International Women’s Day: Why Most Women Feel Left Behind

The United Nations has recognized International Women’s Day since 1977, yet a troubling contradiction exists today. UN data shows that women’s rights faced opposition in 25% of nations last year, despite worldwide celebrations.

The numbers paint a grim picture. Family violence claims a woman or girl’s life every 10 minutes. Sexual assault affects 736 million women around the globe. The UK’s gender pay gap reaches 13.1%, which exceeds the OECD’s 11.6% average. The historic 2017 Women’s March brought 4 million Americans to the streets, but women worldwide still face basic challenges.

This piece looks at why women feel disconnected from progress and learns about their daily battles with workplace inequality, healthcare access, and personal safety that shape their lives globally.

The History Behind International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day started with labor movements in the early 20th century. Working women fought against harsh industrial conditions. Fifteen thousand women marched through New York City’s streets in 1908. They demanded shorter work hours, better wages, and voting rights.

Early protests and labor movements

The Socialist Party of America hosted the first National Woman’s Day in February 1909. German activist Clara Zetkin proposed an annual Women’s Day at the 1910 International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen. More than 100 women representing 17 countries unanimously supported this idea.

March 19, 1911 marked the first International Women’s Day celebration. Over one million people gathered at rallies across Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. Women voiced their demands for fundamental rights:

• The right to vote and hold public office
• Equal opportunities in employment
• Fair wages and improved working conditions

From socialist roots to global recognition

Women in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), Russia created a defining moment on March 8, 1917. They organized a strike against food shortages, poor living conditions, and World War I. This “bread and peace” strike triggered the Russian Revolution and led to Czar Nicholas II’s abdication.

Vladimir Lenin made March 8 the official International Working Women’s Day in 1922. The celebration remained closely tied to socialist and communist movements, especially in Eastern Europe and China.

The feminist movement of the 1960s shaped the modern version of International Women’s Day. United Nations’ recognition in 1975 brought a fundamental change that established it as a global celebration. The UN General Assembly took another step in December 1977 by adopting a resolution for a United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace.

Today, this day celebrates women’s achievements in social, economic, cultural, and political spheres. International Women’s Day serves as both a celebration and a reminder of ongoing challenges, more than a century after those first protests. What began as working women asking for simple rights has become a global platform to advance gender equality.

International Women’s Day’s core mission remains unchanged: recognizing women’s achievements whatever their national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic, or political differences. Women worldwide continue their fight for rights and participation in political and economic spheres.

Why Women Still Earn Less in 2025

Recent data shows women still face a stubborn wage gap that holds back their economic progress. Women today earn just 85 cents compared to every dollar men make. This stark difference shows how deeply financial inequalities are rooted in our workplaces.

The real cost of the gender pay gap

Pay differences between genders reach way beyond what someone takes home each month. Women with children give up about 15% of their wages when they take on caregiving duties. This leads to lifetime losses of AED 1,083,222. These losses grow bigger over time as women miss out on raises, career growth, and retirement savings.

Part-time work trap

Part-time jobs and their lower wages create a major roadblock in women’s path to economic success. Studies show that experience from part-time work barely helps women advance their careers. Part-time roles often cluster in sectors where women dominate – cleaning, catering, and care work. These jobs typically pay minimum wage or close to it, with few chances to move up.

Career progression barriers

Women face tough challenges on their way to leadership roles. Only 81 women get promoted to manager positions for every 100 men who do. This broken step on the corporate ladder creates a major bottleneck. Women of color feel this impact even more sharply – they hold just 7% of C-suite positions.

These ongoing barriers exist because:

• Less than half of women get their manager’s help to grow or handle workplace challenges
• Women still face microaggressions, which hit LGBTQ+ women and those with disabilities particularly hard
• Women rarely get access to high-profile projects and strategic decisions

Working mothers face even bigger hurdles. Two-thirds of mothers who work feel intense pressure to focus on home duties, while only 45% of working fathers feel the same way. Many women end up choosing flexible or shorter hours that pay less and offer fewer chances to advance.

The Hidden Burden of Unpaid Work

Women face more than just wage gaps – they do two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men. This adds up to over 16 billion hours worldwide each day.

Mental load at home

Mothers bear 71% of all household mental load tasks. These tasks include the invisible work of planning, organizing, and looking after family needs. They must schedule appointments, manage their children’s activities, and take care of the family’s emotional well-being.

Research shows that in heterosexual relationships, couples might split physical tasks evenly. Yet women still handle most of the mental aspects of running the household. This non-stop mental juggling act leads to higher stress, anxiety, and makes it harder to make long-term decisions.

Caregiving responsibilities

Women face tough challenges in caregiving roles. The United States has 53 million caregivers, and 73% of them work while providing care. Their responsibilities often clash with regular work hours. They need to:

• Coordinate medical appointments
• Arrange deliveries
• Handle emergencies
• Manage ongoing care needs

Impact on career growth

Unpaid work creates complex hurdles for women’s career advancement. Their unpaid family care adds 10% to 39% to various countries’ GDP. In spite of that, people rarely see this vital contribution as real work.

Career setbacks are clear: 40% of caregivers end up leaving their jobs to provide unpaid care. Among those who keep working, 53% come late or leave early, while 15% cut back their hours. This pattern hurts career growth, with 25% of women saying caregiving duties held them back.

New mothers on maternity leave spend about 60 hours weekly on unpaid work. Education plays a role too – women with higher education often pay others to do household tasks so they can focus on their careers. This shifts gender inequalities into the global care chain.

Where Progress Has Failed Women

The fight for gender equality faces major setbacks on many fronts. Recent data from 2025 shows stubborn gaps that disrupt women’s daily lives.

Healthcare access challenges

Women face tough barriers when they need quality healthcare. They pay 20% more than men for out-of-pocket medical costs, even without counting maternity expenses. The financial strain hits hard because 44% of women say they can’t handle unexpected medical bills.

Medical systems often fail to address women’s unique health needs. Doctors misdiagnose heart disease symptoms in women because medical schools teach male symptoms as the standard. Middle-aged women who show heart disease symptoms are twice as likely to get wrong diagnoses compared to men.

Political representation gaps

Equal political power remains out of reach. Only 31 countries have women as heads of state or government. Women hold just 26.5% of parliamentary seats worldwide. The numbers paint a grim picture – at this pace, we won’t see gender balance in national legislatures until 2063.

The gaps vary widely between regions. Latin America leads with 36% women in parliament. The picture looks different in Central and Southern Asia, Northern Africa and Western Asia, where women make up only 18% of parliamentarians.

Violence against women statistics

Gender-based violence reveals a disturbing reality. One in three women worldwide have faced physical or sexual violence from partners or others. This means about 736 million women have suffered such abuse.

The damage goes beyond immediate harm. Women who face intimate partner violence deal with:

• 41% higher chances of pre-term birth
• Twice the risk of depression
• 16% greater risk of miscarriage

Money problems make everything worse. Women lose wages, feel isolated, and struggle to live normal lives. During humanitarian crises and displacement, existing violence gets worse and new forms of abuse emerge.

The statistics tell a sobering story about gender equality in 2025, despite celebrating International Women’s Day for over a century. Women still face systemic problems on multiple fronts. They earn just 85 cents for every dollar men make. They shoulder 71% of household mental load. Their access to healthcare remains limited, and their political representation lags significantly.

These obstacles stem from deep-rooted societal structures, not personal choices. Women now fill more workforce positions than ever before. Yet their progress remains stymied by persistent wage gaps, caregiving duties, and workplace bias. The biggest problem lies in women’s safety – one-third of women worldwide endure physical or sexual violence.

True equality needs more than annual celebrations or surface-level adjustments. We must revolutionize our approach by tackling structural barriers, eliminating gender-based violence, and creating equal opportunities in professional, political, and personal realms. Millions of women will continue to feel left behind until these systemic problems receive proper attention and resources.