The Year 2158? Seriously?, Daily Brief March 3, 2025

Looking ahead to International Women’s Day on Saturday, the good news is, there has been progress in women’s rights and gender equality in many places around the world over the last century or two.

The bad news is, it’s so slow, we’re talking in terms of centuries.

A World Economic Forum report last year put the issue in stark terms. It looked at the goal of gender parity, that is the equal contribution of women and men to all dimensions of life, public and private. Obviously, we’re not there yet. While the global gender gap has been closing, it’s going to take a long, long time before there’s full parity.

At the current rate, it won’t happen until the year 2158. That’s about five generations away. Seriously?

Now, of course, the World Economic Forum’s estimate of 2158 is just one expert analysis, and it depends on various assumptions.

Their report breaks down the problem into four separate gender gaps, and progress in some is better than in others. The gap in “Health and Survival” and the gap in “Educational Attainment” have been closing more quickly than the gap in “Economic Participation and Opportunity.” The gap in “Political Empowerment” remains largest of all.

What’s more, there are regional variations around the globe. The report authors reckon gender parity might be achieved in just two or three generations in some parts of the world, but seven or more in others.

But regardless of the region, at the current rate of progress we’re still talking about generations before humanity achieves gender parity. Generations.

You won’t live to see it. Nor will your kids. Nor likely will your grandkids.

That’s just not good enough.

The reasons progress is so slow are many. However, resistance often comes from people referring to “tradition.” As if “tradition” somehow justifies inequality.

The rise of authoritarian-minded leaders – and there’s a lot of that going around these days – reinforces the pushback against the concept of equality. The rights of women and girls is often one of the first things they target.

We saw this with Poland’s last government, in the US under Trump, and with the Taliban in Afghanistan, to name just a few examples where “tradition” is used to justify enforcing inequality and denying basic freedoms.

That the World Economic Forum report shows “Political Empowerment” making the slowest progress in narrowing the gender gap speaks volumes. The issue is largely about power. Who gets to define “tradition” is about power.

The self-serving logic of those preventing progress is essentially, “In our society, we men have power and you women don’t. That’s our society’s tradition.”

Oh, well, that’s convenient for you guys, isn’t it?

And wherever you have significant power imbalances, of course, you’re more likely to see human rights abuses.

Asking people to wait till the year 2158 for basic equality is ridiculous. The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “Accelerate Action” for gender equality.

I can’t think of a better message.