Women finding an influential place for themselves at the top
We talk often about how women are increasingly reaching top positions in industry, and how times are changing. That’s true — but it’s equally true that the path to those positions remains far harder for women, and not every capable, ambitious woman gets to make that climb. Before looking at the corporate side of this, I want to talk about some of the root causes — because behind the structural and material barriers, there are always people, and the reasons start much closer to home.
We need to look at our homes, families, and the environments we grow up in before we ever get to workplaces and corporate ladders.
To be clear, this isn’t about painting women as weak, or dismissing the men who experience the opposite from their partners — nor is it a claim about all women or all men.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, we still live largely within a patriarchal structure. In theory, we may say men and women have equal status, equal opportunity, equal rights — but in practice, when tension arises, it’s usually the woman who’s expected to maintain harmony, to compromise, to let the argument be “won” by the other side. Women are often seen as the backbone of the family, and the backbone carries the weight of the whole body. We absorb these as our values, our responsibilities, until they become instinct. And so, when we step into the workplace, we either carry the same instincts — working hard quietly, waiting to be noticed and given the position we’ve earned — or we try to take on a different, more assertive role, which can create friction between who we are at home and who we are at work. Women who do manage to hold a strong, consistent personality across both spaces often find it affects their relationships, for the very same reasons that make it hard for men to accept or navigate that side of a partner.
That same upbringing — theoretically equal, but practically lopsided — quietly shapes men’s expectations too, often without them realizing it: that they come first, that the other gender adjusts around them. This doesn’t just shape their personalities at home; it follows them everywhere, including how they respond to women in leadership. That’s not entirely their fault either — it’s simply how they were raised.
To be fair, there are women leaders who speak openly about how much their husbands’ support, encouragement, and sacrifice shaped their success. These stories only reinforce the point: for a woman navigating today’s environment, support from family is every bit as essential to her success as support from her employer — emotionally, mentally, and physically.
In the corporate world, another challenge shows up: when a woman does reach the top, people often start speculating — about her marriage, her relationships, whether she made “certain compromises” to get there. Why is that? A man at the top can have a thriving marriage, strong relationships, and credit purely to his ability. A successful woman is rarely allowed to have more than one “successful” part of her life at a time, in the public imagination.
Managers avoid hiring women out of fear they’ll leave, relocate after marriage, or take time off for pregnancy. Yet those same managers might expect their own wives to relocate for their careers, or to have children while working. Who else is meant to have those children? And ironically, even women in leadership roles can carry the same unconscious bias against other women.
All of this forms the social backdrop that makes the climb so much steeper for women than for men. If we want this to be different for the next generation, the real work starts in how we raise our children — raising individuals, not “daughters” and “sons,” with the same values and principles, in practice and not just in theory — building a culture based on merit, not gender.
It matters that we see individuals as individuals, not through the lens of gender. I’ve personally experienced what it means to be trusted beyond gender.
Alongside what I’ve observed among women colleagues and peers, I’ve had my own share of difficult experiences — being politically undermined by peers and seniors trying to break my momentum. But I was also fortunate to have a manager, early in my career, who trusted me for who I was — my skills, my values, my ability — regardless of my gender. That trust didn’t just push my own boundaries; it helped me discover more of myself as a professional. That’s what actually works. That’s what’s needed.
