Mumbai: Once upon a time, in a world not so far away, a woman asking for her own bank account was treated as if she’d asked for a personal spaceship. Independence? Autonomy? Financial freedom? Good heavens, she must have been joking, or worse, insubordinate. Because for centuries, society had conditioned her to believe that a roof over her head and a name on someone else’s paycheck were the best she could hope to get, perpetuating the dependence she had on others for survival.
And now, when women presume to demand what should always have been theirs, the world grabs its pearls and stutters, “But why are they so fixated on being independent?”
As if being self-sufficient is some crazy new pastime, alongside knitting, home-brewing kombucha, or collecting therapeutic crystals.
The sheer ridiculousness of the query actually stumbles in, eyes blinded and nobly holding high a participation prize for not observing anything for millennia.
Let’s lay it out plainly, shall we?
Women have been shoved to the margins of the economic story, with their sole value being to be obedient in silence and crisply ironed linens. Making money? That was a man’s game, a game of high-stakes chess in which women weren’t even invited to the board, much less play a piece, say “check,” or capture the king.
But let’s not forget The Queen’s Gambit — where Beth Harmon didn’t merely play the game, she dominated it. She didn’t wait for a seat at the table; she hacked one out with her genius, defeated grandmasters, and did it with style, elegance, and a mind that left the room in stunned silence. She was a prodigy, an artist; her victories weren’t merely strategy, they were poetry in motion.
And perhaps that’s the actual reason that they’ve been excluded for so long — not that they can’t play, but that the instant they do play, they win. And that frightens them. Because at their core, the boys who stand watch over the board know that if women were ever actually allowed to play, the game would not just be altered. It would be conquered.
Flash forward to today, and behold, the instant a woman has the audacity to identify herself by her paycheck stub, her PIN number, or — shudder- her own lease agreement on her apartment, society has a small existential conniption fit. “Why should she make such a fuss about it?” they cry, clutching their pearls and ruffling their perfumed heads in shocked indignation.
Because heaven forbid she comes out on top in a game she never had a right playing, let alone redrawing the rules. It’s the same frisson of terror that reverberated around the chessboard when Beth Harmon placed her palms over those pieces: serene, intentional, and wholly unhalting. Not merely did she deserve to be there, she obliterated it. And that’s the whispered intimidation that continues on even now, the awareness that females aren’t looking for a handout because they don’t know. They’re demanding answers because they know they’ll win. And there’s nothing that shakes a crumbling system quite as much as the sound of a woman claiming checkmate.
And so instead of hailing her ascension, they spin her ambition as arrogance, her autonomy as rebellion, and her triumph as menace. They call her “too much,” “too loud,” “too confident”— anything but rightly deserved. Because if she lays her empire piece by piece, who will then still believe that she needed rescuing? Truth is, women have always had the talent, the vision, the passion — they were just given dolls rather than blueprints, chores rather than options. But give her some time, give her some room, and she doesn’t simply join the game, she rearranges its whole beat.
Well, let’s try this analogy on for the size of dependence.
Picture presenting your mother with a saree, not a silk saree, but the one made with effort and sacrifice, wrapped in the emotions of your first salary. You give it to her, and she cries, not because it’s silk, but because it’s the first time she didn’t have to ask. The first time, she didn’t have to explain a desire, negotiate a cost, or prove her value in rupees and reason.
Now ask yourself: why was that such a big moment?
Because for centuries, she lived in a society where money wasn’t hers, not technically, not emotionally, and definitely not legally for most of history. Even if the house was run like a well-run machine, she was the quiet gear. She kept track of costs with the skill of an investment Banker, but it wasn’t her money. It was something she had to request, deferentially, nervously, occasionally with an apology.
And when she asked, what did she hear?
“Why do you need that?”
“Didn’t we just get you something last month?”
‘Do you know how hard I work for this?’
And the classic golden one: “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
No, it doesn’t. But apparently, patience does, particularly in women, who must endure these soul-shrinking reactions just to receive a salwar kameez on Diwali.
And don’t forget the backhanded condescension, often like festive ladoos at family functions:
“Oh, you don’t have to know the bank thing, I’ll take care of it.”
“Why don’t you stick to making pickles? You’re so good at it.”
Or the ageless insult masquerading as worry: “You won’t make it on your own out there.”
So yes, when women earn, spend, give, invest, or just carry a 500-rupee note in their purse without having to report to someone, it is a big deal. Because it rewrites centuries of power equations scribbled in small print. Because it frees generations of economic dependence suffocated in the name of culture, tradition, and “family roles.”
And let’s discuss dependence. Dependence isn’t necessarily evil; human beings are social animals. We depend on one another all the time. The problem comes when dependence is turned into a manipulative tool, when it’s wielded as ammunition in an argument, or worse, a yardstick for worth.
The tragic irony? This social arrangement rendered dependency the default condition for women, and then had the temerity to stigmatise them for it. It’s as if to shatter a person’s legs and then jeer at them for not running marathons.
So when she battles for independence — emotional, economic, or mental, she’s not being “extra” or dramatic; she’s simply kicking off the boot that’s been on her neck for centuries, one pay slip at a time.
[Have you read: https://helloentrepreneurs.com/zeditors-pick/beneath-the-metaphor-54535/]
And if that still irritates you, well, maybe it’s time to change the story — not her ambition.
Because to grasp her urgency, we have to first accept where that fire originates, not merely socially, but emotionally, generationally, and historically.
For centuries, a woman’s existence was defined by what was done for her, rather than what she had earned herself. From dowries to allowances, her very self was sewn into webs of dependence — webs that were so deeply embedded in culture that the very notion of challenging them seemed like an act of defiance. Money, freedom of movement, autonomy, these were denied to her quietly, steadily. Not always out of meanness, but sometimes out of habit, assumption, and the mistaken idea that protection was the same as control.
Independence, therefore, has nothing to do with ego. It’s not about competition with men or disdaining help. It’s about choice. The choice to give something without permission. The choice to fly alone without terror. The choice to dream, choose, and define a life without someone else endorsing it.
This demand does not come from superiority, but from invisibility.
Consider all the mothers who never spent a dime on themselves, not because they were altruistic saints, but because they were instructed that their needs were secondary. The daughters who saw them tuck away wants year after year came to realize something fundamental: that freedom is not merely a right, it’s an obligation to themselves and to the women who never had the opportunity to assert it.
So when a woman demands to earn, learn, lead, and live on her own terms, she’s not demanding more, she’s taking back what should have always been hers.
It’s not about money. It’s about dignity.
It’s not about rejecting interdependence—it’s about making sure there’s equality in it.
And if someone asks, “Why does she need to make it her identity?”— maybe the answer is: Because for too long, she had none.
<p>The post Dependence on Generational Support: More Than 1 Paycheck as a Powerful Stand first appeared on Hello Entrepreneurs.</p>
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