'Let’s reclaim our female archetypes'

In India, we don’t just grow up with stories. We grow up with archetypes. When a girl is born we say, ghar main lakshmi aayi hai..we are so comfortable buying property in the name of women after all she is the Lakshmi of the house. 

A talented girl is called saakshat Saraswati. The lady of the house, the home maker, the mother who cooks for everyone as per their individual preference is called Annapoorna. She is the one who will always conjure up delicious food at unearthly hour for uninterrupted addas and uninvited guests, never mind whether she is getting her nutrition like she ought to or not.

The benevolent provider.
The patient nurturer.
The wise but quiet guide.

We invoke Lakshmi for prosperity, Saraswati for knowledge, and Durga for strength. But somewhere along the way, something subtle or not so subtle has happened in how we interpret them.

We need to ask ourselves if we have made the archetypes unidimensional, have they been disenfranchised? have they just become hollow caricatures rather than empowered entities? have we made them in the image of how we see our women?

Lakshmi has become grace, not authority.
Saraswati has become knowledge, not influence.
Durga is celebrated in campaigns—but rarely tolerated in conference rooms. Between the two versions we celebrate Durga and not Kali as much. The domesticated pretty woman who has come to her father’s house briefly on a holiday.

As someone who has spent close to three decades in advertising, I’ve seen how deeply these cultural cues shape communication—and in turn, how communication shapes expectations.

Look at how women are portrayed across categories. In financial services advertising, the “Lakshmi” archetype shows up as the careful saver, the prudent homemaker, the silent enabler of wealth. Rarely as the decisive allocator of capital. Rarely as power. 

The man is often the risk-taker, the investor, the decision-maker. The woman is the saver, the planner, the one who ensures stability.

How many women fight for right in ancestral property of their fathers? If Lakshmi is about vaibhav and abundance, how many women are comfortable with managing their own funds/ investments and taxes let alone be the decision maker for the family funds. It’s no longer about the money saved under the mattress and in the chawal ka dabba. We need to bring Lakshmi back to her position of power. in her original form, Lakshmi is not passive. She is not ornamental. She is not merely symbolic.

She is the source of wealth. And in any system, the source of wealth holds power.

Lakshmi is not just about prosperity entering a space. She is about the ability to create, direct, and sustain prosperity. So, lets truly welcome Lakshmi’s in our houses

In offices at work, I have often seen the “Saraswati” trope at play

There is a familiar character in many organizations.

She is the one who:

• Does the research
• Connects the dots
• Anticipates problems before they arise
• Often has the clearest understanding of what needs to be done

And yet, in the room when the idea is presented it is not always by her. The ownership is getting transferred right there. The room responds to the voice that delivers the idea, not the one that developed it. We have seen this at play in VOs in product windows. Even in categories used by women e.g washing powders, when it comes to the product demo and explaining the science behind the dust-busters, we would rather have a MVO than a FVO.

In communication terms, this is the gap between:

Creating value vs signaling value

Many women are conditioned—culturally and professionally—to focus on the first. While organisations reward the latter

Even in the surge of “empowered women” narratives, there is a noticeable pattern. We celebrate strength—until it becomes inconvenient. The moment a woman embodies authority without softness, she is no longer inspirational; she is difficult.

Every year, around festive season, Durga returns - powerful, fearless, unstoppable.

Brands love her. For a brief moment, the narrative shifts. Women are not just seen as capable—they are celebrated as powerful. And then, the season ends. We see this archetype play itself out in revenge dramas with women protagonist. Often, she pays the price by losing her husband to divorce or death and is a single woman. The one aspect of Durga that we have adopted in our lives is the woman with many hands, the multi-tasking that she does so effortlessly. This is a trope that we have made synonymous with the modern woman. She will do it all and will do it flawlessly. The many women that I have spoken to seem to think that this modern multi-tasking woman is not a symbol of empowerment but of slavery.

What makes this even more interesting is that Durga, in her original form, is not just about destruction.

She represents: protection, balance, the restoration of order

Her strength is purposeful power. But in popular interpretation, her power is often reduced to spectacle—something to be admired from a distance, not integrated into everyday leadership.

And so, the question is not whether these archetypes are relevant. They are deeply powerful. The question is: are we interpreting them fully—or selectively?

What if Lakshmi was not just about wealth entering the home, but about who controls wealth?

What if Saraswati was not just about knowledge, but about who shapes decisions with that knowledge?

What if Durga was not just a seasonal metaphor for strength, but a year-round acceptance of female authority?

Because the truth is, our archetypes never asked women to be smaller. We did that.

We took expansive, multi-dimensional figures and distilled them into comfortable traits. Traits that fit neatly into existing power structures.

And then we wondered why women in organizations are often seen as capable, but not commanding. Intelligent, but not influential. Trusted, but not always promoted.

Culture doesn’t just sit in temples or texts. It shows up in meeting rooms, in performance reviews, in the way feedback is given—and received.

If we want to change outcomes for women in leadership, we need to go deeper than policy or representation.

We need to rewrite the stories. Not by discarding our archetypes—but by reclaiming their full meaning.