As the calendar turns, International Women’s Day (IWD) 2025 fades into the background, yet its echoes persist, reverberating through the corridors of power, academia, and activism. This year’s theme, “Accelerated Action,” is more than just a slogan—it is an urgent demand for transformative change. The ritualistic speeches, reports, and platitudes have been offered, but the stark reality remains: gender inequality is not just a disparity but a systemic, entrenched injustice that obstructs women’s progress in every facet of life.
The latest ‘Global Gender Gap Report 2024’ by the World Economic Forum (WEF) underscores the stagnation in gender parity. Despite years of advocacy and incremental progress, the global gender gap is merely 68.5 per cent closed—a marginal increase of just 0.1 per cent from the previous year. While Health and Survival (96 per cent) and Educational Attainment (94.9 per cent) edge towards parity, Economic Participation (60.5 per cent) and Political Empowerment (22.5 per cent) remain deeply unequal. Regional disparities further exacerbate the crisis, with Europe (75 per cent), North America (74.8 per cent), and Latin America and the Caribbean (74.2 per cent) leading, while Southern Asia (63.7 per cent) and the Middle East and North Africa (61.7 per cent) continue to lag. At this sluggish pace, full gender equality is a distant reality, projected only by 2158—an unacceptable timeline when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target is 2030.
The Workplace Glass Ceiling and STEM Disparities
The economic landscape for women remains bleak. They comprise 42 per cent of the workforce but hold a meagre 31.7 per cent of senior leadership positions. The gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields is even more glaring. Women make up just 28.2 per cent of the STEM workforce, compared to 47.3 per cent in non-STEM sectors. The gendered division of labour, implicit biases, and lack of support systems continue to stymie women’s entry and retention in high-paying, high-impact industries.
While political representation has improved—women now hold 33 per cent of parliamentary seats, nearly doubling the 18.8 per cent seen in 2006—this is still insufficient to dismantle deeply entrenched gender biases in policymaking. The fundamental issue lies not just in electing women but in ensuring that they wield substantive influence in governance and legislative reforms. The WEF report also underscores the necessity for stronger caregiving policies, citing an increase in maternity leave from 63 to 107 days since 1970. Yet, paternity leave remains critically low, between nine and 15 days, perpetuating an unequal caregiving burden.
A Fractured Promise: 30 Years After the Beijing Declaration
The UN Women’s 2025 report, “Women’s Rights in Review 30 Years After Beijing,” evaluates global progress since the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. While over 1,531 legal reforms have been enacted, glaring disparities persist. Women still earn 20 per cent less than men, shoulder three times more unpaid care work, and remain significantly underrepresented in the labour force—only 63 per cent of working-age women are employed compared to 92 per cent of men. Gender-based violence (GBV) is rampant, affecting 736 million women globally, with 53 per cent of women in Europe and Central Asia suffering online abuse.
The Beijing+30 Action Agenda proposes six urgent priorities, including bridging the digital gender divide, eradicating GBV, ensuring equal political representation, and securing climate justice for women. Despite 112 countries adopting national action plans on women, peace, and security, only 28 per cent have allocated sufficient funding, revealing a profound gap between policy and implementation.
Global Regression and the Persistent Threat to Women’s Rights
The ‘Human Rights Watch World Report 2025’ paints a grim picture of global regression in women’s rights. Afghanistan remains a dystopian landscape for women under the Taliban’s draconian rule, where education and employment for women have been almost entirely eradicated. Sudan, embroiled in conflict, has seen sexual violence weaponized in warfare, with widespread rape and forced marriages. These are not isolated instances but symptoms of a broader erosion of women’s rights in various regions, exacerbated by political instability, extremist ideologies, and systemic discrimination.
Crime Against Women (CAW) is another glaring issue that fundamentally obstructs SDG targets, particularly SDG-3 (good health and well-being) and SDG-5 (gender equality). The social and economic toll of CAW is vast, creating ripple effects that undermine women’s safety, participation, and economic stability. The need for robust, actionable interventions cannot be overstated.
The Call for Unyielding Action
The road to gender equality is neither smooth nor short, but the urgency of “Accelerated Action” cannot be overstated. Governments must move beyond rhetoric and undertake concrete measures: enforcing gender-sensitive policies, expanding funding for women-centric initiatives, and strengthening legal frameworks to dismantle systemic biases. Businesses, too, must recognize that achieving gender parity is not just a moral imperative but an economic necessity—closing gender gaps will enhance productivity, sustainability, and societal progress.
The vision for gender equality cannot be deferred to future generations. The change must be bold, immediate, and uncompromising. The world cannot afford another century of waiting. The time for true, accelerated action is now.
Dipak Kurmi
Nagaland Post Launch on 30 Dec 1990 is the first and fore-most english daily newspaper of Nagaland.
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