Obsessed as Times of Malta has become with can-do stories of ‘liberated’ women who are breaking through the glass ceiling in an ‘oppressive male-dominated patriarchy’, yet another example has emerged of the vicious yet poetic price women have to pay for trying to ‘have it all’.

In an article in the Daily Mail (July 4) about Indra Nooyi, chief executive of PepsiCo, she insists that “women can’t have it all – and can only pretend to”.

One of the world’s most powerful women, Nooyi says she has “sacrificed relationships to get ahead at work and dies with guilt over the compromises she is forced to make to balance her career with family life”.

Even though Nooyi is obscenely rich and can afford to outsource the running of her family to a legion of lackeys and subordinates (who even control how much time her daughters get to spend playing Nintendo), she unreservedly admits to having neglected her spouse and her children in her ambitious climb to the top.

She aso makes the following statement: “There is no such thing as a work-life balance. There’s work, and there’s life, and there’s no balance between the two.”

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