It’s the third month of the year already, another International Women’s Day is coming and 2025 also happens to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. For those who may not know, this is the world’s most important and ambitious plan to achieve the equal rights of all women.
It feels like this is a good moment as any to pause and reflect on how much has changed for the good or, sadly, for the bad.
As always, I choose to see my glass half full but I’m not blind, and I see that while there’s a lot to celebrate, there’s more that needs to be fixed. So, let’s dive in!
The good
Ok, this may be the Pollyanna in me speaking, but hey, we have made some progress.
We’ve seen women taking over spaces that were once totally dominated by men. More women are in positions of power, in politics, and leading companies. Recently, there are more female CEOs (Vodafone Investments and Ernst&Young, just to name a couple) and politicians in prominent position, especially as far a conflict resolution is concerned. This may be more evident in the western world, but it doesn’t mean that everybody else just stood there and watched.
In 1995 only 12 countries passed laws against gender-based violence. Now we have 1.583 laws passed in 193 countries.
Also, women are slowly entering fields like tech and engineering that were once “off-limits”, and we’re even seeing more support for female entrepreneurs. Countries like the UK, France, and Sweden have created policies to help women start businesses, get funding, and thrive. Meanwhile, Canada has implemented more solid family policies.
There’s still so much to do, but we are at least moving in the right direction.
The bad
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, it figures. Every small win comes with a reality check with the tendency to slap us in the face. The U.S.A. is dealing with some major setbacks when it comes to women’s rights; 2022 tossed abortion rights under the bus, at least in some states. Not to mention what is or isn’t going to happen in the near future…
Europe as a whole may be slightly better, but even in this case, it depends on where you are. In many ways my country’s government (Italy), is suspiciously similar to the one in the U.S., but hey, at least it’s not (yet) like the Hungarian one.
The gender pay gap is still a thing pretty much everywhere, and while some companies are doing better, the overall progress is criminally slow.
Same goes for the unbearable heaviness of the mental load. Kids or not kids, marriage or not marriage, society will put the load of balancing everything mostly on women. And if somebody thinks we’re just feeling sorry for ourselves, there is a report from the American Psychological Association stating that women indeed suffer from higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression compared to men.
Are we surprised?
Needless to say, it can always get worse and somewhere else things really went backward. Yeas, Afghanistan is on my mind right now, because it is the most striking example, but unfortunately it is not the only one. I think we all know what’s going on: no school, no work, no freedom left for women and girls, and, apparently, no way for us to actually help. Rallies are good, I joined a few, petitions too, I signed many, I even donate money when I can, but in the grand scheme of things, nothing changed and I can’t deny it feels depressing.
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So, what’s next?
Where I live many misogynistic right-wing extremists are rising from hell and they are even in position of power more often then before. I know I am not alone in this, the world is a wreck right now, but this is not much consolation. This is why I feel it’s important to talk about our progress, sometimes, or everything is going to be too overwhelming.
The future has never seemed as uncertain as it does now, but there are two things I know for sure:
Those barriers still holding us back? They will grow higher the moment we let our guard down.
No amount of optimism will take us far without action. The fight for equal pay, reproductive rights, safety, mental health support and so on is far from over.
We need to keep being loud, and those of us lucky enough to have a voice should learn to use it for those who can’t. But sometimes we should just stop for a while and ask each other how are you. United we stand, right?
