Thirteen years ago, I wrote that gender is a poverty and public health issue. Sadly, that statement is more urgent today than it was even then. Across the world, women’s rights—the foundation of community well-being and collective progress—are being systematically eroded. From legislative attacks on reproductive autonomy to the silencing of women’s voices in politics, economics, and healthcare, gender inequality continues to shape who thrives and who struggles to survive.
Public health cannot be separated from human rights. Where women’s rights are restricted, maternal mortality rises, access to healthcare shrinks, and poverty deepens across generations. The gender gap does not simply reflect inequality, it reproduces it, embedding disadvantage in the health of families and communities.
Today, the world watches on as women and girls in Gaza, Sudan, and too many conflict zones across the world, endure unthinkable suffering—displacement, hunger, sexual violence, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. In each crisis, women’s bodies bear the scars of war and political collapse, yet their resilience sustains what remains of public health systems, education, and the fragile threads of community life. To speak of health in these contexts means confronting gendered violence head-on.
In the Western world also, our own rights are under pressure: the curbing of reproductive healthcare access, rising gender-based violence, and social systems that continue to undervalue care work—the invisible labour upon which all health systems depend. Globally, the rise of religious fundamentalism and authoritarian politics threatens to normalize the subordination of women as a matter of cultural identity or “traditional values.” These trends are not just ideological—they are epidemiological. Inequality kills.
On this International Women’s Day, March 8, 2026, we honour those who march, resist, and rebuild—often at great personal cost. As public health professionals, we cannot stay silent in the face of regression. Health equity demands gender equity. To defend women’s rights is to defend health itself.
