Despite significant gains in recent years, women around the world continue to face challenges to their rights and their participation in public life. Women and girls around the world still experience high levels of physical and sexual violence, undergo female genital mutilation and are forced into marriage. Women are under-represented in leadership roles, and those in public life are frequently subjected to sexism and prejudice and publicly undermined for being female. And at this politically turbulent time, progress for women appears to be in reverse: women in twenty countries across the world marched for their rights last month, while the reinstatement of the ‘global gag rule’ by President Trump has blocked women in the poorest parts of the world from accessing safe abortions and contraception.  

Is the backlash against women growing, and is it a global phenomenon? How is the world responding? And what will it really take for women globally to achieve equality?  

On International Women’s Day, ODI convenes a debate with women from around the world exploring how to fight the backlash against women.