Balancing the scales of safety and power

by Anita Jahid

ON A busy working day, a woman stands at a crowded bus stop and shifts her scarf slightly, careful to conceal the faint bruise on her arm, the mark she received at home the night before. As she boards the bus, she clutches her bag tighter when the vehicle lurches forward. She is not only trying to keep her balance; she is calculating risk: where to stand, how to avoid unwanted contact, and whether she should get off early. The calculation does not end when she steps off the bus. It continues at work, where reporting harassment may cost her job; online, where a single photo can invite blackmail or abuse; and again at home, where silence may feel safer than speaking out. For many Bangladeshi women, this is the everyday arithmetic of inequality: a constant negotiation for safety, mobility, income, voice, and dignity.

Each year on 8th March, like the rest of the world, Bangladesh observes International Women’s Day with speeches, seminars, rallies, and celebratory messages about progress. These moments matter. They acknowledge women’s contributions and keep gender equality on the national agenda. But if the day ends with applause, we miss its most important purpose. International Women’s Day should function as a national checkpoint, an annual audit of whether Bangladesh is genuinely correcting the structural imbalances that shape women’s access to safety, opportunity, and power.

Bangladesh has made undeniable progress. Over the past three decades, girls’ education has expanded, gender gaps in schooling have narrowed, and maternal and child health indicators have improved. The ready-made garments sector has integrated millions of women into paid employment, reshaping household economies and aspirations. Microfinance and community-based initiatives have expanded financial inclusion and supported women’s entrepreneurship. These gains are evident and deserve recognition. Yet progress has been uneven and, in critical areas, shallow in depth. A country can improve headline indicators while leaving intact the deeper systems that reproduce inequality. The question in 2026 is not whether Bangladesh has advanced; it is whether those advances have fundamentally shifted the everyday realities of women’s lives.

This year’s International Women’s Day theme, ‘Balance the Scales', is a promise that every woman and girl, regardless of background, identity, or geography, should be safe, heard, and free to shape her own future. It calls for confronting deep-rooted inequalities in safety, mobility, and economic participation. These barriers are built through policy and norms and can be dismantled. But that requires Women’s Day to function not as a ritual of reassurance but as a checkpoint for meaningful reform.

In Bangladesh, insecurity continues to weigh heavily on streets, in workplaces, online, and inside homes. Gender-based violence is not an isolated crime; it is a systemic barrier that limits mobility, employment, and participation. Public harassment restricts movement. Workplace abuse discourages advancement. Within households, domestic violence, including sexual abuse and financial and coercive control, remains deeply entrenched. For many women, the most unsafe space is not the street, but their own home. This is not a private issue; it is a development failure. Violence damages physical and mental health, reduces labour force participation, harms children’s wellbeing, and entrenches inequality across generations. Although Bangladesh has legal frameworks addressing domestic violence and sexual offences, implementation remains weak. Stigma, pressure to reconcile, fear of retaliation, slow case processing, and limited survivor services undermine accountability. Protection cannot remain symbolic. It must be visible in institutional performances.

Visibility, however, is not the same as power. Bangladesh often points to women’s visibility in politics and public life as evidence of progress. Women are present in local government, civil society, media, and segments of the workforce. Yet visibility does not automatically translate into influence. Reserved seats increase presence, but agenda-setting power and budget control often remain elsewhere. Participation without decision-making power keeps the scale uneven. Structural change requires leadership pipelines. Political parties must ensure transparent nomination processes, protect women candidates from intimidation, and provide equitable access to campaign resources. Public and private institutions must create clear promotion pathways so women reach senior civil service positions, corporate boards, and executive leadership where national priorities and workplace cultures are shaped.

The expansion of the RMG sector in Bangladesh remains one of the most significant social transformations. Women’s wages have strengthened household bargaining power and contributed to poverty reduction. But employment concentration in low-wage, labour-intensive sectors reveals structural limits. Economic empowerment cannot be measured solely by the number of women employed. It must include job quality, wage fairness, occupational mobility, safety, and bargaining power. Women’s labour force participation remains substantially lower than men’s, and wage gaps persist. As growth becomes more skill- and technology-driven, women must access emerging industries, not remain confined to the lowest tiers of the economy. Investment in digital literacy, technical education, and STEM pathways is essential. Equal pay enforcement and safe working conditions must extend across both formal and informal sectors.

Yet another imbalance lies in unpaid care work. Working women in Bangladesh often carry a double burden that functions like a hidden tax. Beyond their paid employment, they remain socially expected to shoulder primary responsibility for childcare, eldercare, cooking, and household management. Even when they contribute significantly to household income, domestic labour is still treated as their duty. This imbalance creates time poverty. After completing a full workday, many women begin a second shift at home. The hours spent on unpaid care work labour that sustains families and the broader economy are largely unrecognised in economic policy and national accounting. The economic value of household work is substantial, yet because it is unpaid and feminised, it remains invisible.

The consequences extend beyond exhaustion. Time poverty restricts opportunities for professional advancement, skills development, leadership, and civic participation. It narrows mobility and reinforces structural inequality. Treating care as a private obligation rather than economic infrastructure entrenches this imbalance. Affordable childcare, flexible work arrangements, and community-based support systems are not secondary benefits; they are structural prerequisites for equality. Until unpaid care work is recognised, redistributed, and supported, working women will continue to pay a silent double tax in time, labour, and opportunity.

Bangladesh’s digital transformation offers unprecedented opportunities for women. Yet technology-facilitated harassment, impersonation, non-consensual image sharing, and blackmail create new forms of exclusion. Fear of online abuse can silence women just as effectively as fear in physical spaces. Digital access without digital safety is not empowering. Institutional responses, including cyber support services, are important. But digital safety must be treated as a core pillar of gender policy, supported by faster reporting systems, strong enforcement, and widespread digital literacy.

International Women’s Day should not be the annual moment when Bangladesh congratulates itself. It should be the moment when the country measures its progress against women’s lived realities. Balancing the scales requires clear and practical commitments. Laws against domestic violence, sexual abuse, and harassment must be enforced consistently. Survivor-centred services must be accessible, confidential, and properly funded. Public transport and workplaces must be made safer. Women’s access to higher-productivity sectors must expand. Care infrastructure must be established and accessible to reduce time poverty. Digital spaces must be secured as part of the national development strategy.

The barriers women face are not accidental. They are built through policy, institutional weakness, and persistent norms, and they will not disappear without deliberate reform.

When that woman at the crowded bus stop no longer has a bruise to hide beneath her scarf, when she can step into public space without carrying the violence of the night before, when she can board a bus without tightening her grip in anticipation, when reporting harassment does not threaten her livelihood, when online participation does not expose her to blackmail, and when her unpaid household labour is recognised and shared, freeing her from carrying the full weight of care alone, only then will Bangladesh know that the scales are truly balanced. This Women’s Day, celebration must be paired with reform. Equality should not remain a theme repeated each March. It must become a lived, everyday reality for Bangladesh’s women and girls.

 Dr Anita Jahid is an academic and researcher specialising in climate migration, focusing on women's vulnerabilities and survival strategies. She holds a position as a Casual Academic at Western Sydney University.