OP-ED: Are Malaysian Women Being Penalised for Thinking Bigger?

When something needs to give in a family... who do we instinctively look at?

When childcare becomes an issue, who adjusts their schedule?
When a child falls sick, who is expected to step back?
When a career decision requires a sacrifice, whose career is usually on the table?

And when someone has to take a pay cut, slow down, or “choose balance”… who does it most often.

In Malaysia, ambition in women isn’t shut down.

It’s just redirected (something you will understand only when you open your mind to it). You can work. You can build something for yourself. You can even succeed.

But there is an invisible boundary around how far that ambition is allowed to stretch before it starts affecting everything else, your family, your role, how you’re perceived.

And the moment it does, it becomes a conversation and not your capability. For a lot of women, ambition is a whole thought process - she can't just want something because she wants it. Realistically, if she says yes to a senior role, what happens at home, if she stays late, who’s picking up the kids, if she pushes harder, what is she pulling away from?

Some would say these aren’t dramatic, life-altering decisions (which is why they don't get the attention it need), but household's can't survive without them either.

And Then There’s the Guilt

OMG THE GUILT....We're asian... these guilt is sometimes inherited, often internalised. The feeling that wanting more for yourself might mean giving less somewhere else.

That being too focused on your career might make you seem absent and that being too ambitious might make you seem selfish. So even when women push forward, there’s often something running in the background:

Am I doing too much? Or not enough?

A man who is focused on his career is often seen as responsible, a provider, someone doing what needs to be done. A woman doing the same thing? Who’s helping her at home? How is she managing the kids? Is it sustainable?

So women, we adjust. We choose roles that are more manageable,  step back at certain points and from the outside it can look like we want less, wemay not be 'determined' enough, but that's rarely the full story which many don't even get to explain.

We keep asking whether women are as ambitious as men.

Maybe that’s the wrong question and the better question is: Why does ambition ask more from women in the first place?