In conversations on women’s progress, numbers often lead while meaning trails behind. Before asking how much progress has been made, we must ask what, exactly, we are measuring — and whether our words are equal to the lives they seek to describe. In cities like Delhi , where women’s educational attainment has steadily risen, the persistent gap between education and employment offers a telling contradiction — one that exposes the limits of how we read progress. Consider the ease with which we invoke the term “independent”. It appears definitive, even celebratory. On closer scrutiny, however, it is less a destination than a comparison. A woman is often described as independent not in absolute terms, but in relation to others who are more constrained — more homebound, more economically deprived, less visible in the public sphere. The label does not capture autonomy so much as it ranks positions along a continuum of constraint.…