Less equality, more problems: what’s at stake in our society

Yanina Welp – Albert Hirschman Democracy Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute and Network of Women Political Scientists

In 1913, suffragette Emily Davison was run over by King George V’s horse while trying to put up a banner calling for women’s right to vote. Her death was no accident, but the result of a direct confrontation with a system that denied women their political autonomy. More than a century later, the tensions around women’s rights are still present, albeit in new forms and with new actors.

Each context is different. In Spain, until 1972, a woman under the age of 25 could not become independent without explicit parental permission unless it was to entrust herself to God or to another man (convent or marriage). Until 1975, a married woman needed her husband’s authorisation to work outside the home. The list could go on and on. With democracy, things began to change. In 1981 divorce was introduced and later on voluntary termination of pregnancy was regulated. Much progress has been made since then.

Quota laws have made it possible to expand women’s political representation. Argentina was the first country to introduce them in 1991 and since then they have been expanded and adapted – with better or worse performance, depending on the case – in many countries. Mexico established parity democracy and in 2024 elected its first female president, Claudia Scheinbaum. The trend is widespread: a UN report showed that in 2023, for the first time in history, there will be women in all parliaments worldwide.

However, inequality persists in the marketplace, in access to leadership positions, in participation in scientific fields, in the media and so on. To illustrate this with data, a study published by The Economist in March 2025 shows that in OECD countries the average wage gap is 11.4% (The glass-ceiling index). At the University of Zurich, although women account for 58% of students and 54% of doctoral students, they hold only 23% of faculty positions. Gender biases affect all areas of society, as shown, among many others, by the low presence of women in science. Violence against women is increasingly a topic of political debate, with the radical right denying its relevance as an aggravating factor. Inequality has dire political, social, human and economic consequences.

But there is also a notable confusion. The radical right represents the ultimate expression of reactionary conservatism and, contradictorily enough, there are prominent women in its ranks (Giorgia Meloni, Marine Le Pen) and even cases such as Alice Weidel, the leader of Alternative for Germany, who is a lesbian, married to a Filipino immigrant and has adopted two girls. At the other extreme, there is pinkwashing, which alludes to a showcase of actions that suggest the greater representation of women, but are not so much. An example of this is the composition of the Cuban National Assembly, which has 55% female legislators. However, this is not where the important decisions are taken.

The examples are endless, but I want to highlight three key points. First, the facts belie the expectation that greater wealth and/or greater institutionalisation produce equality. In Switzerland, although there has been notable progress in women’s representation in the legislature, at the sub-national level the authorities are overwhelmingly male. Education is free, but care services are not public and have very high costs so that until children start compulsory schooling, the system encourages mothers to stay at home. Wage inequality is still considerable and as a result women’s pensions are much lower (they contribute less, have fewer opportunities to move up the career ladder, etc.). The same can be observed in studies on the entry of women into positions in Latin American academia, which show that greater institutionalisation sometimes acts as a block to the increased presence of women rather than as an incentive.

Second, women’s autonomy is the enemy of the extreme right. This does not mean that there are no women in their ranks, as mentioned above. But their parties promote an agenda that seeks to restrict rights and perpetuate a traditional family model as the pillar of society. They seek to restrict women’s ability to make decisions about their own bodies, their professional lives and their political participation. Vox in Spain, for example, denies the existence of gender-based violence and fights any policy of equality with the argument that it imposes a ‘gender ideology’. This strategy is not only a matter of conviction, but a political tool: by polarising the debate around gender, the extreme right mobilises its electorate and diverts attention from other structural problems.

Finally, feminism broke new ground when it argued that the personal was political. These are not ‘women’s issues’, it is a matter of rights that define the political community we are and aspire to be. That women are invisibilised or limited in their professional development and/or are underrepresented in politics and in any sphere of social activity is a problem for democracy and for coexistence.

Beyond a day of commemoration, the challenge is permanent: democracy will not be complete as long as inequality persists. Rights depend on collective action.