Women’s Rights Day

March 8 is not just a date. It is a revelation. It is the barometer of the state of the world as experienced by women. It reminds us that vigilance remains necessary, because violence against women is often the symptom of a society in failure. Where women are in danger, children soon follow.

From the United States to Kabul, through France and across Africa, 137 women are killed every day worldwide by a partner or a member of their family, according to the most recent estimates by the United Nations (UN Women, 2023). This figure is likely lower than the reality: many femicides are misclassified or not recognized as domestic or family violence. As for the hundreds of thousands of women condemned to a form of social erasure by certain authoritarian regimes, they largely escape statistics. In such cases, this is no longer simply discrimination: it becomes a true gender apartheid.

The condition of women remains profoundly unequal across the world. Some live within legal frameworks that recognize their rights and claim to protect them; others exist within systems where their freedom, security, and autonomy remain severely restricted. Yet the existence of protective laws does not necessarily mean the disappearance of violence. Even in Western democracies, often presented as models of equality, sexual and domestic violence persist and reveal legal shortcomings. Beyond legislation, it is mentalities and power relations that must evolve, and collective silences that must be broken.

The global #MeToo movement, triggered after the revelations surrounding Harvey Weinstein in 2017, was likely only the visible part of a much larger iceberg. The scandal exposed a system of abuse, pressure, and silence within an industry located at the heart of one of the world’s most powerful democracies. Then came the Jeffrey Epstein affair. For years, young women were exploited and manipulated within the shadow of networks of power and influence. Behind the façades of prestige and success, a system of sexual trafficking of minors prospered for a long time without being fully exposed. These cases do not merely reveal the gap between rich and poor. They expose a more universal phenomenon: in any society, certain positions of influence can create relationships of domination in which victims’ voices collide with the weight of status, reputation, and networks. It took the courage of certain victims for the truth to begin cracking the wall of silence. Yet one question remains: how many similar cases are still hidden behind power, fear, or shame?

If these scandals reveal the excesses within democratic societies, in certain authoritarian regimes domination over women is no longer limited to individual crimes: it becomes a political instrument. For controlling women often means controlling society as a whole. In many authoritarian systems, the female body becomes an ideological territory upon which power is exercised. Restricting girls’ education, imposing dress codes, or limiting women’s freedom of movement are not merely expressions of religious extremism: they are mechanisms of political domination.

The obsession with controlling women in systems such as those ruled by the Taliban in Afghanistan or by the Islamic Republic of Iran follows this same logic. By targeting women’s freedom, these regimes seek to consolidate a social order based on obedience and fear. The condition of women thus becomes a revealing indicator of a regime’s degree of authoritarianism.

In Iran, the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, following her arrest by the morality police for an allegedly improperly worn veil, triggered one of the most significant protest movements the Islamic Republic has ever faced. The slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” became the symbol of a deeper challenge to the political order. Gradually, the movement expanded beyond the issue of women’s rights and opened a breach through which broader social grievances emerged. At the beginning of last year, protests spread to groups that had previously been more cautious, particularly merchants and shopkeepers who closed their stores to denounce the collapse of purchasing power and the rising cost of living. These demonstrations were met with extremely violent repression, among the harshest experienced by the population since the establishment of the clerical regime, causing (according to some NGOs)more than 30,000 deaths.

When a regime marginalizes or excludes half of its population for a prolonged period, it weakens the entire social structure. The erasure of women may appear as a short-term instrument of political control. But in the long term, this exclusion often produces a boomerang effect: it fuels frustrations, deepens social fractures, and eventually turns against power itself.

History shows that women have often been at the origin of decisive political upheavals or at least have revealed their first tremors. In Russia in 1917, it was female workers who took to the streets demanding bread and peace, triggering the first movements of the revolution. In France, several decades later, Simone Veil’s struggle to legalize abortionprofoundly transformed the country’s political and social landscape. In Lebanon in 2019, women once again stood on the front lines of protests against the political class. Among the Kurds, they have taken up arms against obscurantism. In Ukraine, they fight. In Afghanistan, some defy Taliban bans on education by attending clandestine schools. In Iran, their courage is often paid for with their lives.

Across very different contexts, their presence reveals a constant: women are often the cement of social life, those who ensure the continuity of families, communities, and sometimes even societies in crisis. When they are silenced or excluded from public space, it is not merely an injustice: it becomes a form of segregation that ultimately weakens the entire political architecture of a society. Simone de Beauvoir once warned with remarkable clarity:“It will be enough for a political, economic, or religious crisis to call women’s rights into question. These rights are never permanently acquired. You must remain vigilant throughout your life.”

The status of women has therefore become one of the most reliable indicators of the level of authoritarianism within a regime. From Tehran to Kabul, their repression accompanies the consolidation of ideological power. In Central Europe, restricting abortion often precedes a broader erosion of the rule of law. Where women lose ground, democracy soon follows.

Women have also become instruments of image and narrative. Certain reforms are highlighted in Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates project an image of modernity. Meanwhile, the Taliban erase women from public space. One constant remains: controlling the place of women also means controlling the narrative of a country, its image and its respectability.

Through them, I also wish to pay tribute to all those whom history too often forgets: those who had to grow up too quickly, those reduced to slavery, those who protest despite threats, those who attend school in secrecy, and those who continue to fight at the risk of their lives.

So I will conclude differently, by borrowing the words of Rudyard Kipling, but in the feminine:

If you can meet triumph and disasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can keep your courage and your headWhen all about you others lose theirs,Then neither kings, nor gods, nor victory will define you.And what is worth more than glory or power:You will be a woman, my daughter.

For the world will ultimately be judged by the place it gives to women.Men will be judged by the education they have received.And the true victory will come the day when it will no longer be necessary to dedicate a global day to women’s rights, because their freedom will no longer need to be fought for.