The movie Anora won five Oscars – including for best film and best original screenplay – earlier this week. The film ties to International Women’s Day, not as a feel-good celebration of women’s achievements but as an unflinching examination of the numerous obstacles and challenges confronting women’s lives and rights.
It casts a stark light at the illusion of choice, mirroring the reality for too many women whose autonomy is still conditioned. This film is a call to question: how free are women’s choices when power – whether it is money, law, the patriarchy – can take them away?
Gains can be reversed if they are seen to endanger the status quo.
Indeed, we have been witnessing legislative rollbacks, softened laws and a creeping erosion of hard-won protections.
Policies once hailed as progressive face dilution or outright reversal, often under the guise of compromise or economic priority, leaving millions of women navigating a landscape where their autonomy becomes increasingly conditional.
Anora points at marginalised women, reminding us to look beyond role models and trailblazers in high places, and see the sex workers (the leading role in the film is of a sex worker), the poor, the immigrants, all of those whose rights are fragile, whose resilience is not celebrated.
We are made to think of the intersectionality which shapes the struggle apart from gender: class, stigma, income, education, ethnic origin, (dis)ability… we are, of course, not dealing with a homogenous group when speaking of the rights of women.
This year, we are marking the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 in Beijing, by 189 governments.
This anniversary, as the United Nations put it, comes “amid growing insecurity and compounding crises, diminishing trust in democracy and shrinking civic space…”
It will take another 134 years to close the gender gap at the current pace- Helena Dalli
The United Nations theme for International Women’s Day is ‘For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment’.
It is a timely call for action to unlock equal rights, power and opportunities for all and where the unsung are not left behind.
Gender equality is at the very heart of the European Union. It is a principle enshrined in the Treaties since 1957, and, yet, it is still not the lived reality and much remains to be done – in some member states much more than in others – to achieve effective gender-equal societies and economies.
Globally, the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Gender Gap Report estimates it will take another 134 years to close the gap at the current pace.
And, thus, the importance of the EU Gender Equality Strategy for us, to build a Europe where women and men, girls and boys, in all their diversity, are equal, can thrive and lead by ensuring freedom from gender-based violence and gender stereotypes; making certain that women and men have equal opportunities to thrive in their personal lives and on the labour market; and guaranteeing that women and men have equal chances to lead.
Gender equality can only be truly achieved if women are equally participating in society and all the voices and needs are equally taken into account in decision-making processes.
Only then will choice not be just an illusion. In the meantime, we celebrate the resilience of the millions of silent women around the world – those who endure, adapt and overcome in the face of innumerable challenges, without recognition.
Happy Women’s Day.
Helena Dalli is a former European commissioner.