With a career bridging law and social justice, Sugidha Nithiananthan now leads advocacy and research at AWARE, championing systemic change for gender equity in Singapore.

A seasoned litigator with over 15 years of legal practice and a former general counsel on an award-winning international project, she brings a wealth of expertise to feminist advocacy, from shaping legal discourse to educating communities in active bystander intervention and workplace harassment response.

As a changemaker, what drives you at your core?

The pursuit of excellence. Whether it’s a small thing like getting someone the perfect birthday gift, or something big like successfully conducting a trial in court, I approach all of it with the same desire and often excitement to deliver the best that I can do. I live by the advice my father gave me when I was young: “If you’re going to do something, do it well.”

What is the one achievement to date you are proudest of, and why?

I had a fruitful career as a litigation lawyer with a very high success rate and made case law along the way too. For litigation lawyers, that’s a particularly exciting feather in the cap. I am also just as proud of the fact that I have genuine, honest and meaningful relationships with each of my three sons, who are now adults. That took a lot of effort, time, love and the willingness to be open and honest. It helped that I took some time off my career when they were young and was a stay-at-home mum for about 4.5 years. I think that sealed my connection with them and I continued to build on that over the years. When children grow up, you want them to want to spend time with you—not because they feel they have to.

How have you overcome the most significant challenges you have encountered in your journey?

The most significant challenge I faced was the breakdown of my marriage. I handled this difficulty by compartmentalising to ensure that the stress and strain did not affect my work, my children and my other relationships. It took strength, resilience and a calm approach to keep the boat steady. I could not have done it without the support of close friends who were always there for me. The other huge challenge was being a single mother to three teenage boys. It took some navigating, learning when to hold on tight and when to loosen the hold.

What do you believe is the power of research and advocacy when it comes to combatting systemic inequalities in Singapore?

It is so important to have independent parties and stakeholders participate in these conversations. This will bring fresh and alternative perspectives and ideas to the table, so that inequalities and their causes can be highlighted and addressed. Independent research is a very important part of this because it is the foundation of good ideas and persuasive suggestions.

Looking forward, what is one change you want to see in gender inequality in Singapore and what can we do to get there?

There are several areas that need to be addressed, but if I were to pick one thing, I would like to see greater gender equality between men and women in the home, where they take equal responsibility for caregiving and household responsibilities. To get there, we need to raise awareness through more advocacy and conversations. We also need more supportive workplaces that allow and, in fact, encourage everyone to balance both work and family commitments. At the policy level, we are seeing huge moves forward to achieve this. For example, the government’s announcements of mandatory four weeks paternity leave and 10 weeks shared parental leave. We hope to see this expanded further to equal maternity and paternity leave eventually.

But I want to also say that from a wider society perspective, in order to be a truly inclusive and kind society, we must fully recognise and accept gender equality in the truest sense—that means accepting all genders and all sexual orientations—so that people can live full, productive and enriching lives as part of our shared Singapore journey.