Redefining Women’s Voices: Shaili Chopra on Empowerment, Media & Menopause
There are some conversations that don’t just inform us, they shift the way we see ourselves.
This one sits firmly in that category.
We live in a world where women are constantly being “spoken for”, in boardrooms, on news panels, in living rooms. Yet their own voices, lived realities and sharp, inconvenient truths are often filed away as “too much,” “too loud,” or “too sensitive.”
In this episode of The AboutHer Show, we meet a woman who has spent the last decade doing the exact opposite: putting women firmly at the centre of the story, not as side notes, but as the main narrative.
Meet Shaili Chopra: The Woman Behind a Movement
Shaili Chopra is an award-winning journalist and the founder of SheThePeople.TV, India’s first and largest digital platform dedicated to women’s stories. After a thriving career in television journalism, she did something very few people at the top dare to do, she stepped away from the spotlight of prime-time news to build a space that belonged unapologetically to women.
What began as “just me and a website,” as she says, has grown into a powerful community of millions. Through SheThePeople, Shaili has spotlighted women across industries, geographies, and life stages — not as token examples, but as proof of what has always been true: women are already empowered; they simply need access, visibility, and a level playing field.
And she didn’t stop there.
In recent years, Shaili has turned her attention to a subject that touches almost every woman and yet remains heavily shrouded in silence: menopause and midlife health. Through gytree her platform dedicated to menopause and midlife wellbeing, she is working to make sure that women over 40 are not treated as “past their prime,” but recognised as a force of experience, wisdom and unfinished possibilities.
This conversation is not just about media or health. It’s about agency, over our stories, our bodies, our money, our choices, and our futures.
Key Takeaways from the Conversation
1. Women don’t need empowerment, they need recognition and information
From the very beginning, Shaili has been clear: women are not empty vessels waiting to be “empowered” by someone else’s generosity. They already have rights, abilities, and ambitions. What they have often been denied is information, opportunity, and fair systems.
She argues that when you keep women in the dark, about their legal rights, financial options, or health, you don’t have to deal with their power. Changing this begins with awareness, followed by clear, practical pathways to act on that awareness.
2. SheThePeople started as stories, and became a movement
When Shaili launched SheThePeople in 2015, digital media in India was just beginning to open up. She saw two things clearly:
- women were largely missing from mainstream storytelling, and
- digital platforms could become a “clean slate” where women could show up as they are.
What began as storytelling quickly evolved into community, networking and opportunity. Women didn’t just want to read about each other, they wanted to meet, learn from one another, collaborate and build. That shift, from passive content to active community, is what made SheThePeople a movement rather than just a media site.
3. Purpose and profit don’t have to be enemies
Running a women-first platform in a world that still sees “women’s issues” as niche is not easy. Shaili talks honestly about the tension between purpose and profit.
She has turned down funding and partnerships that clash with her values, whether it’s beauty brands selling fairness as aspiration or companies wanting a “tick box” safety campaign with no real commitment. For her, money that dilutes the mission is too expensive.
Her core principle: you cannot pick and choose values based on convenience. If you want trust, you have to hold your line, even when it costs you.
4. Financial independence is not optional, it’s your safety net
One of the most practical, hard-hitting truths from the episode is Shaili’s insistence that women must make and control their own money.
Before you fight every battle, before you walk out of an unequal situation, before you raise your voice in spaces that may be unsafe, build your financial base. Money, she says, gave her the power to step out of a comfortable, successful career and take the risk of building something from scratch on her own terms.
Financial independence is not greed. It’s protection, dignity, and choice.
5. Menopause is not the end of a woman’s story — it’s a new chapter
Shaili is deeply vocal about how women in their 40s and 50s are often treated as if they’ve “done their bit”, had their children, run their homes, supported everyone else, and should now quietly fade into the background.
She challenges this narrative strongly. Midlife, she insists, is when women are at their most powerful:
- they have experience
- they have perspective
- and often, they finally have time.
The problem? Perimenopause and menopause are rarely recognised and properly managed. Women are told to “just cope” with exhaustion, mood swings, sleep issues, and brain fog, all while juggling ageing parents, teenage children, careers, and expectations.
Through gytree, Shaili focuses on moving beyond just conversations to concrete solutions, guidance, coaching, nutrition, and support that help women feel better, not just “manage” silently.
6. Workplaces must move beyond checklists
Another powerful part of the conversation is the role of workplaces in supporting women’s health. Offering access to a gynaecologist or running one-off awareness sessions is not enough.
Shaili talks about how companies need to:
- recognise menopause as a real workplace issue
- create policies and support systems that acknowledge midlife transitions
- and move from tokenism to tangible support.
Just as organisations eventually made space for maternity, fertility and childcare, she believes the next frontier will be midlife health and menopause, but only if women demand it.
A Quote That Stays With You
“Women are not waiting to be empowered. They are already powerful. They just need the information, support and systems that stop getting in their way.”
This line captures the essence of the episode, a shift from seeing women as beneficiaries of kindness to recognising them as full, equal participants who have always been ready.
Join the Conversation, Carry It Forward
If this conversation moved you, challenged you, or made you think of a woman in your life who needs to hear it, don’t let it stop at reading.
- 🎧 Listen to the full episode of The AboutHer Show with Shaili Chopra
- 🔔 Follow and subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple, Audible and YouTube
- 💬 Share the episode with a woman (or man) who needs to rethink how they see women’s stories and midlife
- 📲 Follow AboutHer on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter for more stories, reflections and real conversations on women’s lives
And if you have a story to tell, or a response to this one, we’d love to hear from you.
Drop us a note at web.abouther@gmail.com and join this growing community of voices that refuse to be invisible.
Because when women tell their own stories, the world doesn’t just listen, it changes.
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About the Author: Sangeeta Relan
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I’m Sangeeta Relan—an educator, writer, podcaster, researcher, and the founder of AboutHer. With over 30 years of experience teaching at the university level, I’ve also journeyed through life as a corporate wife, a mother, and now, a storyteller.
