International Women’s Day 2026

We’ve marked International Women’s Day a few times in the past, though the last occasion was, shamefully, nearly a decade ago. Each of those posts has struck a broadly optimistic tone, celebrating the resilience of our female comrades in their struggle for equality, but acknowledging the distance still to travel.

I’m finding it hard to maintain a positive outlook this year though. Whatever hope was generated by the signs of a resurgence of progressive politics locally has been all but buried by the outbreak of open-ended war in the Middle East. What’s particularly dispiriting is that the conflict doesn’t even seem to be the result of calculated Realpolitik, which would be bad enough, but rather to be driven by Donald Trump’s desire to project his own brand of toxic masculinity across the globe, which in turn is presumably an unconscious attempt to expunge his shame at dodging the Vietnam draft. It seems extraordinary that an advanced nation like the US can be drawn into such an obviously dangerous course of action by the whims of one unstable man, but apparently that’s where we are. Of course there are other actors in this situation who have their own agendas and motivations, but none of these seem to be particularly well thought out either, so it is very difficult to see how this could play out as anything other than a tragedy.

If you ask me, the Matriarchy can’t come soon enough…