When my kids were very young, I spent three hours a day commuting to work. By the time I arrived home, I was exhausted. But the day was far from over. I rushed to pick them up from daycare, made dinner, put them to bed, and then logged back on to finish my work.
When I changed jobs, I made my offer contingent on one request: to work from home two days a week. What a difference it made. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I had room to breathe.
Today, I run my own business and have far more control over how I organize my days. Even so, like many women, I still struggle with work‑life balance. And for many, that struggle is being made worse by the resurgence of rigid return‑to‑office mandates.
Many organizations mark celebrations like International Women’s Day while continuing to maintain policies and practices that reinforce gender inequality. Return‑to‑office mandates are a clear example. Across sectors, employees are being required to work in the office five days a week. These policies are framed as “neutral” because they apply equally to everyone. In reality, they are anything but.
Women continue to shoulder a disproportionate share of unpaid labour: childcare, elder care, household management, and emotional work. Limiting flexible work arrangements predictably shifts the burden, and women bear it most. Longer commutes, rigid schedules, and the loss of autonomy over where and how work is performed take a measurable toll on women’s health and wellbeing.
These policies also have long‑term consequences. They push many women—particularly mothers—out of leadership pipelines, back into part‑time roles, or out of the workforce altogether.
If International Women’s Day is about advancing equality, we must move beyond formal equality—treating everyone the same—and commit to substantive equality, which asks a harder question: who will be disproportionately impacted by this policy, and why?
That question was front and centre in the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision in Quebec (Attorney General) v. Kanyinda. The Court considered a Quebec regulation that excluded refugee claimants from access to subsidized childcare. While the regulation applied to all refugee claimants, the Court found that it disproportionately impacted women refugee claimants, who are far more likely to be primary caregivers and therefore unable to work without childcare.
Crucially, the Court emphasized the importance of an intersectional approach to equality. Gender does not operate in isolation. Women experience discrimination differently depending on immigration status, race, income, disability, and family structure. Policies that fail to account for these intersecting realities risk entrenching inequality, even when their stated purpose is remedial.
The lesson from Kanyinda extends well beyond childcare or refugee policy. It applies equally to workplace rules, productivity metrics, and one‑size‑fits‑all mandates that ignore lived experience. If we are serious about gender equality, we must design policies that reflect how people actually live.
I recently came across the following image from the United Nations listing the top ten countries that have achieved gender equality. The list is empty. Until our laws and workplace policies reflect women’s lived realities, it will remain that way.
Equality is not achieved by forcing everyone to conform to the same model. It is achieved by recognizing difference, addressing disproportionate impact, and building systems that allow everyone to thrive.
