Every year on March 8th, International Women’s Day (IWD) arrives with a flurry of social media posts, corporate campaigns, and well-meaning celebrations. Brands release limited-edition merchandise, companies organise panel discussions, and leaders issue statements about the importance of women in society. Beneath the surface of these gestures however, lies a troubling trend: the depoliticization of International Women’s Day. What was once a radical day of protest and demand for gender justice is increasingly being sanitized into a feel-good celebration, stripped of its political roots.
International Women’s Day was never meant to be a corporate holiday or an occasion for vague empowerment messages. It began as a labor movement. In 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding better working conditions, higher wages, and voting rights. The following year, the Socialist Party of America declared the first National Women’s Day. Inspired by these efforts, German activist Clara Zetkin proposed an international day for women’s rights at the 1910 International Socialist Women’s Conference. By 1917, Russian women protesting for “bread and peace” played a key role in sparking the Russian Revolution, leading to International Women’s Day being recognized globally.
The struggle for women’s rights has always been deeply political, and it remains so today. Women worldwide continue to face gender-based violence, pay gaps, workplace discrimination, and attacks on reproductive rights. In many countries, women’s protests are met with arrests, harassment, or worse. Yet, instead of acknowledging these realities, many modern IWD campaigns focus on vague themes like “celebrating women’s achievements” while avoiding discussions about systemic oppression.
This dilution of IWD’s radical core is not accidental. It benefits corporations and institutions to present gender equality as a soft, apolitical issue rather than a demand for structural change. A company can issue a statement supporting women on IWD while underpaying its female employees or failing to address workplace harassment. Governments can post hashtags about women’s empowerment while passing policies that harm women’s rights. By shifting the focus from activism to celebration, those in power neutralize the threat of real change.
Women’s rights cannot be won through hashtags or token gestures. True progress requires confronting the systems that uphold inequality including patriarchy, capitalism and racism. It means recognizing that IWD is about collective liberation, not just individual success stories. It demands that we amplify the voices of marginalised women and working-class women who often bear the brunt of oppression yet are sidelined in mainstream narratives.
This International Women’s Day, let’s reject the watered-down version. Let’s honor the women who fought before us by keeping the politics in IWD. Let’s support grassroots feminist movements, demand policy changes, and hold corporations and governments accountable. The fight for gender justice is far from over and IWD should always be a day of resistance, not just recognition.
