2/3/26

All I Want for International Women’s Day Is Change

Somewhere along the way, it became easier to sell flowers than to dismantle systems.

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Every year on March 8, I wake up to a full inbox.

Flower promos. Discount codes. "Treat a woman you love" offers - because nothing says structural equality like 25% off a bouquet.

Brands swap their logos for purple. Panels are announced. Campaigns go live.

We are invited to celebrate the women in our lives, preferably by buying something.

And yet outside the curated posts and pastel graphics, it feels… off. Because the world isn’t getting safer for women.

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A Protest, Not a Party

International Women's Day was never meant to be a marketing moment.

It’s a protest.

Born from women demanding safer working conditions, voting rights, economic participation and political power in 1908.

It was always about structural change.

But somewhere along the way, it became easier to sell flowers than to dismantle systems.

Or to share social media posts of women we admire - which is nice, but doesn’t do much to tackle the root problem.

The System Is Working As Designed

Right now, we are watching an unravelling.

Not of one man, or one case, or one country. Of an entire architecture that has protected powerful men for a very long time.

The Epstein files release revealed an undeniable record of how the global “elites” organised themselves around the abuse of girls and women, and how every person and institution that should have stopped it looked the other way.

Some didn't just look away.

They intentionally colluded to conceal.

We’ve seen, again and again, what happens when abuse intersects with status:

The system doesn’t rush to protect victims. It rushes to manage reputations.

The names. The networks. The ruling class who built systems designed to protect themselves and failed the rest of us - deliberately, structurally, and with impunity.

Every day, new horrific details are being revealed. Evidence of crimes so grotesque, so inhumane, that I cannot even say them out loud without tears coming to my eyes.

And it is not just about what happened years ago.

It’s happening now.

The same machinery is still running.

Justice still bends for the powerful and breaks for everyone else. Wilful ignorance is dressed up as due process. Silence is maintained by the very institutions that were supposed to prevent this.

And victims are not just disbelieved. They are discredited, weaponised, and turned into political props while mountains of evidence sit right there.

And all of this is unfolding while we are being asked to celebrate.

We Can’t Pretend This Is Fine

So here’s what I actually want for International Women's Day.

I want us to say the hard part out loud.

I want women to be believed.

I want girls to grow up knowing that speaking up will protect them, not endanger them.

I want us to rebuild the justice system on equality and accessibility, not patch a system that was never built to protect us.

And I want men to get involved.

Skip the flowers and donate to a women's organisation.

Pick up a feminist book, and listen to women when they tell you something is hard.

The bar isn’t perfection - it’s participation.

We’re Not Done

This isn’t about rejecting joy or refusing celebration. It’s about refusing to confuse symbolic gestures with progress.

We are tired of watching misogyny rebrand itself.

Tired of watching accountability stall.

All we want for International Women’s Day is change that outlives a hashtag.

For men to see themselves in this fight: not as our “protectors”, but to fix what we need protection from.

We want systems that protect victims as fiercely as they protect reputations.

We want institutions that act as quickly as they issue statements.

We want a future where women are involved at every stage of decision making.

Until then, keep the flowers.

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