Editor’s note:
Harnidh’s writing a book. So I reached out to her for her thoughts on the newest version of Humanise. We got to talking, and as serendipity had it, it turned out that she had already written a piece that could be relevant to our inaugural theme. I knew it had to feature the moment I read the first two paragraphs. A lot has been written about how financial literacy among women, but little has been written about the environment and conditioning that has led to this, and even little about the intrinsic motivation that guides these mindsets. In this piece, Harnidh brings together research, lived experiences, and her suitably hot takes to write a narrative on why women don’t ask for more – be it power, salaries, stocks, or monetary gains – despite shouldering a greater burden.

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If you grew up in India, you’ve probably absorbed one of two financial scripts, though which one you got depended almost entirely on your gender.

For boys, money was framed as propulsion. You were told it would take you places: to the corner office, to the big house, to the front row at the cricket final. Money was what you chased for glory, for achievement, for your name on the door. It was a scorecard, a measure of ambition, the ultimate proof that you’d “made it.”

For girls, money was framed as protection. We were taught it was something to hold on to quietly, “just in case.” An escape hatch. A dowry disguised as gold jewellery. A stash of cash in the back of the cupboard, in case the marriage didn’t work out or the in-laws turned hostile. Even now, when I talk to women across industries, the most common financial dream I hear isn’t “I want to be a crore-pati”, it’s “I want enough to leave if I have to.”

This split starts early. Psychological studies in Delhi NCR show men are far more likely to see money as a symbol of success, influence, and prestige. At the same time, women are significantly more likely to score high on “retention”, carefulness, future planning, anxiety about loss. One isn’t inherently better than the other, but when one half of the population is conditioned to grow money and the other to hide it, the compounding gap starts before the first paycheque even clears.

By adulthood, these scripts are so deeply embedded they feel like personality traits. Men are “natural risk-takers.” Women are “prudent.” Men “invest.” Women “save.” These words sound neutral, but they map directly to opportunity. An investor is expected to seek returns, to take the meeting, to make the bet. A saver is expected to keep the lights on and stay out of trouble. And in a country where the average woman already spends 201 minutes more per day on unpaid domestic work than the average man, that difference in economic orientation, ambition versus insurance, has a way of becoming destiny.

The tragedy here isn’t that women don’t care about money, it’s that we were never taught to see money as something that could run towards us, not just away from disaster.

And scripts, if you repeat them long enough, stop feeling like stories and start functioning like systems. The propulsion script nudges men into higher-upside plays; the protection script parks women on the low-volatility track. That’s not just bad luck, it’s cause and effect, and it shows up everywhere from pay cheques to portfolios. Which brings us to…

How Scripts Become Systems

A script is harmless until you realise it’s been running your life on autopilot. The “money as propulsion” script pushes men into positions that maximise upside: high-visibility roles, P&L responsibility, equity-linked pay. The “money as protection” script nudges women toward stability at all costs: safe jobs, predictable hours, low volatility, even if the upside is capped.

The difference shows up in the data before it shows up in the bank.

  • Labour force participation: In 2023–24, 41.7% of Indian women were in the labour force, up from historic lows, but still far behind men. And within that, women are overrepresented in informal or part-time work, which pays less, offers no benefits, and leaves little surplus to invest.
  • Asset choice: Surveys show Indian women overwhelmingly prefer fixed deposits, gold jewellery, and insurance over equities or mutual funds. In behavioural finance terms, they prioritise capital preservation over capital appreciation.
  • Risk posture: The idea that “women are risk-averse” is less biology than biography. If your money has always been positioned as your parachute, not your rocket fuel, of course, you’ll optimise for “don’t lose it” over “make it grow.”

And then there’s the social penalty for wanting more. In a survey of urban Indian women, 75% said their families were not financially dependent on them: proof that, even now, daughters are expected to prepare the bread, not win it. In workplaces, this plays out as pay gaps and promotion gaps. If the boss assumes you’re “not in it for the money,” you get offered the nice, steady track instead of the high-stakes, high-reward one.

Even women who do earn well often remain under-invested. Generations of “just in case” thinking means money gets locked up in illiquid, low-yield assets. Gold passed down from mother to daughter. A silent fixed deposit. Cash tucked away, never compounding.

These are safety nets, yes, but they rarely become trampolines.

This is how a mindset calcifies into a system:

  1. Cultural conditioning → money as safety
  2. Career choices → low-volatility, low-upside roles
  3. Investment choices → preservation over growth
  4. Experience gap → less confidence managing higher-return assets
  5. Outcome → smaller retirement corpus, less financial autonomy, more vulnerability in crises

And because these outcomes look “rational” in isolation, they don’t get challenged. A fixed deposit is sensible. A secure job is wise. But when all your moves are defensive, you never play offence, and offence is where the wealth is built.

But offence comes at a cost, and here’s where culture really sinks its claws in. Even when women dare to want more, they’re met with a vocabulary designed to shrink them back down. It’s not just a numbers game, it’s a reputational one. Which is why the next part isn’t about spreadsheets at all. It’s about shame.

The Social Penalty for Wanting More

In India, we don’t just teach girls to be careful with money, we teach them to be careful with wanting it.

The label comes early: money-minded. It sounds harmless until you realise it’s code for greedy, unfeminine, a little bit suspect. Men can chase wealth and be called ambitious. Women can do the same and be called materialistic. The same trait that’s applauded in a son is seen as a flaw in a daughter.

It’s not subtle, either.

In media, men “invest” their money while women “splurge” it. Men “build portfolios,” women “shop for gold.”

Even when the spending is identical, the language changes. And language matters because it quietly tells everyone, including women themselves, that financial power isn’t for them.

In a workshop on women and money, when the facilitator asked how many participants had clear, personal financial goals, only two out of seventy-five raised their hands. That’s not because the other seventy-three didn’t care, it’s because they’d been taught that wanting more for themselves was unbecoming.

The stigma doesn’t just keep women from talking about money, it keeps them from learning how to use it. I’ve met women who have postgraduate degrees, run teams, and yet hesitate to ask their husbands about the family’s investment plans for fear of seeming “distrustful” or “calculating.” I’ve met women who’ve taken pay cuts just to avoid the negotiation process because “I don’t want to seem like I’m only here for the money.”

The stigma doesn’t just keep women from talking about money, it keeps them from learning how to use it.

This isn’t an accident; it’s a form of soft control. If you convince women that too much interest in money makes them less likeable, they’ll police themselves out of raises, out of risk, out of ownership. And self-policing is the most efficient form of suppression. It requires no active gatekeeper.

Here’s the truth the stigma doesn’t want you to know:
Money doesn’t make you greedy. Money makes you free. It gives you choices, leverage, and the ability to walk away from anything or anyone that no longer serves you. And freedom is rarely gifted; it’s taken.

Interlude: The Male Perspective

The propulsion/protection split doesn’t just box women in, it boxes men in too.

  • Sole-provider pressure. The “propel at all costs” story loads men with quiet panic: career risk becomes identity risk; layoffs become moral failure.
  • Over-risking to prove worth. Reckless trading, undiversified bets, debt-fuelled status purchases, these aren’t signs of confidence, they’re symptoms of a one-dimensional money identity.
  • Fragile partnership dynamics. If a man is taught his only value is provision, what happens when his partner out-earns him or takes bold money decisions? Resentment isn’t inevitable, but it’s a common byproduct.

Male Ally Playbook:

  • Share the wheel: co-own recurring money tasks, don’t just “help.”
  • Normalize women asking for more: treat it as standard, not audacious.
  • Put her name on assets: deeds, nominations, ESOPs. Paperwork is is a love langauge.
  • Advocate for upside: when a partner eyes a higher-risk, higher-upside move, ask “How do we build the runway?” not “Are you sure?”

Interlude: Generations, Regions, Class

Generational shifts

  • Gen Z women: Treat money as identity + autonomy; app-native, willing to experiment with SIPs, smallcase, even crypto; more likely to discuss ESOPs from day one in a new job.
  • Millennials: The bridge generation: built careers in hustle culture, burned by COVID volatility, now looking for balanced growth strategies.
  • Gen X: Often still carrying the “dual care” load of kids and parents; cautious by habit, but increasingly using insurance, NPS, and formal titles to build growth alongside safety.

Regional and class texture
This essay speaks most directly to urban, educated women with disposable income and formal job access.

  • Semi-urban/rural contexts: Safety-first scripts manifest as cash savings, informal lending, and gold as a “walking bank.” Growth often comes via SHGs, microcredit, and MUDRA loans, but translating that into personal portfolios and legal asset ownership is still rare.
  • Class dynamics: Higher incomes create higher capacity for risk (not just appetite). The shift from survival to strategy hinges on converting any surplus into compounding, not consumption, whether that’s ₹1,000 or ₹1 lakh a month.

Signs of Change: Women Are Moving from Safety to Strategy

For decades, the story has been the same: men build, women save; men take risks, women play it safe. But the numbers are starting to wobble.

In the past five years, India has seen a quiet revolution in women’s financial participation. The headlines are small but relentless:

  • Demat accounts: In 2021, just 6.7 million women in India held demat accounts. By the end of 2024, that number had quadrupled to 27.2 million. 
  • Equity market presence: As of mid-2025, women make up roughly one-quarter of all participants in India’s equity markets, with some states like Delhi touching 30%
  • Mutual funds: Women now account for over 25% of individual mutual fund investors and hold about one-third of the industry’s individual AUM. And their behaviour defies stereotype: in one national survey, women invested on average 37% more than men and stayed invested 22% longer, proving that patience can be a profit engine.
  • Decision-making: 72% of women investors say they make their investment decisions independently, a shift from “someone else manages it” to “I own the call.”
  • Digital adoption: Use of fintech platforms for investing among women has jumped from 14% to 55% in just five years, signalling that younger, tech-savvy investors aren’t waiting for permission to step into risk.

This isn’t just about individuals getting braver, it’s about infrastructure catching up. Government-led financial inclusion drives mean women now own 39% of all bank accounts in India, and nearly 42% in rural areas. Bank access doesn’t guarantee power, but it’s a critical first rung on the wealth ladder.

We’re also seeing pockets where women are comfortable playing offence. Urban, educated investors are diversifying into equities, startups, and growth funds; rural and semi-urban women are using SHGs and MUDRA loans to seed small businesses. In both cases, the narrative is shifting from “how do I protect this?” to “how do I grow this?”

Is it enough? Not yet. Women are still underrepresented in high-yield asset classes and leadership roles. But the data tells us this: once women step into the arena, they don’t just participate, they outperform the myths.

Interlude: Three Quick Shifts: Safety → Strategy

Aditi, 31, product marketer (Mumbai)
Trigger: Laid off in 2023; realised her “emergency fund” = 2 months’ rent.
Moves: Built a 9-month buffer; negotiated her next role with ESOPs and a revenue-linked bonus; automated two SIPs on salary day; bought term + health insurance in her own name.
Outcome (12 months): Pay up 18%; equity allocation from 0% → 55%; stopped saying “I’m bad with money,” started running a quarterly personal P&L.

Nilofer, 38, small-business owner (Indore)
Trigger: Her father’s surgery wiped the family’s savings; gold had to be pawned.
Moves: Separated business/personal accounts; created a “3-tier” cash cushion; shifted from only FDs to a barbell: ultra-safe + growth index funds; took a ₹10L line of credit instead of raiding savings.
Outcome (18 months): No more emergency liquidations; business revenue +26%; first demat in her name; joint deed on the family home.

Rhea, 27, software engineer (Bengaluru)
Trigger: ESOP horror story, left before vesting.
Moves: Asked for front-loaded vesting and exercise window extension; put 15% of take-home into SIPs; started a women’s investment club in her apartment complex.
Outcome (9 months): Vested options worth ~₹9L on paper; 11 women opened demat accounts; risk feels like a muscle, not a monster.

Interlude: Day in the Life: Two Scripts in Action

Same salary. Same city. Different defaults.

8:00 AM

  • Protection script: Checks bank app, feels relief seeing FD auto-renewed.
  • Propulsion script: Checks auto-SIP went through; tags goal “Down payment 2028.”

1:00 PM

  • Protection: Skips asking for a stretch project, “this quarter’s crazy.”
  • Propulsion: Volunteers for a P&L-adjacent task; blocks calendar for prep.

6:00 PM

  • Protection: Sends ₹10k to mom for “house expenses,” no tracking.
  • Propulsion: Sends ₹10k, shares a simple family budget so both can plan.

9:00 PM

  • Protection: Screenshots a reel about gold rates, forwards to cousins.
  • Propulsion: Opens her IPS (Investment Policy Statement), rebalances to target 70/30 equity/debt.

Month-end

  • Protection: Feels safe; money didn’t move.
  • Propulsion: Feels in motion; money has a job.

The good news? Once you see the pattern, you can start rewriting it. And rewriting doesn’t mean abandoning safety, it means making safety the foundation, not the ceiling. That’s the heart of the next section: turning the protection script into a launch pad.

Rewriting the Script: From Safety Net to Launch Pad

If the old script says “keep your head down, save for a rainy day”, the new one says “lift your head up, build for the life you want.”

Shifting from safety-only to safety-plus-growth isn’t just about telling women to “take more risks.” It’s about building the conditions where risk is possible, ambition is rewarded, and wanting more isn’t treated like a moral flaw.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

1. Normalize Financial Ambition

We need to retire the reflex that labels money-minded women as greedy. The next time a woman says she wants a seven-figure salary or a portfolio twice its current size, the answer should be “how do we make that happen?” not “don’t you have enough?”

Media has a role here: spotlighting women who’ve built wealth without apology. That could be the mutual fund manager whose portfolio beats the index, the entrepreneur scaling a company from her living room, or the corporate leader negotiating her stock options like a pro. These stories plant a seed in younger women: you are allowed to want this.

2. Build Risk Capacity, Not Just Risk Appetite

Telling women to “invest in equities” when they’re one job loss away from disaster is performative advice. First, shore up the base:

  • Emergency fund: 6-12 months of living expenses, liquid and accessible.
  • Insurance: Term life and health insurance in her own name, non-negotiable.
  • Formal savings: EPFO, PPF, or NPS contributions that create a foundation for retirement.

Once the safety net is strong, risk capacity rises, and that’s when propulsion investing (equities, ESOPs, business capital) becomes feasible.

Toolkit: Insurance as Permission to Take Risk

  • Term + health in her own name turns fear into risk capacity. With catastrophic downside covered, she can take higher-upside roles, start a venture, or shift geographies.
  • Health insurance & leaving bad situations: Independent coverage = the literal ability to walk. In too many homes, “Who holds the policy?” decides “Who gets to leave?”
  • Workplace benefits that grow women’s wealth: ESOPs with extended exercise windows; MF/NPS matching; financial wellness programs with women-only negotiation workshops.

3. Expand Financial Literacy Where Women Are

Financial education needs to happen where women already gather, workplaces, SHGs, parent groups, even WhatsApp communities. Not everyone will sign up for a weekend investing bootcamp, but they will listen if a trusted peer demystifies SIPs between PTA agenda points.

Encouragingly, we’re seeing more women in MBA/finance courses, and banks targeting women with literacy programs. But literacy must go beyond “how to open an account” into “how to optimise for compounding, negotiate capital, and protect against bad deals.”

4. Use Collective Confidence to Unlock Individual Action

Women’s SHGs and business networks already show how collective structures can fuel enterprise. The same model can apply to investing: women-only investment clubs, mentorship chains, and startup syndicates where risk is shared, knowledge flows freely, and judgement is off the table.

When women see their peers taking calculated risks, it chips away at the “this isn’t for us” narrative.

5. Change Family and Policy Defaults

Families should bring daughters into money conversations early, budgeting, investing, and even debt discussions. A child who knows the difference between an FD and a mutual fund before she can drive is already ahead.

Policy can accelerate this:

  • Enforce equal pay laws to close the income gap.
  • Offer incentives for women-led investments and enterprises.
  • Expand maternity and flexible work policies so earning years aren’t needlessly interrupted.

Policy Playbook: Concrete Asks

  • Auto-enrolment in retirement savings with default employee/employer contributions.
  • Childcare subsidies and safe transport for shift workers.
  • Reduced stamp duty for joint deeds; fast-track co-titling processes.
  • Transparent ESOP norms and minimum post-exit exercise windows.
  • Financial-abuse protections tied to bank accounts/credit.

6. Actively Reframe Money as Freedom

We need to keep saying it until it’s unremarkable: money is not just survival, it’s choice. It’s the ability to leave a bad job, fund a bold idea, or take six months off to care for a parent without wrecking your future.

And choice is the cornerstone of equality.

Script Audit: Are You Running Protection or Propulsion?

Tick what’s true today:

  1. I know my monthly investible surplus.
  2. I have a 6–12 month emergency fund.
  3. I automate SIPs on salary day.
  4. ≥60% of my long-term portfolio is in growth assets.
  5. I know my ESOP grant, vesting, and exercise rules.
  6. All major assets have my name/joint title.
  7. I can find my insurance policy in under 3 minutes.
  8. I do a quarterly 30-minute money review.
  9. I’ve rehearsed a salary/fees ask this quarter.
  10. I can articulate a money goal for 1, 3, and 10 years.

Red flags you’re stuck in protection mode: all savings in FDs/gold; no insurance in your name; never negotiate; don’t know what you own.

Conversation Starters

Salary/raise: “Based on my impact on <X metric> and market benchmarks, I’m targeting ₹<number> fixed and <>% variable/ESOPs. How can we make that happen this cycle?”
Family: “Can we put our fixed expenses, savings, and goals into one simple sheet this Sunday?”
Partner: “If we grow our runway to 9 months, I can take the higher-upside role. Can we redirect ₹<X> monthly for 6 months to get there?”

Industry Notes

  • Tech/product: ESOP literacy is non-negotiable.
  • Finance/consulting: Fee floors and origination targets are levers.
  • Media/creative: Build a bigger buffer (9–12 months) to manage volatility.
  • Where women lead: D2C/beauty, HRTech, healthcare services, community ventures, leverage sector credibility into equity or revenue share.

Forward-Looking: What Success Looks Like in 10 Years

  • Women at ≥50% of MF investors and ≥40% of demat holders.
  • ≥50% of new urban property purchases with a woman on the deed.
  • ≥80% of working women with independent health insurance.
  • Typical long-term allocation at 60–80% growth assets.
  • Women at ≥40% of P&L roles in India’s top 500 companies.

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Permission to Want More

For too long, Indian women have been handed a financial story that starts and ends in survival. Make enough to cover the bills. Save enough to walk away if you have to. Keep your head down, stay safe.

It’s a script born out of history, where financial independence was rare, and safety really was the only rational goal. But today, when women are earning more, studying more, and living longer than any generation before them, safety alone is no longer enough.

Men have always been taught that money can be a launch pad: the fuel for ambition, power, and possibility. Women deserve that same framing. Not because greed is good, but because freedom is better. Because a life built only on “enough” leaves no room for the extraordinary.

The data already tells us what happens when women move from safety to strategy: participation rises, portfolios diversify, patience pays off, and myths collapse. This isn’t just a win for individual women; it’s a macroeconomic lever. When women build wealth, they don’t just secure their own futures; they reinvest in families, communities, and businesses. That’s compounding in its purest form.

So here’s the truth we should have been told from the start:
You are allowed to want more. You are allowed to make more.
And when you do, it’s not just you who wins, the whole system gets stronger.

If we can raise a generation of girls who see money as both a shield and a sword, India’s financial story won’t just have more women in it. It will be unrecognisable from the one we inherited.

Appendix: Where to Start — Books, Apps, Communities

Books (India-relevant):

  • Let’s Talk Money, Monika Halan
  • You Can Be Rich Too (With Goal-Based Investing), Pattu & Subra
  • Coffee Can Investing, Saurabh Mukherjea

Communities & Learning:

  • LXME (women-first finance)
  • Paisa Vaisa (podcast)
  • SEBI investor education pages, AMFI’s MF 101
  • Zerodha Varsity

Apps/Platforms to Explore:

  • Brokers/MFs: Zerodha (Kite/Coin), Groww, Kuvera, ET Money, Upstox
  • Thematics: smallcase
  • Retirement: eNPS, PPF via netbanking
  • Habit-builders: Jar (graduate to SIPs)

Checklists & Tools:

  • Net-worth tracker (quarterly)
  • Nomination audit checklist
  • One-page Investment Policy Statement (IPS) template
  • Salary-ask rehearsal doc
  • ESOP explainer for employees

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