She Can Carry Both: When Prega News Challenged The Career-Motherhood Binary

March 2022, International Women's Day. While brands across India celebrated women with feel-good messaging and empowerment slogans, Prega News—Mankind Pharma's pregnancy detection brand—chose to confront a question that millions of working women grapple with in silence: Can I be both a mother and an ambitious professional, or must I choose?

The answer came in the form of #SheCanCarryBoth, a campaign conceptualized by Team Pumpkin that would challenge one of India's most persistent workplace biases and offer validation to women caught between societal expectations and personal ambitions.

The Societal Misconception

The campaign addressed a fundamental misconception pervasive in Indian society: that being a working woman brings limitations to various aspects of life. The common notion that for a woman to stay focused and be competitive on the career front comes at the cost of neglecting the various joys of womanhood.

This wasn't just advertising talking about a problem—this was advertising naming a fear that lived in conference rooms, family dinners, and women's internal dialogues. The unspoken assumption that pregnancy meant career death, that motherhood required professional sacrifice, that you couldn't excel at both.

Three Women, Three Perspectives

The video film exquisitely captures different perspectives on the career-motherhood balance through three starkly different women meeting at a railway station.

The first is a young pregnant model, played by actress Sayantani Ghosh, who is highly skeptical about career options post her pregnancy. She brings authenticity to the role of a woman in an image-dependent profession where pregnancy is often viewed as a career liability. Her character embodies the anxiety of women in fields where physical appearance is scrutinized, where pregnancy is treated as a temporary disqualification from professional life.

The second woman appears to be a career professional who initially makes assumptions about motherhood and career based on appearances, representing the internalized biases many working women carry.

The third personality is Seema Rastogi, a Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Jhansi, who is also a mother. She is the revelation—the living proof that women can carry both. Dressed modestly in a sari, she initially appears to others as perhaps just a homemaker, but she shatters that assumption, demonstrating that successful motherhood and a high-powered career are not mutually exclusive.

The Railway Station Encounter

The narrative unfolds at a railway station waiting room, where these three women's paths intersect. The pregnant model sits nervously, her career uncertainty visible in her body language. The other women observe her, each carrying their own perspectives on what it means to balance career and motherhood.

The film captures the assumptions and judgments that women make about each other—seeing a pregnant woman and assuming she's abandoned her career, or seeing a woman in traditional dress and assuming she's not a professional. These snap judgments reflect society's limited imagination about what working mothers can be.

The Revelation

The campaign's turning point comes through Seema Rastogi's revelation. At the railway station, the modest-looking woman in a sari introduces herself—she is SSP Seema Rastogi, Senior Superintendent of Police of Jhansi, and she is also a mother. Her presence shatters the assumptions others had made about her based on her traditional appearance.

Later, the pregnant model receives validation of her own path. She appears on the cover of "Moms To Be" magazine, published and sponsored by Prega News—showing her heavily pregnant and proudly displaying her baby bump, still working professionally in her modeling career.

The dual revelations challenge assumptions from both directions: that traditional-looking women can't hold powerful positions, and that pregnant models can't continue their careers. Both women prove that motherhood and professional success are not mutually exclusive.

As closing shots show the police station in the background, a voiceover delivers a small but powerful poem: "Tu dariya ki wo dhara hai, jo dono rah behte jaye. Aaina tu aisa, jo naya nazariya dikhlaye" (You're like a stream of a river which can flow in both directions. A mirror that can show a new reflection.)

The film concludes with the inscription: #SheCanCarryBoth.

The Creative Vision

Team Pumpkin conceptualized this campaign, with Swati Nathani expressing the team's pride in creating something meaningful. "I hope this campaign gives inspiration to millions of women out there who go through phases of self-doubt," she shared on LinkedIn, acknowledging that the campaign addressed real psychological struggles, not imagined obstacles.

The creative team included Gunjan Virmani, Abhilasha Sharma, and Sumanyu Jain, who worked to translate a complex emotional truth into a narrative that felt authentic rather than preachy.

The Brand's Philosophy

Joy Chatterjee, General Manager of Sales & Marketing at Mankind Pharma, articulated the campaign's core mission: "Being a leading brand, we believe that it is our responsibility to lead the change in the society. Through the campaign, we have tried to break the stereotypes which consider that a mother cannot be an ambitious woman, and cannot excel at her professional front."

This positioning was strategic. Prega News wasn't just selling pregnancy test kits—they were positioning themselves as advocates for women navigating one of life's most significant transitions. By addressing the career anxiety associated with pregnancy, they were acknowledging that pregnancy isn't just a biological event; it's a social, professional, and psychological crossroads.

Chatterjee continued: "We want this notion to be changed in the society at large. The campaign #SheCanCarryBoth talks about the boundless spirit of womanhood. It encourages women to not be afraid of entering into pregnancy and welcome the new cycle of life with cheers and anticipation of a brighter future ahead."

The Timing and Cultural Context

Launching on International Women's Day 2022 was deliberate. While the day is often commercialized with superficial celebrations, Prega News used the platform to address substantive workplace gender equity issues. The timing ensured maximum visibility and positioned the brand as genuinely invested in women's wellbeing beyond transactional product marketing.

In the Indian context, where family pressure to have children often conflicts with professional ambitions, where workplace discrimination against pregnant women remains widespread despite legal protections, and where maternal guilt is weaponized against working mothers, this message carried particular weight.

The Response and Criticism

The campaign generated significant discussion, with working mothers sharing their own experiences of juggling career and family. Many expressed gratitude for seeing their struggles acknowledged in mainstream advertising.

However, the campaign also faced critique. Some observers noted that it exclusively focused on working mothers, potentially reinforcing the idea that motherhood requires justification through career achievement. Critics pointed out that the campaign didn't address women who choose not to have children, or those who choose full-time motherhood—suggesting that the "both" in #SheCanCarryBoth still operated within limited definitions of women's choices.

One critical analysis noted that the campaign "does not even pretend to be remotely inclusive, or superficially celebratory of any 'diversity' in its understanding of womanhood whatsoever," highlighting that by focusing exclusively on the career-motherhood balance, it potentially marginalized other expressions of womanhood.

These critiques raised important questions: Was the campaign empowering women to pursue both career and motherhood, or was it creating a new expectation that women must excel at both to be valuable?

Five Lessons From #SheCanCarryBoth

1. Name The Fear To Neutralize It

The campaign's power came from explicitly naming a fear many women experience but rarely discuss openly: that pregnancy will end their careers. By making this anxiety visible, Prega News validated women's concerns while challenging the assumption's validity. The lesson: addressing uncomfortable truths creates deeper connections than avoiding them. When brands articulate fears their audiences harbor privately, they build trust and position themselves as allies rather than salespeople.

2. Show Don't Just Tell

Rather than stating "women can balance career and motherhood," the campaign showed a pregnant model still working professionally. The visual proof of possibility—the magazine cover—was more persuasive than any slogan. The lesson: demonstration beats declaration. Showing real examples of what's possible is more convincing than asserting it's possible. Audiences believe what they see more than what they're told.

3. Multiple Perspectives Create Richer Narratives

By featuring three women with different relationships to pregnancy and career, the campaign acknowledged that this isn't a universal experience with one right answer. Each woman's anxiety was valid; each path was legitimate. The lesson: complex social issues require nuanced storytelling. Avoid reducing diverse experiences to a single narrative. Multiple perspectives make campaigns feel more inclusive and authentic than monolithic messaging.

4. Purpose Must Align With Product Truth

Prega News sells pregnancy tests—products women use at a pivotal decision-making moment. Addressing career anxieties associated with pregnancy aligned perfectly with the product's role in women's lives. The lesson: purpose-driven marketing works best when the cause authentically connects to what you sell. Don't adopt social causes opportunistically; find the genuine intersection between your product's purpose and societal needs.

5. Acknowledge Criticism As Part Of Progress

The campaign sparked debate about whether it was empowering or limiting. Rather than seeing this as failure, it can be viewed as success—meaningful campaigns generate conversation, including critical conversation. The lesson: not all responses will be positive, and that's okay. Campaigns that tackle complex social issues will face legitimate critique. The goal isn't universal approval; it's starting necessary conversations and moving the needle on societal change, even incrementally.

The Broader Implications

The #SheCanCarryBoth campaign reflected growing recognition in corporate India that workplace policies and cultural attitudes toward working mothers needed examination. By creating a campaign that centered this issue, Prega News contributed to normalizing conversations about maternity leave, workplace flexibility, and the unfair expectations placed on working mothers.

The campaign also highlighted the unique position of category-specific brands. Prega News, unlike generic lifestyle brands, has a captive audience at a specific life moment—women considering, experiencing, or confirming pregnancy. This gives them both permission and responsibility to address issues directly affecting that transition.

Conclusion: Both As A Beginning, Not An Ending

"She Can Carry Both" succeeded in challenging a false binary, but it also revealed the complexity of liberation. Telling women they can have both career and motherhood is empowering only if systems support that possibility—flexible workplaces, shared domestic labor, affordable childcare, cultural shifts in how we value different choices.

The campaign's deeper message might be this: women shouldn't have to be superheroes excelling at everything to be valued. The phrase "carry both" might unintentionally suggest that doing both—and doing both well—is the new standard to which women must aspire.

Perhaps the ultimate empowerment isn't telling women they can carry both. Perhaps it's creating a world where they're valued whether they choose career, motherhood, both, or neither. Where "both" is one option among many, not a new benchmark for women's worth.

Still, in 2022 India, where workplace discrimination against pregnant women remained widespread, where career-motherhood conflicts caused genuine distress, #SheCanCarryBoth offered something valuable: permission. Permission to want both. Permission to pursue both. Permission to believe that pregnancy doesn't require professional sacrifice.

And sometimes, permission is where change begins.