, higher rates of achievement. They are less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. They are less likely to see a child psychiatrist. They are less likely to be put on medication. So when men share housework and childcare, their children are happier and healthier, and men want this. When men share housework and childcare, their wives are happier. Not only that, their wives are healthier. Their wives are less likely to see a therapist, less likely to be diagnosed with depression, less likely to be put on medication, more likely to go to the gym, report higher levels of marital satisfaction. So when men share housework and childcare, their wives are happier and healthier, and men certainly want this as well. When men share housework and childcare, the men are healthier. They smoke less, drink less, take recreational drugs less often. They are less likely to go to the ER but more likely to go to a doctor for routine screenings. They are less likely to see a therapist, less likely to be diagnosed with depression, less likely to be taking prescription medications. So when men share housework and childcare, the men are happier and healthier. And who wouldn’t want that?

So, what we found is something really important, that gender equality is in the interest of countries, of companies, and of men, and their children and their partners, that gender equality is not a zero-sum game. It’s not a win-lose. It’s a win-win for everyone. And what we also know is we can’t fully empower women and girls unless we engage boys and men. We know this. In 1915, on the eve of one of the greatest suffrage demonstrations down 5th Avenue in New York City, a writer in New York wrote an article in a magazine, and the title of the article was, “Feminism for men.” And this was the first line of that article: “Feminism will make it possible for the first time for men to be free.”

Gender equality is not about competition between men and women; it is about collaboration, understanding, and respect. In today's world, it is essential to recognize the unique strengths and challenges faced by individuals of all genders and work towards creating an environment where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.

Equality does not mean erasing differences but celebrating them in a way that empowers everyone to contribute their fullest potential. By fostering open dialogue, challenging outdated norms, and supporting each other, we can build a more inclusive society that benefits all.

The journey toward gender equality is not just about fairness; it is about unlocking the collective potential of humanity. Together, we can create a balanced world that uplifts everyone—regardless of gender.

A vibrant illustration depicting a diverse group of people holding hands in a circle under a radiant rainbow and a balanced scale, symbolizing unity and gender equality. Gender symbols are prominently displayed, emphasizing inclusivity and equal rights.