Do Women Have Access To Opportunities? Ft. Yumna Hasany

In this conversation I sit down with Yumna Hasany, a woman who wears more hats than most. She is a radio broadcaster at Radio Pakistan, a development sector consultant with a decade of work on human rights and gender, a communications and leadership trainer, and a researcher at heart. But what strikes me most is her deep curiosity about why things are the way they are for women in Pakistan. From the moment she walked into the studio, it felt less like an interview and more like two friends trying to peel back the layers on opportunity, identity, and all the noise in between.

From the mic to the development sector

Yumna traces her confidence back to her school years at Beaconhouse Islamabad, where debates, dramatics, and poetry recitation gave her a stage. She remembers “standing up on stage and reciting a poem that my grandmother had taught me” in class two. That grandmother, an educationist, nurtured her love for sounds. By age nine, Yumna was glued to CNN and BBC, listening to how journalists told stories. “I wanted to be a journalist,” she says. That dream still flickers. But life took her through pre-med, then computer science (“I found maths very peaceful”), then an MBA, and finally into the development sector. She landed her first break by literally ringing the doorbell of an NGO’s office. “Those naive moments were leading up to something,” she reflects. “Don’t be afraid to ring the doorbell.”

You can’t chase what you don’t know

Before we even get to the question of access, Yumna insists on self-awareness. “You need to know yourself,” she says. “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” She sees too many women who haven’t sat down to figure that out, and then they can’t invest in themselves because they don’t know where to aim. It’s easy to get swept up in the noise of what you’re supposed to do. But until you have a conversation with yourself, your free will is someone else’s script. The heart of this is confidence: you won’t recognize an opportunity if you don’t first recognize your own worth.

The networking gap

When we talk about access, Yumna points to a gap I have felt but never named so clearly. “Women don’t network for a purpose,” she says. Men grow up learning that every gathering is a chance to connect professionally. Women, on the other hand, socialize for ice cream and family. Even working women, when they sit together, often don’t talk about work. Yumna gives the example of real estate and investments: “I get these messages about house hunting and then I say, you know what, I’m going to ask my father or my brother or the male peers, because I know they know.” Women are excluded from these conversations, and then when life forces them in, they’re unprepared. Her own mother lost her father a decade ago, but he had purposefully kept her involved in financial matters. That preparation saved her. Without it, women can be destroyed by a system that expects them to know nothing. Financial literacy isn’t just about money; it’s about safety. “Do you know the inheritance laws?” Yumna asks. “Women don’t talk about these things unless they are confronted.”

Motherhood is not your entire identity

Yumna shares a story about a colleague who became visibly frustrated when, from the moment people learned she was a mother, all work conversations shifted to child vaccination and nutrition. “Why are we asking her questions all the time about her kid?” Yumna wonders. “Can we ask, did you watch Netflix? Did you read a book?” The message is clear: motherhood can swallow every other part of who you are unless you guard it. The classic fear of ‘log kya kahenge’, what will people say, kicks in the moment you try to be more than a mother. Yumna recalls her own husband being mocked at his workplace for helping with her small business. “They’d say, why are you taking your wife’s business so seriously?” These external voices are damaging. It takes years to build an inner voice strong enough to say shut up and ignore them. And it requires workplaces to stop making assumptions about a woman’s priorities the second they spot a child in her life.

The confidence gap and impostor syndrome

We talk about the research that shows men apply for jobs when they meet 60% of qualifications, while women hold back unless they meet nearly 100%. That confidence gap is real. Yumna connects it directly to self-esteem. “When I’m not in a mentally good place, when I’ve had moments of low self-esteem, those were the times I disliked people more,” she admits. “I wanted to prove myself. But when I’m confident, I’m happy. I don’t need to bring anyone down.” This is the root of why women sometimes don’t support each other: if you’re always fighting for a shrinking piece of pie, you see other women as competition, not collaborators. The fix is to build confident girls from the start, at home and in school, who know their strengths and don’t fear someone else’s shine.

Age, wisdom, and professional role models

She also brings up ageism, a topic rarely discussed in our circles. What happens to women in their 50s and 60s? Are they dropping out, starting businesses, or sidelined? And how do young women learn to approach senior professionals without being paralyzed by fear? Yumna advises, “If you want to speak well, you should listen well.” But listening isn’t enough; we need intentional mentorship. When someone asked Yumna about her mentors, she named her mother and grandmother. Then the person pressed: “So you don’t have professional mentors?” That stung. Why don’t we have more women looking up to professional role models outside their family? “Learning is great,” Yumna says, “but unlearning is even more important.” We have to unlearn the habit of shrinking.

Leading with clarity, not sweetness

On women in leadership, she is refreshingly direct. She wants women leaders who are compassionate but not confused. She remembers a friend who was excessively sweet and nice, then had to scream to be taken seriously. Yumna’s view: “Remove the extra nice and sweet. Be as any man would be.” That doesn’t mean being harsh; it means being professional. Set healthy boundaries from day one. If you are the boss, set the tone. And bring men into the conversation. “Maybe we need to have a focus group with the men,” she suggests. “What are their fears?” If we don’t include them, we’ll keep having the same conversation for another hundred years.

Where the real change lies

This conversation lands on something I didn’t expect: the five-year-old, the fifteen-year-old, the twenty-five-year-old. What kind of humans do we want them to become? The enabling environment starts at home, in how we let kids see their parents as whole individuals, not just moms and dads. It starts with teaching children to ask questions, to form their own opinions, and to unlearn what doesn’t serve them. Yumna’s final reminder is simple: “Use your brains. Have opinions based on evidence and research, but always be open to changing them.” That’s the freedom she wants for every woman. Not just the right to work, but the right to know yourself, invest in yourself, and evolve.

I left this conversation feeling challenged in the gentlest way. Yumna didn’t offer a magic pill because there isn’t one. But she did offer tools: self-awareness, purposeful networking, financial literacy, and the courage to unlearn. For every woman listening who feels stuck between who she is and who the world expects her to be, I hope you find a doorbell to ring today. And if no one opens, ring again.