Representational image only.
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One more circle around the sun, one more meaningless barrage of discount coupons for women in place of anything that resembles empowerment on yet another Women’s Day.
Even as I brace for the barrage of spam on email and social media wishing me a ‘Happy Women’s Day’ and exhorting me to get a pedicure or buy another needlessly expensive bag in the name of ‘selfcare’, can we ask what gains we’ve made as women in the first half of the third decade of the ‘new’ millennium?
How far have women come in this very long journey to become more than their traditional roles as caregivers? Have we grown from being mere tokens to meaningful changemakers in the world? In this very dystopic year of 2025, has the feminist movement finally come to a place where it is not needed anymore? The answer is no!
Even as we sit here, witnessing what might be a not-even-slow collapse of the world as we know it, led with no embarrassment by so many power-hungry, inept men (is it just me, or have almost all world leaders begun to resemble curmudgeonly RWA uncles?); what should we do this Women’s Day? What should we celebrate?
This is not to say that gains have not been made. Our feminist foremothers and fellow intersectional allies continue to speak truth to power, very often at great personal cost. And their efforts have not been in vain. We now even have women in boardrooms who do a lot more than what they’re told to by husbands-brothers-sons. Women now make up 42% of the global workforce, the number of women in STEM fields has been steadily rising, some numbers indicate that the number of women in AI engineering has more than doubled since 2016. These are all things to celebrate. It took a lot of work getting us here.
But there’s a long way yet to go to come anywhere close to parity.
Women are 50% of the global work force at the entry level, but barely 25% at the top levels. Many more women than ever before have STEM jobs, but they’re still only about 28% of all STEM jobs; and these are global numbers. The numbers for India are almost certainly much worse. Especially since in countries such as India, women still must do the lion’s share of housework and caregiving; whether or not they’re also working outside the home. This often leaves women only able to reach, at best, mid management levels in their entire careers.
The workplace is still far from being a safe space for women, even if they are Olympic medallists. The man accused of sexually assaulting young aspiring women wrestlers continues to wield enormous influence not only in the wrestling federation but also in Parliament, even if it is only through proxies. Vinesh Phogat has won her way into the Haryana Legislative Assembly; but not before she was vilified, trolled, and even manhandled by the police along with other wrestling heroes such as Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia.
Even though the Women’s Reservation Bill 2023 (which seeks to allocate 33% of the seats in the Lok Sabha to women) was passed with much fanfare in 2023, the number of women in the current (18th) Lok Sabha has fallen to 74 (13.6%). This number looks worse when we take into account that only 9.3% out of all the women who stood for elections managed to win.
Sexual assault and other forms of violence against women shows no signs of abating. Place names such as Kathua, Unnao, and Hathras have become placeholders for unspeakable violence meted out to women. These girls were between eight and 18 years of age, and in each case, there has been political mobilisation in favour of the perpetrators. These are just those miniscule number of horrific cases that came into the limelight. The caste and religion angle in these and thousands of other cases in India make this problem so much worse. Yet, in 2025, the only ‘solutions’ suggested in the name of women’s safety is increased surveillance — not of men, but of women.
None of these points is new. These are all things we’ve known for many years; and unfortunately, we will probably have to keep on saying for years to come.
But we must. Keep on keeping on saying them.
Not just because we owe it to ourselves to at least find a way to get people to keep on looking at and talking about the issue of gender. But also, because we owe it to our allies and foremothers who’ve brought us so far that even if only as a token, Women’s Day must be commemorated.
I’ll continue to struggle for equal pay and dignity for all in the workplace and beyond; but for now, I’ll take that discount on the pedicure, thank you.
(Vidya Subramanian is associate professor at Jindal Global Law School (JGLS). X: @ vidyas42)