Why is a feminist not celebrating International Women's Day?

I’m struggling to feel celebratory this International Women’s Day. As a woman, a feminist, and a mother of a daughter, you might assume I’d be enthusiastic about it. Celebrating women. Celebrating progress. Celebrating hard-won rights. But I couldn’t feel less celebratory. 

Firstly because women shouldn’t need a single day and deserve to be supported, championed and respected every day of the year. A little like Valentine’s Day - a packaged and monetised annual reminder to show appreciation that should already be woven into everyday life. Equality should be structural, cultural and constant. Not something we briefly acknowledge once a year with hashtags and corporate graphics.

The biggest issue I have is that world is not moving forwards right now. In fact, it’s in reverse IMHO. 

The usual narrative around International Women’s Day is one of progress. Not perfect. Not linear. But broadly forward movement. That is no longer true.

Around the world:

In Afghanistan, the United Nations has explicitly described the treatment of women and girls under the Taliban as gender apartheid. Women are barred from education, employment and public life in ways that amount to the systematic erasure of half the population. They aren't allowed to be heard in public! Yes, you read that correctly. Silenced. Literally.

In Iran, women continue to face imprisonment and violence for defying compulsory dress laws and demanding basic freedoms.

In Gaza Strip, women are experiencing the devastating consequences of war, displacement and collapsing healthcare systems.

These are not marginal issues. They are defining human rights crises of our time.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the administration is actively undermining the status and safety of women. Project 25 has been targeting body autonomy, health care, women's role in the home, workplace and society, voting access, the list goes on.

The return of Donald Trump in American politics is deeply worrying and posing serious questions about the attitudes and beliefs towards women, and cannot be separated from the facts of his previous record. A jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump case. His past comments about women are well documented. His association with Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender and trafficker of underage girls, and various allegations are yet to be properly investigated, which is deeply deeply disturbing; And yet the political system continues to normalise and therefore condone all of this. I therefore find it deeply disturbing that one political party in the UK want to import this brand of politics wholesale!

Believe it or not I am being measured in relation to the above to hopefully retain some sense of professionalism but in truth, like so many women around the world, I am enraged!

I am not ok with the fact that a handful of men (Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, Khamenei, Akhundzada) are setting the agenda and making decisions for women in what they can and can't do - even with their own bodies; let alone taking the world into the most significant period of global instability since WW2.

Leadership sets the tone for culture.

Women in the workplace:

Many women aren’t experiencing progress at work either. Over the past few months I’ve spoken so many women and one of the repeating themes is their experience returning from maternity leave. The patterns are depressingly consistent. 

• They come back to roles that shrink.

• High-profile work is moved elsewhere.

• Career momentum evaporates.

• Some are nudged out, more blatantly pushed, with swathes made redundant.

  
  

Despite the language of inclusion, part-time working and flexible working remain dirty words in many organisations, and job share - you might as well ask for your own office on the moon!

Some politicians (the same as previously mentioned above) want to tax women for not having children or having only one (don’t get me started on the cost of childcare) and have openly argued that working mothers are less valuable to employers.

That rhetoric doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It reinforces workplace bias that already exists. 

Menopause would be different if it actually happened to men!

Another issue that receives far less attention than it should is menopause.

Large numbers of experienced women are leaving employment entirely because workplaces simply aren’t set up to support them.

Other work place issues:

• Ageism is prevalent - the issue that older, experienced women are more likely to push back on poor leadership and toxic culture, they are also more expensive. 

• Leadership pipelines remain male dominated.

• At the same time the gender pay gap stubbornly persists across industries. 

The gap between the equality we talk about and the equality women actually experience remains significant.

Cultural indicators:

It isn’t just politics or employment. Culture sends signals about what women are expected to be. Right now those signals feel regressive.

Hollywood appears to be right back to the extreme thinness that dominated the 1990s. Social media trends like “skinny-tok” are once again glamorising emaciated bodies to millions of young girls.

We already know where that road leads. We haven’t got time to dive into the murky pools of social media influencers promoting pseudo-science wellness, face and lip fillers, the pout, the filters, the ‘must-haves’, the ‘obsessed with’ and don’t get me started on the nail tapping nonsense. Needless to say I am a huge supporter of banning social media for under 16s. Girls don’t need that kind of pressure – they have enough!

Perhaps the most alarming shift is generational.

A recent poll highlighted by Gallup and reported in The Guardian found that a higher proportion of Gen Z men believe women should obey their husbands than men in the baby boomer generation.

Read that again. More young men than older men holding that belief.

When schools now feel compelled to teach boys about misogyny, consent and how to treat women with respect, partly in response to the influence of online figures like Andrew Tate, it tells us something deeply uncomfortable about the cultural moment we’re living through. For the mother of a young daughter that frightens the hell out of me, and frankly it should frighten everyone. 

Progress is not inevitable. Rights can erode faster than we expect.  

Health matters:

For half the population, women’s health remains startlingly underfunded and under-researched, leaving countless conditions poorly understood and millions of women navigating pain, misdiagnosis and inadequate care.

And the violence continues:

Even in countries with strong legal protections, violence against women remains widespread.

In England and Wales:

• Around 2.2 million women experience domestic abuse every year.

• Women make up roughly three quarters of domestic abuse victims.

• And around one woman a week is killed by a current or former partner.

Those numbers are not historical. They are current reality.

So no, I’m not feeling celebratory

International Women’s Day still matters. But perhaps we need to stop treating it as a victory lap. Because the truth is that women’s rights are not on a neat upward trajectory. In many many areas they are being actively dismantled.

If the rights, safety and autonomy of half the world’s population can still be rolled back this easily, then the fight for equality is nowhere near finished. So buckle up!  Equality doesn’t move forward on its own. It moves when people decide it matters enough to do something about it.

Rights don’t stay won unless people keep defending them.

Calls to action:

1. Make flexible working normal, not exceptional. Stop treating flexible or part-time working as a lack of commitment. For many parents and carers, it’s the difference between staying in work and leaving entirely.

2. Proper menopause support. Introduce menopause policies, manager training and practical workplace adjustments so experienced women aren’t pushed out of the workforce.

3. Protect career progression after maternity leave. Returning mothers should come back to meaningful roles with access to high-profile work, not diminished responsibilities and stalled career trajectories. Put support in place for the first six months because they can be lumpy while people get up to speed.

4. Audit and close the gender pay gap. Transparency is the first step. If the numbers show a gap, organisations should be expected to act on it.

5. Make equality measurable. Track promotions, pay, leadership representation and retention by gender. If organisations measure it, they’re far more likely to fix it.

Allyship actions

6. Support women publicly and privately. Allyship is not a hashtag. It means challenging sexist comments, backing women in meetings and ensuring their ideas are heard and credited.

7. He for She. Men have a critical role to play. The goal of HeForShe, launched by UN Women, is simple: gender equality is not a women’s issue. It’s a human one.

8. Call out misogyny when you see it. Whether it’s online, in the workplace or among friends, silence allows it to flourish.

9. Raise boys differently. Teach boys about consent, empathy, respect and equality early. Those lessons shape the men they become.

Cultural and personal actions

10. Question the messages we’re feeding young girls. Challenge unhealthy beauty standards, body shaming and the return of harmful trends that prioritise thinness over wellbeing.

11. Support women’s voices and businesses. Read their work. Support their ideas. Buy from their companies. Platform matters.

12. Believe women and listen to their experiences. Too often women’s accounts of abuse, harassment, discrimination or pain are dismissed. Listening is a powerful first step.

Political and civic responsibility

13. Think carefully about how you vote. Policies shape women’s lives in profound ways, from childcare and parental leave to reproductive rights and workplace protections. When you vote, consider the impact those policies will have on the mothers, daughters, women and girls in your life.

14. Demand better from leaders. Expect political leaders to take violence against women, economic equality and healthcare disparities seriously.

Next Steps:

For those who are interested in exploring these issues in their workplace or community group, I can give two inputs or interactive sessions. One is specifically on gender equality in the workplace and the other is about women in the world, feminism and the importance of red lipstick!  Get in touch for more info.