Is this headline subtly sexist..?
Sometimes, erring in the direction of political correctness interferes with speaking the truth about the world as it currently exists.
The whole "demanding to spend your life in work, like men have traditionally had to do" and then complaining that now you've got work and family to manage is bizarre. There's only a certain amount of time -- spend it working or raising a family, you really have to choose.
I wish those things could be taken for granted, but...
Fecundity: Not saying this is true for her in particular, but I suspect the woman sometimes has remarkably little say in birth control (think husbands refusing to wear a condom, doctors and pharmacists refusing to supply birth control pills, etc) or even frequency of sex (from the belief that a wife is not doing her marital duties if she refuses sex, to refusing to prosecute even violent outright rape when she does).
Partner: the article says her marriage was arranged (which I understand to be common), so I wouldn't assume she had much say in it at all:
> A year after she began working at Isro, her parents arranged her marriage to orthopaedic surgeon Dr Manjunath Basavalingappa - which meant that she suddenly had a household to run.
By the way, the article also gives a reason her husband doesn't help out with household duties (besides societal expectations that she'd do it all)...
> Dr Basavalingappa explains that as a doctor, his working day often stretches up to 18 hours, while his wife mostly worked office hours. Dakshayani seems satisfied with this explanation.
...which I find insane by itself, but it's not limited to India. I just googled "medical mistakes long shift" and found a NIH study...which defined an extended-duration shift as at least 24 hours. [1] Unsurprisingly, it found that doctors screw up less when they don't do that, and talk about setting the bar low...I'd expect >12 hours to be considered extended-duration, perhaps even 8.