Why Women’s Empowerment Won’t End Gender Inequality- A 2025 Update
Picture credit: Ninno JackJr on Unsplash
We can free the next generation from oppressive gender norms. Why wait?
When I first started working in global health and development more than two decades ago, “women’s empowerment” was everywhere. I sat in strategy meetings where empowerment was the headline promise, designed programs where it was the goal, and led trainings where it was the outcome we sought. It felt hopeful—like we were part of a wave that would change women’s lives for the better.
But I quickly learned that empowerment alone was not enough. In Guatemala, a mentee I supported often missed work because her husband beat her. In Tanzania, while working on an HIV-prevention program that confronted harmful male norms—including gender-based violence—I was told that in some communities women believe they aren’t loved unless their husbands beat them. And in Nepal, community health volunteers described women still being isolated in cow sheds during menstruation, despite laws prohibiting the practice. Skills and confidence helped individual women—but the surrounding norms, laws, and power structures kept constraining their choices.
Today, in 2025, I see the limits of that framing more clearly than ever.
In 2024, the U.S. Rescissions Act cut billions from USAID’s international assistance budget, hollowing out programs on gender equality, education, and health. The UK has backed away from its pledge to devote 80% of aid to gender equality projects. UN agencies themselves face funding cuts of nearly 20%, forcing even their flagship gender initiatives to scale down. And across regions where I’ve worked—Latin America, Asia, and Africa—feminist organizations tell me they are closing offices and laying off staff. They are the very groups best placed to shift norms and hold power to account, and yet they still receive less than 1% of global aid.
This isn’t just numbers on a spreadsheet. For me, it’s also the quiet emails I now get from colleagues asking if I know of bridge funding to keep their doors open. It’s the women leaders I’ve mentored who tell me they may have to abandon their programs just when they’re needed most. It feels like the floor is dropping out from under us.
The Problem With Empowerment Alone
I remember facilitating a workshop years ago where a donor proudly presented a new “women’s leadership toolkit.” It was full of tips for boosting women’s confidence, teaching negotiation skills, and supporting entrepreneurship. But as I listened, I thought: what about the men who still control household finances? The discriminatory laws? The health systems that send women home unheard?
That tension has only grown sharper. Empowerment has always been easier to sell to donors than structural change. It’s apolitical, it makes for good photos, and it offers a success story without having to wrestle with power. But empowerment alone—without changing institutions, laws, and norms—doesn’t dismantle inequality. And in today’s environment of shrinking funds and rising backlash, it risks becoming a fig leaf that hides regression.
What I’ve Seen
Over the years I’ve worked in more than 20 countries, I’ve seen what real change looks like: governments reforming health policies to respond to gender-based violence, ministries adopting gender analysis to design services that actually meet women’s needs, communities shifting norms around caregiving and decision-making. Those were not quick wins. They required political courage, strong feminist movements, and sustained funding.
Today, I worry that the pendulum is swinging backwards. We are not only under-funding systemic change; we are under attack from those who dismiss gender equality as “ideology.” In some spaces, even saying the word “gender” has become contentious again.
Why I’m Still Hopeful
Even in this difficult moment, there are sparks of possibility. The Gates Foundation’s $2.5 billion pledge to women’s health research is one such spark. The resilience of grassroots leaders I’ve met—who continue their work even with shoestring budgets—is another.
For me, this isn’t abstract. It’s about the women I’ve worked alongside in clinics in the Philippines, in policy offices in Latin America, and in village meetings in East Africa. Their empowerment matters. But it matters most when it is connected to movements, policies, and systems that shift power at its root.
So what would real change look like?
First, it means acknowledging gender inequality as systemic and political—not a technical problem that training can solve. Second, it requires channeling resources to feminist movements, especially those led by women in the Global South, who continue to receive less than 1% of aid despite being the most effective change agents. Third, it means resisting the dilution of gender equality into apolitical “empowerment” projects. And fourth, it requires donors and governments to stand firm against anti-gender narratives, not retreat from them.
A Call to Recommit
Women’s empowerment remains important. But empowerment alone—without accountability, without structural transformation, and without solidarity—will not deliver equality. If we stop at empowerment, we risk leaving the roots of inequality not only intact but strengthened.
The challenge ahead is to move from rhetoric to structural reform. The challenge in 2025 is to resist retreat and to recommit. We need donors to restore and expand funding for gender justice. We need governments to uphold rights rather than strip them away. And we need to amplify feminist movements that are holding the line in the face of unprecedented backlash.
Final Thought
I wrote back in 2019 that empowerment alone would not end gender inequality. In 2025, that argument feels less like analysis and more like a warning.
Empowerment can open a door. But equality requires us to dismantle the walls that keep most people locked out. And that work—messy, political, structural—is where we must double down, not retreat.