Progress for women has never come easily – it has been earned through courage, persistence, and the willingness to challenge deeply rooted norms. As the world marks International Women’s Day on March 8, the focus in 2026 shifts from celebration to accountability. The United Nations theme, “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls,” is a clear call to move beyond rhetoric and ensure that equality is reflected in real opportunities, fair systems, and decisive action that dismantles the barriers women continue to face.
Few journeys embody that spirit of courage and self-determination more powerfully than that of Major Khushboo Patani (Retd). An engineer who chose the demanding path of the Indian Army, she stepped into one of the country’s most rigorous and traditionally male-dominated institutions with clarity of purpose and unshakeable resolve.
In this International Women’s Day special conversation with ETEducation, Major Patani reflects on breaking through social expectations, building resilience in high-pressure environments, and why education must go beyond academics to nurture strength, discipline and leadership among young women. From challenging quiet societal doubts to advocating for real preparedness and confidence in girls, her insights offer a compelling call to transform aspiration into action.
Challenging the quiet doubts
For Major Patani, the barriers she faced early in her journey were not physical – they were social and psychological.“When I chose to move from engineering into the Indian Army, the first barriers were not physical; they were social and psychological,” she says. “There is an unspoken conditioning in many families: ‘Engineering is safe.’ ‘Corporate is stable.’ ‘Army is risky, especially for a girl.’”
In her view, the obstacle was not the absence of opportunity but the weight of expectation. “People don’t always stop you directly. Sometimes they just quietly doubt you. And doubt, when repeated often, becomes a wall.”
What helped her push past those doubts was a simple but defining question: Do I want comfort or do I want character and self-generated strength? Once a person decides to take responsibility for their life, she believes, society’s hesitation begins to lose its power.
Her years in the Army also reshaped her understanding of confidence and capability. While the military is often perceived as a male-dominated space, she describes it as an institution where performance ultimately defines respect.
Preparation builds real confidence
“The Army is demanding, but it is also deeply merit-based. Uniform erases many differences, but performance does not lie,” she explains. “My inner strength doesn’t come from motivational quotes. It comes from preparation.”
She built that confidence deliberately. One of the most important decisions she made was to train harder than required.
“I trained harder not because I wanted to prove I was equal, but because I knew I was starting from a different baseline,” she says.
Many men, she explains, had spent years preparing physically and mentally for such careers, often encouraged by social conditioning that reinforced their sense of belonging in such spaces.
In contrast, many girls grow up with very different messages.
“We were trained to sit properly. To dress carefully. To protect our bodies from culprits. To lower our voices. To avoid risk. And somewhere along the way, society quietly plants a sentence in a girl’s mind: ‘Maybe you can’t do it as well.’”
For her, that sentence was more dangerous than any physical challenge.
“So I trained harder – not out of insecurity, but out of responsibility,” she says. “If the system had given others a five-year head start in physical confidence, I had to compress that gap through discipline.”
Over time, she saw how preparation transforms both perception and self-belief.
“Once you train beyond the minimum, something shifts. Your body becomes stronger. Your posture becomes firmer. Your voice becomes steady. And the narrative that ‘girls cannot do it’ collapses not through argument, but through performance. Strength is not gendered.”
Mastery over comparison
Another principle that guided her was focusing on competence rather than comparison.
“The moment you start measuring yourself constantly against others – especially in a male-dominated environment – you unconsciously enter a defensive mindset,” she says.
Instead, she chose to concentrate on mastering her work.
“So I stopped trying to match anyone. I decided to master my craft.”
Equally important for her was refusing to lose her identity while trying to fit into a system.
Leading without losing identity
“I never walked into a room trying to ‘fit in’. I walked in ready to contribute,” she says. “I never wanted to become a man. I knew from the beginning that I am a woman and I have my ways to deal with situations.”
Leadership, she emphasises, is not defined solely by physical strength. Calmness in difficult situations, emotional balance, and clarity of decision-making are equally vital attributes.
For education systems, these experiences highlight an important lesson: resilience should not be assumed – it must be trained.
Her views on education extend far beyond academic success.
“Academic excellence is important, but it is incomplete,” she says. “A strong girl is not just intellectually sharp. She needs to be emotionally regulated, physically capable, and spiritually grounded.”
Mainstream education, she argues, must therefore expand its scope.
“Girls must learn how hormones affect mood, how stress affects decision-making, and how discipline affects self-worth,” she explains. Education should not simply prepare students for examinations; it should prepare them for what she calls life’s friction.
Preparedness, not symbolism
For Major Patani, confidence cannot be built through symbolic initiatives or occasional awareness programmes. It must come through repeated exposure to challenge, discipline and physical preparedness.
“I strongly believe self-defence is not about learning five dramatic moves,” she says. “It is about awareness, strength, and reaction time.”
Drawing from Army training, she believes schools and colleges should introduce functional strength training, situational awareness drills, voice command confidence training, basic escape and survival techniques, and mental conditioning under simulated stress.
Preparedness, she explains, has a powerful psychological effect.
“When a girl feels physically capable, her posture changes. When posture changes, perception changes. And when perception changes, vulnerability reduces.”
Training, she emphasises, must be consistent rather than symbolic.
“You will win or not is not the question. The question is whether you have ever been exposed to an environment where you need to protect yourself with all your energy.”
Self-defence, she says, is not a one-day workshop – it is a skill built through years of practice.
Normalising ambition for girls
Beyond institutions, she also emphasises the powerful role families and communities play in shaping opportunities for girls.
“No single institution can create justice alone,” she says.
Families must stop differentiating between what is allowed for boys and what is safe for girls, she argues, while schools should normalise girls’ participation in sports -especially mixed teams – as well as leadership and debate spaces.
Communities, she adds, must also expand the milestones they celebrate.
“When girls are visible in NCC programmes, competitive sports, entrepreneurship forums and public speaking platforms, participation becomes normal,” she says.
“For me, justice for all women and girls means normalising ambition.”
Voice, support and structural change
Major Patani has also been outspoken about regressive narratives in public discourse, and she believes speaking up is essential for meaningful change.
“Silence protects systems. Voice transforms them.”
When women challenge entrenched stereotypes, she notes, resistance is almost inevitable.
That backlash, however, is often evidence that existing norms are being questioned.
She points to the double standards that shape many social judgments.
Behaviours such as smoking or drinking may be criticised, yet men who engage in them are rarely stigmatised to the same extent.
“But I wonder – if a woman does the same, will any man accept her with the same dignity?” she asks. “I doubt it. The list is long.”
For change to be sustainable, she believes institutions must actively support women who challenge injustice.
They must provide legal and psychological protection, stand publicly with women who speak out, and create grievance redressal systems that genuinely function.
“When institutions amplify women instead of distancing themselves from them, change accelerates.”
Ultimately, she believes the “action” called for by the International Women’s Day theme must be structural rather than symbolic.
Mentorship ecosystems, skill-based networks, policy-backed implementation and visible role models are among the most powerful mechanisms for empowering young women.
“If a girl sees someone like her leading,” she says, “she recalibrates her limits.”
Equally important is preparing young women for the transition from education to adulthood through career guidance, financial independence education and mental resilience training.
“I believe empowerment with skill is unstoppable.”
For the girls who will lead tomorrow
Her message to the next generation of girls and young women is both direct and deeply reflective.
“You are not here to shrink yourself to fit comfort zones designed decades ago.”
“Claim your rights, but also build your capacity. Seek justice, but also strengthen your character. Take action even when applause is absent. Prepare yourself so thoroughly that when opportunity appears, you are undeniable.”
Every disciplined choice made today, she believes, does more than change one life.
“It changes what is considered possible for the girls watching you.”
Justice, she concludes, is not a slogan.
“It is a standard you live by.”
