Journalists gathered in front of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza, just hours before a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was set to take effect, celebrating by taking photos and embracing one another on January 18, 2025 [Doaa Albaz - Anadolu Agency]
Journalists gathered in front of the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza, just hours before a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was set to take effect, celebrating by taking photos and embracing one another on January 18, 2025 [Doaa Albaz – Anadolu Agency]
by Majdoulin Almwaka
Every year, on 8 March, we are told, “Happy International Women’s Day (IWD),” as pink logos, corporate platitudes and hollow hashtags flood our screens. The same institutions that uphold patriarchal systems suddenly celebrate women’s “resilience” as if enduring oppression is an achievement. But beyond this performance lies a stark reality: entrenched gender-based violence, systemic inequality and the silencing of women who refuse to conform.
Women across and within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region continue to fight not just for basic rights but also for their very survival. Palestinian women in Gaza under occupation, Sudanese women fleeing conflict and Syrian and Lebanese women resisting economic collapse do not need symbolic recognition; they are leading struggles against deeply entrenched systems of violence and dispossession.
From resistance to co-option: How IWD was depoliticised
This year’s IWD theme, “Accelerate Action”, underscores a bleak reality: at the current pace, full gender parity will not be achieved until 2158**.** Yet, IWD was never meant to be a marketing gimmick. It was a radical cry for justice, ignited by working-class women demanding fair wages and dignity. The first Women’s Day in 1909 was born from garment workers’ strikes—a movement of resistance, not corporate tokenism.
What was once a political day of action has been stripped of its radical core and repackaged into a corporate-friendly event that serves power rather than dismantles it. We are told that progress is reflected in the rise of women CEOs and military commanders in diversity initiatives within fundamentally exploitative institutions while the systems that sustain violence and inequality remain intact. IWD no longer champions collective liberation. Instead, it spotlights the privileged few, reducing feminism to optics rather than a force for systemic change.
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“8 March: The International Women’s Day”. A vintage poster from the Abboudi Bou Jaoude collection commemorates IWD, highlighting the event’s enduring message of resistance and emphasising the ongoing struggle for gender equality and women’s rights. (Image: Courtesy of Abboudi Bou Jaoude Vintage Poster Collection).
Feminism in the MENA region: A history of liberation struggles
Feminism in the MENA region has always struggled for national liberation and self-determination. Arising alongside anti-colonial movements in the late nineteenth century, women fought both gender oppression and foreign rule. In Egypt, the 1923 Egyptian Feminist Union linked gender equality to the broader push for Arab unity. Palestinian women played key roles in resistance, notably in the 1929 Buraq uprising against British rule. Algerian women were central to the armed struggle of the National Liberation Front (FLN) against French colonialism. Across the region, feminism was inseparable from the fight against imperialism.
Yet, today, this radical legacy is often erased. Palestinian women, for instance, have spent over a century resisting occupation—from challenging early Zionist settlements to leading grassroots organising during the first Intifada. They initiated boycotts, sustained resistance movements and endured brutal repression, proving that their fight was never just about rights, but about liberation.
Women under colonial rule have consistently fought on two fronts: against the violence of occupation and the patriarchal structures that facilitate their oppression. Their struggle transcends mere visibility or tokenism; it is about reclaiming sovereignty, identity and fundamental liberties in defiance of systematic attempts to erase them.
Gender violence is political: The war on women’s bodies
Gender-based violence is not incidental; it is systemic, woven into the fabric of oppression. The World Bank states that an estimated 40 per cent of women in the MENA region have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a partner.
Sexual violence is routinely deployed as a weapon of war, used to humiliate and erase entire communities. Palestinian women in Gaza face Israel’s military onslaught, which not only kills their children, but also weaponises their bodies—through forced abortions during bombings, medical neglect and the deliberate destruction of maternal healthcare. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, as of 6 January, 2025, approximately 12,000 women have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, 2023, while a man-made famine threatens tens of thousands more. Simultaneously, the United Nations Population Fund reports that only 19 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals remain partially functional, leaving 50,000 pregnant women without access to life-saving care.
Meanwhile, femicide remains a global epidemic, from so-called “honour” killings in the MENA region to the rise of domestic violence worldwide. According to Amnesty International, the COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated gender-based violence, trapping women with their abusers, while support systems crumbled.
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Economic violence compounds these realities. The Kafala system traps migrant women in exploitative labour conditions, forcing them to sustain economies that refuse to recognise their humanity**.** Women’s unpaid domestic labour fuels the global economy yet remains invisible and devalued. The pandemic only deepened this crisis, disproportionately increasing women’s unpaid care work, while pushing many into further economic insecurity.
From symbolism to solidarity: Reclaiming feminist resistance
As Audre Lorde declared: “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” Liberation requires solidarity across borders, recognising that the fight against patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism is interconnected. It is not about visibility in elite spaces, but fundamentally transforming the structures that uphold inequality. Feminism that prioritises boardroom representation, focusing on diversity without dismantling oppressive systems, is not the feminism that women in the MENA need.
Without collective liberation, change is perfunctory—a vacuous ritual rather than transformative justice.
So, this International Women’s Day, we must ask: what does true solidarity look like? It is not about pink ribbons or corporate sponsorships. It is about standing with the women fighting for liberation every single day. Anything less is not justice—it is complicity.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
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