As International Women’s Day 2024 fades into the distance, I am reminded that workplaces will likely revert to the discomfort in talking about work, women, and money in the same sentence. So, I am doing my part to keep discussions around equality in the workplace alive.
When I got married, my views around my career were similar to many young Pakistani-Canadian girls: I could work, but my obligations to my family would come first. My parents were fiercely cultural and petrified of change in a country they both feared and were in awe of. The cultural conditioning (in the form of my mother) mandated the following for me: I would obtain a university degree or two (check), I would get married young (check at age 22), and I would work, but only recreationally until I had children (only partial points here).
Muneeza Sheikh is a partner at Levitt Sheikh LLP.