The Silent LOAD

Women are climbing the career ladder, but invisible burdens and structural barriers are still weighing them down

- MAMTA SHARMA

BEHIND EVERY PERFORMANCE review and late-night login lies an invisible truth: women often work twice as hard just to stay in the race.

They juggle caregiving, career breaks, bias, burnout, unfair expectations, all while maintaining the composure workplaces have normalised. What they want is neither special treatment nor exceptions or concessions; they're asking for fairness, dignity, and support through predictable life stages.

As Neha Bagaria, Founder and CEO of AI-powered career engagement platform for women HerKey, puts it, “Beyond generic challenges, four distinct barriers appear at different stages of a woman’s career: lack of career intentionality early on; biases during restarts; disproportionate caregiving for mid-career risers; and networking formats built by men, for men, which exclude women at senior levels.”

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Flexibility has become both salvation and stigma for women. Bagaria notes three cohorts of women seeking flexibility today: those who need full work-from-home, those who need empathetic hybrid, and those who can manage hybrid with occasional support. But organisations often treat flexibility as a signal of reduced ambition.

Sharon (name changed), who recently quit her senior role at a consumer electronics company, experienced this firsthand. “Men are still trusted more with ‘getting things done.’ They enjoy greater visibility and informal bonding, and that’s what gets rewarded. Women, especially with young children, are quickly sidelined,” she says. Flexible arrangements, she adds, come with invisible penalties—slower promotions, reduced visibility, and assumptions about lower commitment.

Data backs her: Deloitte’s ‘2025 Women@Work’ report shows that nearly nine in ten women believe requesting flexibility will hurt their career.

UNSPOKEN MENTAL TOLL