Seventeen reasons why International Women’s Day exists and an invitation to European men to get into action mode.

TW: This article contains information about sexual/domestic violence, sexual assault, rape

Since the early twentieth century, International Women’s Day has been celebrated annually on March 8. On this day, the social, economic, and political achievements of women worldwide are honored. It reflects on the progress of the past decades but also on the major problems that still exist – or have reemerged. International Women’s Day looks at the position of women. It is a day of awareness, reflection, and activism. A day of feminism, emancipation, and equality. But also the day when the question is frequently asked, “Why isn’t there an International Men’s Day?

Well, dear men, there is! Annually on November 19. Of course, that is also an important day. To reflect on men’s mental health, for example. To vandalize credos like boys don’t cry. Feel free to dwell on this at length.

But still, it’s a man’s world. So the fact that International Women’s Day is getting more attention is not surprising. In the words of Jens van Tricht, Director of the Emancipator Foundation: “The time of year when [International Men’s Day] is Googled the most is [on] International Women’s Day. That’s when men think they are excluded. (…) The image that International Men’s Day conjures up is, [however,] that there is a symmetry in inequality between men and women. That men in the world have it just as bad in the world as women. That, of course, is a very skewed ratio.”

Since International Women’s Day is very important, Shaping Europe reflects on it at length in this column. After all, things are not going so well at all yet. Worldwide, and thus also in Europe. All the more so because: 

• The Gender Equality Index gives the European Union (EU) an average score of 71 out of 100, leaving some countries with averages between 50 and 60, such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Hungary and Romania.
• About a third of European countries have never had a female prime minister or president, including the Netherlands.
• While holding the same job, women in the EU earn an average of 12.7% less than their male counterparts. That means women work an average of almost two months a year “for free.” Estonia has the largest gender pay gap, with a difference as high as 21.3% (!), followed by Austria with 18.4%.
• In several EU member states, the number of femicide victims (the murder of a woman because of her gender – often by an ex-partner, partner, or relative) is not tracked. Femicide is underreported by many authorities anyway. This makes it difficult to estimate the number of victims. We do know that a woman is murdered every 8 days in the Netherlands, in 6 out of 10 cases by her (ex-)partner. There is no special legislation in most countries. 
• Many EU member states do not comply with the Istanbul Convention (Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence) or have not ratified it at all. Examples include the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Lithuania. 
• Almost every woman has experienced (street) harassment. A third of European women have also experienced physical or sexual violence.
• Since Meta, the company behind Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, changed its course, it is now allowed to describe women on Facebook as “household objects” or “property”. Homosexuality may also be described there as a “mental illness” and white people as “superior”.
• A German Telegram group with 70,000 (!) members was discovered in late 2024, sharing tips on how to drug and sexually abuse women. I do not think I am being cynical when I say that this is by no means the only perverse group chat in Europe. This also means that Gisèle Pelicot is not the only one. Pelicot, a French woman, was (unknowingly) drugged and raped for years by her husband and dozens of other men. She gave up her anonymity to testify publicly at the 2024 trial. In doing so, she became a symbol in the fight against sexual violence
• The female winner of the Two Nights Tour, a ski jumping tournament for women, won a “well-filled” toiletry bag. Her male colleague received 3,000 Swiss francs or 3,200 euros.
• The prize money of the 2022 European Women’s Football Championship was 16 million euros, compared to 371 million euros for men. You do not have to argue ‘That’s because men’s football is more popular and has more ratings’, because: the ratings may be three times higher for men’s soccer, but the prize money goes up 23 times. In proportion? Don’t think so.
• 8 in 10 British teenagers have seen Andrew Tate’s videos. The number of young British men who have seen material by Tate is even higher than the number who have heard of Rishi Sunak – at the time of the poll the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Nearly half of those surveyed also view Tate positively. For those who don’t know, Tate is suspected of human trafficking, rape, and fornication with minors, among other things.
• Abortion rights in Europe are under pressure. You can read more about that in this extensive article.
• In all EU countries except Ireland, men report better health than women. Women’s life expectancy is higher in the EU, but they live more years in poor(er) health.
• On average, 35 percent of managers in Europe are women, while 65 percent are men. Sweden leads the ranking, with 44 percent of managers being women. Latvia, Poland, and Bulgaria also have above-average numbers of female managers. The Netherlands, with a percentage of female managers of 30 percent, is among the lowest in the Union. Only Germany, Italy, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Croatia, and Luxembourg have an even lower proportion of female managers.
• European women are structurally disadvantaged in health care. This is due to a combination of medical prejudice, social inequalities, and a lack of gender-specific research. For example, cardiovascular diseases in women are often recognized later because their symptoms differ from the ‘male model’ on which diagnostics are based. Also, pain symptoms in women are trivialized faster and more often than in men. In addition, economic inequalities play a role: women earn less on average and more often work in precarious employment. As a result, they sometimes have fewer opportunities to pay healthcare costs. Moreover, women generally take on a greater share of unpaid care/work (such as child care, elderly care, et cetera), leaving them with less time to care for themselves. This hinders their access to care.  
• About 50% of women and only 6% of men in the EU are primarily responsible for the personal and physical care (feeding, bathing, changing diapers, et cetera) of their children.
• In 25 of the 27 EU member states, the poverty rate is higher for women than for men. This can lead to menstrual poverty in some cases. Only four EU member states (Spain, Belgium, Ireland, and France) have introduced national measures to address this.
• The proportion of female MEPs is structurally much lower than the proportion of male MEPs. In fact, in the 2024 elections, the percentage of female MEPs fell for the first time since 1979. Currently, 39% of MEPs are women and 61% are men. By the way, several other EU institutions are also experiencing a decline in the percentage of women.

The above list of examples could easily have been longer. With this, the relevance of International Women’s Day seems more than clear. Does this mean that everything is only bad in Europe? No. But as long as half of the European population is structurally disadvantaged, there is no real progress. International Women’s Day is therefore not a symbolic or ‘unfair’ day; it is a harsh reminder of what still needs to be done – a call to action, in other words.

In short, European men, look around you! Acknowledge the wrongs happening right before your eyes. Don’t Google directly to International Men’s Day next March 8, but talk to your friends about (sexual) harassment. Take action to better distribute unpaid care at home. Join a protest march. Forget Andrew Tate. Vote for a woman in the next election. You can stay on the sidelines, but ultimately gender inequality affects us all. Unfortunately, it does not disappear by itself. So International Women’s Day does not exclude men; on the contrary, it is an invitation to contribute to an emancipated Europe. 

Loes ter Horst has a master’s degree in Crisis and Security Management (Leiden University) and a master’s degree in Middle East Studies (University of Amsterdam). Before this, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences with a major in International Governance (USBO, Utrecht University).

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