Why We Still Need Feminism

Perhaps the question isn't why feminism still exists. Perhaps the question is why equality still needs defending.

We’ve reached a strange point in history where the word feminism seems to upset some people more than the inequalities that made feminism necessary in the first place. Say the word and, depending on who is listening, you might be accused of being angry, anti-men, radical, political, divisive, or simply "one of those feminists."

And yet, underneath all the noise, the basic proposition is remarkably unremarkable: women should have the same rights, opportunities, dignity, and agency as men.

The United Nations defines gender equality as equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities for women and men—not that women and men must become identical, but that someone's rights and opportunities should not depend on whether they were born male or female.

So why is the word still so controversial?

I’ve been thinking about that through a series of conversations I’ve shared recently, and I keep coming back to four core truths.

1. Feminism exists because inequality is still measurable

This is perhaps the least complicated part. We don’t need to look very far for evidence.

Globally, women still participate in paid work at substantially lower rates than men. The International Labour Organization reports that women earn around 19 per cent less than men globally, while continuing to carry a disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work. In 2023, an estimated 708 million women worldwide were outside the labour force because of unpaid care responsibilities, compared with 40 million men.

That isn't a question of whether women are capable of working. It is a question of how societies distribute responsibility.

And it isn't only about economics. Gender inequality appears in political representation, leadership, access to resources, safety, healthcare, education, decision-making, and freedom from violence. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report continues to find a substantial global gender gap across economic participation, health, education, and political empowerment.

So when someone asks: "Why do we still need feminism?"

My first response is simple: because the conditions feminism seeks to change have not disappeared. The work has changed. The context has changed. But the inequality has not magically packed up and gone home.

2. Feminism is not anti-men; it is anti-hierarchy

Feminism does not require women to dislike men, believe men are inherently bad, or reject relationships, motherhood, family, marriage, or tradition. And it certainly does not require men to sit quietly on the sidelines while women "sort out women's issues."

Gender equality concerns everyone. The idea that feminism is a war between genders is a remarkably effective way of avoiding the actual conversation. If feminism becomes women versus men, everyone gets defensive. But if feminism becomes how do we create a society where gender does not determine someone’s worth, freedom, safety, or opportunity?, we have somewhere much more useful to go.

Men can be feminists. Men can advocate for women’s rights, challenge sexism, question harmful systems, raise sons differently, share unpaid care, and support women in leadership without feeling diminished by it.

In fact, rigid gender roles don't just limit women; they isolate men. When we demand that men fit a narrow mold of dominance and emotional suppression, we deny them their full humanity too. Feminism isn't about taking a slice of the pie away from men—it's about pointing out that the pie was baked on a flawed recipe.

This isn't about replacing one hierarchy with another. It’s about questioning the hierarchy altogether.

3. Feminism is a global imperative, not a Western invention

Feminism is sometimes dismissed as a Western import—an idea created by white Western women and exported to the rest of the world. That history is incomplete.

While the modern term feminism has a particular Western history, the desire to challenge women's exclusion and oppression is much older and geographically diverse. Across every culture, women have organized, educated, written, led, protested, built movements, and created spaces to exercise power and agency long before modern labels existed.

We must also avoid romanticizing this history. Not every women's movement has included every woman, and some feminist histories have been shaped by colonialism, racism, class privilege, and exclusion. If feminism is going to be about equality, it cannot selectively decide which women count.

In Australia, for example, South Australia became the first place in the world where women gained equal political rights to vote and stand for parliament in 1894, followed by federal voting rights for most women in 1902. But the 1902 Commonwealth Franchise Act explicitly excluded First Nations people, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people did not gain equal federal voting rights until 1962.

Progress for some is not progress for all. Women have had to fight for recognition not only because of their gender, but because gender intersects with race, colonization, class, migration, disability, and sexuality.

Feminism does not belong to one country, race, class, religion, or culture. The language and priorities differ, but the struggle for women's dignity and agency has never belonged exclusively to the West.

4. Feminism is about undoing the internal conditioning that keeps us small

This is where the conversation becomes deeply personal for me, and where feminism meets my work through Unmuting You.

In my professional life, I talk to women every day about voice, identity, confidence, and visibility. And I’ve noticed something crucial: many women don’t actually need to be taught how to speak. They need to understand why they have learned to silence themselves.

Women have learned to soften, wait, make themselves smaller, be agreeable, avoid being "too much," question their qualifications, apologize before speaking, carry emotional labor, and read the room before deciding if they are allowed to enter it.

These behaviors aren't just personal quirks; they are often survival strategies. Women don't learn to mute themselves in a vacuum. We do it because, historically, self-silencing was a rational adaptation to environments where unmuted women faced real social, professional, or safety penalties.

Equality isn't only about whether a woman technically has permission to enter the room. It’s about:

• Whether she believes she belongs there.

• Whether she can disagree without being labeled "difficult" or lead without being called "aggressive."

• Whether she can set boundaries without being accused of being selfish.

• Whether she can succeed without abandoning the culture, language, values, and identity that made her who she is.

Systems don't only live in legislation; they live in workplaces, families, communities, and eventually, inside our own heads. The work now isn't just telling women to "speak up"—it's dismantling the penalties they face when they do.

Progress is real, but the work continues

I don't believe feminism requires us to pretend nothing has changed. A great deal has changed, and we should celebrate that.

Since the 1995 Beijing Declaration, the proportion of women in parliaments worldwide has more than doubled, and legal protections against violence have expanded dramatically. Every right we now take for granted was once something someone had to argue for. Someone had to be inconvenient. Someone had to refuse to accept "that's just how things are."

I still call myself a feminist because I believe women should be able to become fully themselves without being punished for it. I believe men deserve freedom from restrictive expectations. I believe our daughters should inherit more choices, our sons should learn that strength does not require dominance, and leadership should not require women to mimic behaviors historically rewarded in men.

If a woman speaking up about inequality makes us more uncomfortable than the inequality itself, perhaps that discomfort is worth examining. Feminism is not asking "How do we make women more powerful than men?" It is asking "Why should someone's gender determine how much power they are allowed to have in the first place?"

Perhaps the real question isn't why we still need feminism.

Perhaps it is: what would the world look like if we finally didn't?

Over to You

When was the last time you found yourself self-editing, softening your voice, or accommodating an inequality simply because it was easier than making waves? What would it take for you to unmute?