For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.

By Maria Kwekwe Tsuma (YSB EU delegation to Kenya)

For ALL Women and Girls: Rethinking Our Approach to Gender Equality

This year I have been critically analyzing gender issues and as we mark International Women’s Day 2025 under the theme “For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.”, I think it is a moment for us (gender advocates, activists, experts) to reflect how we might be blindly reinforcing the same inequalities that we aim to eliminate. I believe everyone’s heart and efforts are in the right place; rooted in the pursuit of justice, but in the process some of our strategies risk entrenching systemic disparities rather than dismantling them.

When Advocacy Reinforces Inequality

One of the biggest challenges in gender advocacy is the tendency to focus on inclusion and participation (which is a good thing ) but are we addressing the broader systems of oppressions that are still keeping women and girls marginalized? Many times we celebrate progress based on numbers, for instance how many girls are in school, how many women are in leadership positions as we do this, are we critically assessing whether these gains translate into actual power, rights, and long-term transformation?

For instance gender policies aim to increase women’s representation in decision making spaces but do they challenge the patriarchal structures that govern those spaces? A woman might be appointed in an honorary leadership position (this is a win!) but if the political, economic and corporate environment remains deeply exclusionary, her influence is constrained. Representation alone does not guarantee meaningful participation or systemic change.

Systemic Change vs. Individual Responsibility

A hard to swallow pill is that we risk perpetuating inequality by focusing on individual agency while neglecting or rather not addressing the structural barriers. I appreciate the efforts we have done in promoting gender equality but I think this is a key thing that needs to be addressed for us to move forward. Most of our interventions, if not all, centre on equipping women and girls with skills, knowledge and opportunities. Is the change that we aim to achieve solely rests on women and girls? I acknowledge that capacity building without a doubt is essential but it must be accompanied by broader efforts to dismantle discriminatory policies, economic injustices and social norms that limit women’s full participation in society.

For instance, we have widely promoted education as a powerful tool for promoting gender equality and that is a significant achievement. However, I think we ought to critically examine that by asking ourselves if access to education alone is enough to ensure equal opportunities in the workforce? Then it is worth noting that without systemic changes such as fair labor policies and protection against workplace discrimination then women and girls will continue to face barriers that education alone cannot overcome.

A Feminist Future That Leaves No One Behind

I believe we all want to accelerate gender equality and if we want to realize the vision of “For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.”, then we must critically examine whether our approaches are truly transformative or simply reinforcing existing hierarchies without us even knowing it. Therefore, a feminist future must go beyond symbolic victories and focus on reshaping the structures that sustain inequality. We need to ask ourselves a few critical questions as gender advocates: Are we challenging the root causes of gender inequality or are we merely managing its effects? Are we working toward a world where all women and girls experience true justice and equality or are we just reinforcing systems that only benefit a select few? I believe that a feminist future cannot be built on shallow victories. It must be anchored in deep, structural change that leaves no one behind. This is a call to us all to come together to achieve this by addressing our own biases as gender advocates.