Gender equality in 2025
Kaitlin Dryburgh
The coming year could and should be a landmark one for gender equality.
The global context, however, presents a rather bleak picture in some respects. We face the looming second presidency of Donald Trump, a man whose track record includes rolling back women's rights and who has long supported policies that undermine gender equality. His presidency is a direct threat to gender equality, and even election results have seen a troubling rise in sexism on social media.
Alongside this, we witness the rise of figures like Elon Musk and Andrew Tate, whose extreme views should arguably be ignored but worryingly maintain loyal followings. While the real impact of these individuals may not be as vast as some believe, their influence on the public discourse cannot be overlooked.
Unfortunately, nothing can compare to the oppression that the women of Afghanistan face. We’re way past abusing the occasional human rights, the Taliban government have turned the clocks back to the middle-ages and women have basically been eroded from society. No education, no free movement, no free speech (or even raised voices ever), no healthcare provided by a man, yet no female health professionals allowed, no sport, and now no windows are allowed to overlook places where women are typically found (e.g the kitchen or well). Aside from witch trials, I don’t think the picture could look any bleaker for the women of Afghanistan.
Sadly, the plight of Afghan women is not receiving the global attention it deserves. With ongoing wars and conflicts in places such as Sudan—where gender-based violence is on the rise—it seems that globally, progress toward gender equality is stagnating. For all our efforts, we cannot ignore the reality that the most vulnerable remain just as oppressed as before.
Turning to the Western world, including countries like the UK and Scotland, while we may not face the same extreme conditions as those in Afghanistan or Sudan, we must still ask: Has the feminist movement truly progressed in recent years? My answer is a cautious no, or at best, progress in the wrong direction.
What I would like to see in 2025 is a re-energized, genuine feminist movement. The key word here is movement—something we’re lacking. The current liberal approach to feminism has become stagnant and overly individualistic. It’s time to move beyond keyboard activism and the shallow conversations on social media that have proven ineffective in advancing real change.
Movements like #MeToo were founded with an important and honest mission: to highlight sexual harassment, gender inequality, and the struggles women face in daily life. However, as we approach the tenth anniversary of #MeToo we must ask: What has actually changed? Has it led to lasting improvements for the everyday woman, or has it only benefited the careers of successful actresses? In Scotland, one in five women will still experience domestic violence in their lifetime, the gender pay gap has increased, and pockets of misogyny persist in society. These are the real issues that demand our attention, that we need to focus on.
Instead, we seem to have fallen into the trap of focusing on isolated incidents, calling out individual men—often celebrities—on social media, and treating that as a victory for gender equality. The peak of cancel culture may have convinced us that by "cancelling" a man, we’re achieving broader social progress. In reality, these actions are far less effective than they appear.
The waves of feminism can be debated but the moment consumerism and feminism started to be considered a partnership, ‘we’ became an ‘I’. The movement shifted to individualistic values, the lines became blurred and all of a sudden the issue of choice was central to feminism and the empowerment it brought (I don’t mean important aspects such as reproductive choice or career choice). But the perceived importance of #freethenipple, the choice of sex work, or the choice to wear whatever you want, even if it’s just completely inappropriate. We’ve been told to interpret this as empowerment and believe it helps strive for gender equality. That somehow taking offensive words that were used against women and magically deeming them non-offensive makes them empowering.
Furthermore, it’s an incredibly white and Western way to look at feminism/gender equality.
For me the pinnacle of this is the Barbie movie. The apparent biggest feminism happening in years, delivered by a multinational toy company. A powerful monologue that spoke for a portion of women was supposed to really to challenge the dialogue, meanwhile it explored the relationship between men and women in a really surface-level way, which didn’t reveal anything new. It’s just laughable that the feminist win came in the form of Barbie. The only winner being Mattel and once again capitalism.
Can we just stop looking to Hollywood for change, it’s never really worked before.
Social media will also not spawn the progress we need. It is not in its interest to do so, social media is not designed to improve equality of any kind. On the whole it’s a cesspit of misogyny. It’s helped to spawn the likes of Andrew Tate and friends. I would argue that he is a bi-product of the failures of the Fourth-wave feminism. The thought that we kind of have to put men down, cancel any man that says anything controversial and dismiss the fact that sometimes we’re fighting for the same thing, and men are not to be included I believe has helped to create the Andrew Tate's of the world. It is by no means the sole cause, however it sure as heck isn’t the solution. You can’t cancel the uncancellable.
So my hopes for 2025 is that when it comes to gender equality we focus on the actual issues, the problems facing the majority of women on a day-to-day basis and work with each other to put pressure on the right people and institutions. We can’t buy our way out of our problems, tweet our way out of it, or cancel a certain number of people. We need to find a way to come together