Every March, as International Women’s Day arrives, the world undergoes a transformation. We see bright posters, corporate hashtags, and stirring speeches about “shattering glass ceilings.” We celebrate icons—the astronauts, world leaders, and CEOs. But as I sit down to write this, my mind drifts away from the headlines. I find myself looking at the quiet, unrecorded courage that exists in the spaces between those big moments. I find myself thinking of my mother, and I am pretty sure so do some of you.
For a long time, I didn’t realise my mother was a revolutionary. To my younger self, she was just the steady heartbeat of our home. But now, as I navigate the complexities of my own life, I realise she was performing a daily miracle. She was the original stereotype-breaker, showing me that a woman’s strength isn’t a finite resource to be divided between “work” and “home.” It is an infinite capacity to build, nurture, and lead all at once.
Look at the women in your own life—the ones who manage a high-stakes deadline with the same precision they use to manage a family crisis. This isn’t just multi-tasking. It is a form of quiet alchemy. It is the ability to carry the emotional weight of a household while simultaneously driving the engine of an industry. When women manage homes and work together, they are dismantling a centuries-old lie that said they weren’t capable of doing both.
We often hear about the “glass ceiling,” that invisible barrier preventing women from rising to the top. But for many women, the barrier feels more like brass—tough and polished by tradition. The brass ceiling isn’t just about promotions; it’s about expectations placed on women from the moment they are born. It is the expectation to be “soft” in a way that implies weakness, or to be “hard” in a way that implies a loss of femininity.
Our mothers’ generation didn’t always have the vocabulary of “empowerment” we use today. What they had was grit disguised as grace. They broke stereotypes by refusing to be limited by them. International Women’s Day is a day for icons, yes. But it belongs even more to the “every woman.”
To the women who feel exhausted by the weight of the “double shift”—know that your fatigue is not a sign of failure. It is evidence of your magnitude.
Breaking stereotypes is tiring. There is an emotional tax that comes with being the “first,” the “only,” or the one who does it all. There is the guilt of not being present enough at home and the pressure of working twice as hard to prove your worth at the office. But by managing the home and the world together, women are creating a new definition of leadership—one that values empathy as much as efficiency.
As this article reaches your hands today, I hope we stop asking women how they “balance it all.” Instead, let us celebrate the fact that they do. To my mother: thank you. You showed me that a woman is an infinite being. You didn’t just give me life; you gave me a map of how to live it with dignity.
I see my mother’s resilience reflected in my own journey today. As a mechanical engineer in a field where I am often the only woman in the room, I’ve realised that technical calculations and complex designs are only half the battle. The other half is the heritage of grit I carried from my home to the design desk. Whether I am analysing flow elements or contributing to NASA’s citizen science projects, I stand on the shoulders of a woman who didn’t have these titles but possessed a brilliance no degree can grant. She was the first engineer I ever knew—the one who taught me how to build a life out of both steel and heart.
To every woman reading this: you are a kaleidoscope of roles and dreams. You are allowed to be ambitious and tender. You are allowed to be tired and unbreakable. Today, let’s save the loudest applause for the quiet victories—the resilience in routine, the heart in hard work, and the spirit of the woman who refuses to be anything less than everything.
Happy International Women’s Day. This piece is dedicated to my mother Mrs. Afroz Kolhar, my first teacher of strength, and to every woman carving her own path. You don’t just inhabit the world; you make it whole.
(The writer is a mechanical engineer and NASA citizen scientist based in Mapusa, Goa)
