As the global discourse gets sucked at an unprecedented speed in the quagmire of trade, tariffs, conflicts, huge defence spendings and national interests overriding global multilateral concern, the space for actions and agenda on gender parity, climate control, aids and assistance to the underprivileged diminishes. Since 2025, the world is giving way a role based order over rule based order. Universally accepted concerns of Climate control challenges are now challenges to climate control efforts itself. Gender parity efforts too have been impacted rather adversely not that enough was being done in this regard anyway.

Gender parity is fundamentally a matter of fairness and justice. It is a core principle of international law, explicitly recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reaffirmed across numerous global treaties and conventions. Gender equality is not merely a social aspiration; it is a legal obligation and a central public policy imperative that underpins sustainability of development , economic growth and social cohesion.

Decades of global advocacy efforts and policy commitments by states, gender parity remains elusive and a distanced dream. Structural inequalities, discriminatory policies and practices, unequal access to resources and entrenched patriarchy continues to undermine women’s rights worldwide. Recent Global reports by UN, WB and the WEF yet again highlight the stark gap and extremely sluggish pace of national efforts across economies. Unfortunate that the time frame of over a century required to bring gender parity does not occupy the space for even a substantive public discourse. The status and assessment as brought about by these reports is awake up call.

Reflecting on the SDGs: Status as of 2025;

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in 2015 for the period 2015–2030, constitute the overarching global framework for addressing major development challenges. The UN Gender Snapshot 2025 presents a sobering assessment of progress toward gender equality.

Under SDG 1 (No Poverty), female extreme poverty has stagnated at approximately 10% since 2020. If current trends persist, an estimated 351 million women and girls—around 8.2% of the global female population—will still live in extreme poverty by 2030. Under SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), women face disproportionate food insecurity, with 64 million more adult women than men affected globally, exacerbating nutritional deficiencies and increasing risks of anaemia.

In terms of health and well-being (SDG 3), maternal mortality declined by 39.3% between 2000 and 2023. However, women spent an average of 10.9 years in poor health in 2021, compared to 8.0 years for men. Chronic conditions continue to affect women disproportionately.

The SDG on Gender Equality (SDG 5) records 99 positive legal reforms worldwide. Yet, only 38 countries have set 18 years as the minimum legal age of marriage without exception, and just 30 of 63 countries define rape based on lack of consent. Alarmingly, even in 2025, one in eight women aged 15–49 has experienced physical or sexual violence by a current or former intimate partner within the preceding 12 months. Each year , an estimated four million girls undergo female genital mutilation.

Globally, women perform 2.5 times more unpaid domestic and care giving responsibilities than men. As of January 1, 2025, women hold only 27.2% of national parliamentary seats, and 102 countries have never had a woman as head of state or government. At the current pace, achieving parity in managerial positions may take nearly a century.

Additionally, 676 million women and girls lived within 50 kilometres of an active and deadly conflict zone in 2024—the highest figure recorded since the 1990s.

The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action;

The year 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted in 1995 by 189 countries. The Beijing agenda remains the most comprehensive global framework for advancing women’s rights, addressing 12 critical areas of concern ranging from poverty and education to political participation and violence against women.

Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted in 2015 that the Beijing Platform remains an undiminished roadmap for achieving gender equality. Building on this legacy, UN Women’s Beijing+30 Action Agenda identifies six priority areas: digital inclusion, freedom from poverty, zero violence, equal decision-making, peace and security, and climate justice, with youth inclusion as a cross-cutting imperative.

“Women’s Rights in Review 30 Years After Beijing” has necessitated the urgent need for bold actions.  The Executive Director of UN Women noted that while we have not yet known a world of full equality, the global community collectively imagined it in 1995, this pivotal agreement remains a lasting testament to multilateral solidarity and commitment.  However, 2025 faces unprecedented challenges. The progress in this regard is evidently not keeping pace, with the desired principles of gender equality. Women’s empowerment ensuring dignity and human rights still remaining a distant dream for many. In many countries, women’s rights have yet to attain the priority they deserve. The figures compiled by UN Women do not generate confidence regarding the current direction. A lot more obviously needs to be done and done early.

Key Findings from the following 12 Critical Areas indicate very uneven gains for gender equality even after 30 years of Beijing Declaration:

• Legal Equality: Despite over 1,500 legal reforms, women still have only 64% of the legal rights of men. 

• Parliaments: The proportion of women in parliaments has doubled since 1995, yet three-quarters of parliamentarians are still men. 
• Poverty: 10% of women and girls live in extremely poor households. This rises to 24% for women between 18 and 34 years old, who are also most likely to have young children. 
• Education: 59.5 million adolescent girls miss out on their fundamental right to education, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia. 
• Violence: Conflict-related sexual violence increased by 50%, with women and girls making up 95% of the victims. 
• Labour Force: Only 63% of women are in the labour force compared to 92% of men. 
• Technology: Over 277 million more men used the internet in 2024 than women. While women using the internet increased from 50% to 65%, the gap remains. 
• Social Protection: 2 billion women and girls have no social protection coverage. 
• Child Marriage: Between 2003 and 2023, the proportion of women married as children declined from 24% to 19%. 
• Family Planning: Young women (15–24) saw the fastest increase in access to modern family planning based on demand. 
• Maternal Mortality: While deaths declined by one-third, the maternal mortality ratio remains almost unchanged globally. 
• Aid: Only 4% of aid went to programs where gender equality as the principal objective.

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World Bank Assessment and Strategy

The World Bank Group Gender Strategy 2024–2030 underscores gender equality as both a development necessity and a matter of justice. The strategy highlights how conflict, climate change, technological transitions, and social backlash exacerbate gender disparities. At current rates, to achieve global gender parity may well take over 100 years.

The World Bank emphasizes that removing gender barriers enhances productivity, reduces poverty, strengthens resilience, and promotes sustainable growth. Its new strategy builds on lessons from 2016–2023, focusing on legal equality, economic participation, leadership, freedom from violence, and inclusion of marginalized groups, including sexual and gender minorities.

The World Bank Group Gender Strategy 2024–2030 views gender equality as a matter of fairness and justice for all. The Bank finds that crises, conflict, and climate change exacerbate existing inequalities. Furthermore, reversals and backlash against gender equality are compounding these challenges, and progress on SDG 5 is worryingly off track.

Removing gender barriers unlocks economic productivity, reduces poverty, and enhances well-being. The new strategy is based on the following contemporary issues impacting gender equality:

1. Growing global instability;
   The world is experiencing increasing instability, multifaceted crises, conflicts, and megatrends with disproportionately negative impacts on women, girls, sexual and gender minorities, and other marginalised groups. At the current rate of progress, it would take more than 100 years for women to reach parity with men.
2. Mixed progress in human capital and health;
   Although the past few decades have seen hard-won gains in gender equality—indicating that girls’ human capital is now equivalent to or higher than boys’ in 90% of countries with sex-disaggregated Human Capital Index data—challenges remain.
3. Persistent legal and economic barriers;
   Women’s economic prospects remain constrained. According to Women, Business and the Law 2024, women globally have only two-thirds of the legal rights of men. In 77 countries, women are legally prohibited from working in the same jobs and industries as men, exacerbating occupational segregation and the gender wage gap.
4. Labour force participation gaps;
   Labour force participation among the working-age population has remained stagnant for three decades at around 53% for women, compared to 80% for men. Women in the labour force are half as likely as men to have full-time wage jobs; their employment tends to be more informal and vulnerable, and they earn USD 0.77 for every dollar earned by men.
5. Underrepresentation in business ownership and leadership;
   Significant gender gaps persist in business ownership and leadership. Globally, only about 25% of formal firms have majority female ownership or a woman as a top manager.
6. Gender-based violence (GBV);
   One in three women worldwide experiences physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence by another known perpetrator. Online abuse is even more prevalent, affecting 85% of women and girls globally. GBV has far-reaching consequences, including deteriorating physical and mental health, reduced access to
7. Impact of crisis, fragility, and climate change;
   Crisis, fragility, and global trends such as climate change and natural resource scarcity exacerbate gender inequalities. Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV) settings often entrench harmful gender norms due to weak institutions, poor rule of law, and market failures, alongside a fraying social fabric. These settings are strongly correlated with high gender inequality and GBV.
8. Gender equality as a driver of development;
   Gender equality is integral to poverty reduction and development. Women’s empowerment enhances equality and addresses multiple dimensions of poverty, including income and nutrition security. Gender equality also promotes inclusive economic growth and productivity.
9. Disadvantages faced by sexual and gender minorities;
   Sexual and gender minorities often face stigma, violence, and discriminatory laws, policies, and practices.
10. Persistent unequal social norms;
    Unequal social norms, stereotypes, and biases about gender roles continue to reinforce structural inequalities. The Gallup World Poll, covering 60 countries and representing 80% of the world’s population, shows that gender stereotyping remains widespread and that support for gender-equal policies is often underestimated in high-inequality countries due to misperceptions of social norms. A significant share of respondents in the Pew Research Centre’s 2019 Global Attitudes Survey favoured preferential treatment for men when jobs are scarce.

World Economic Forum: Global Gender Gap Report 2025;

In uncertain times for global gender equality efforts—when many international assessments remain subdued and avoid commenting on the lack of commitment by several countries—the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025 stands out as one of the few comprehensive evaluations providing a detailed account of gender inequality worldwide.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2025 assesses 148 countries across four dimensions: economic participation, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. The global gender gap stands at 68.8%, reflecting only marginal improvement from 2024. At this pace it has noted that full parity may take 123 years.

No country has achieved full parity. Iceland leads with 92.6%, while political empowerment remains the widest gap globally at just 22.9% closed. Regional disparities persist, with North America and Europe leading, and the Middle East and North Africa trailing.

India ranks 131st with an overall score of 64.4%, performing relatively better in education and political empowerment than in economic participation and health outcomes.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2025 prepared by the World Economic Forum observes that the global gender gap currently stands at 68.8%, with country-wise scores provided in the index. Compared to 2024, progress has been limited—an increase of only 0.3 percentagepoints, from 68.4% to 68.8% in 2025—indicating slow momentum in closing the global gender gap. Based on the current pace of progress, the report estimates that it may take approximately 123 years to achieve full global parity. Key observations include:

• No country has yet achieved full gender parity. Iceland leads the Global Gender Gap Index with a score of 92.6%.
• The top ten economies have closed more than 80% of their gender gaps with European countries dominating this group, occupying eight positions.
• High-income countries have closed 74.3% of their gender gap, compared with 69.6% in upper-middle-income countries, 66.0% in lower-middle-income countries, and 66.4% in low-income economies.
• Among the 148 countries covered in 2025 report, the health and survival gender gap is 96.2% closed, educational attainment 95.1%, economic participation and opportunity 61.0%, and political empowerment only 22.9%.
• Economic participation and opportunity, along with political empowerment, continue to exhibit the largest gaps. Political empowerment has shown improvement, narrowing by 9.0 percentage points from 14.3% in 2006 to 23.4% in 2025. However, at this rate, it is projected to take 162 years to fully close the gap. Economic participation and opportunity has improved by 5.6 percentage points, from 55.1% in 2006 to 60.7% in 2025, but full parity may still take 135 years under current trends.

The report also analyses regional gender gap patterns. North America leads the 2025 regional rankings, having closed 75.8% of its overall gender gap. Europe ranks second, with 75.1% of its gender gap closed, despite uneven performance among countries in the region. Latin America and the Caribbean rank third with a score of 74.5%, followed by Central Asia in fourth place with a parity score of 69.8%. East Asia and the Pacific rank fifth at 69.4%.

Sub-Saharan Africa ranks sixth, achieving a gender parity score of 68.0%. South Asia region ranks seventh globally with a regional parity score of 64.6% and has improved its economic participation parity by 9 percentage points, professional and technical worker representation by 17 percentage points, educational attainment to 95.4%, and health and survival to 95.5%.

India: Status and Performance

India ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1993, committing to gender equality as a constitutional and policy imperative. Significant legislative reforms, labour codes, social protection measures, and the 106th Constitutional Amendment Act (2023) reserving one-third of legislative seats for women mark substantial progress.

Initiatives such as the Nari Shakti Mission, labour law consolidation, enhanced protections against gender-based violence, and digital grievance mechanisms reflect a lifecycle-based approach to women’s empowerment. However, socio-economic disparities, patriarchal norms, and uneven implementation continue to impede faster progress.

Afterword;

A very dismal position globally with Gender equality remaining as  one of the defining challenges of our time. Despite clear global roadmaps, progress is uneven and insufficient. Women’s rights must move from rhetoric to results through sustained political will, social transformation, and accountability. Achieving gender parity is not merely a women’s issue—it is essential for economic growth, social justice, and sustainable development. The path forward is known; what remains is the collective resolve to walk it. Its time that Gender parity takes the centre stage of every policy and public discourse. Each woman and each man will have to stand up to support this fundamental flaw which cant be supported by any justification. I summarise by quoting my poem, questioning gender inequality and patriarchy.

                   I, the Feminist

They always believed it to be a class struggle,
A struggle that never found even the benefit of doubt-
Submerged in the other gender led hysteria, revolts, uprisings.
For they, the largest group never treated equals.
In matters equity, liberty, freedom and even of choice.
The curse for Adam was to labour and Eve to bear pain
Patriarchs deciding their destinies, their lives, for ages –
Men continue to decide for them, for their choices and thoughts
They are taught to obey, follow, accept and love and hate,
Their limits and laws, traditions and customs
All made for them by that- other controlling gender
Controlling their minds, bodies and souls and the view of the skies.
Any generation, now or in future be judged and tested
For the debt they repaid, bringing parity of the two lives, so different

Evolution was for humanity not only for the ‘mankind’I, the feminist stand for all the women’s rights and all their wrongs.

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