Why do I feel like I’m doing International Womxn’s Day wrong?

I’ve done all the things. I’ve texted my friends, I’ve wished them a happy International Womxn’s Day. I’ve bought tickets to womxn-led events, supported womxn-run businesses, donated to WAGEC, and carved out time to be part of conversations about empowerment. But something about today feels uneasy—like I’m chasing a feeling that won’t quite land.

I am celebrating. But I keep asking myself: Am I doing it wrong?

Maybe it’s because I scroll through images of highly curated panels and front-row-only feminists and feel a sharp pang of exhaustion. The perfection of empowerment branding. The exclusivity of inclusion. The way this day—one meant to be about all womxn—seems to elevate only a few. I see the same faces, the same voices, the same glossy version of feminism, and I wonder if I should be doing more, or if I should be doing less.

Or maybe it’s because all my celebratory moments feel laced with contradiction.

I’ll sit down to dinner at a womxn-run restaurant, but I’ll be thinking about all the womxn who lost their jobs after speaking up in the Swillhouse case. I’ll donate to WAGEC, an organization doing life-changing work to support womxn escaping gender-based violence, and I’ll feel an overwhelming sense of anger that we even need charities like this—that there’s never enough money, never enough space to meet the sheer scale of suffering.

And maybe, just maybe, I feel this way because I spent years completing my master’s to research the immeasurable experience of womxnhood—to examine the paradoxes and invisible weights womxn carry every day. And today, that weight feels particularly heavy.

The Reality We Can’t Ignore

The truth is, there is no right way to show up for International Womxn’s Day. But it does feel increasingly difficult to frame it as a day of celebration when the statistics continue to paint a grim picture:

• Womxn make up 51% of the population, yet hold 70% of the world’s poverty, do 66% of the work, and earn only 11% of the global income

• The gender pay gap in Australia remains at 21.7%

• 69 womxn were violently murdered by men in Australia in 2024. It’s only March, and already in 2025, 9 womxn and 3 children have been killed due to male violence

• 1 in 4 womxn will experience sexual violence in their lifetime. 1 in 2 womxn will experience sexual harassment

• Today, Apple quietly erased International Womxn’s Day from its calendar. A small, deliberate move with a loud message: womxn’s struggles and achievements are disposable. Stripping the date from public recognition is an attempt to mute and silence those fighting for equality

And yet, womxn are still held accountable for male violence—asked why they stayed, why they walked home alone, why they didn’t report it sooner. The invisible system of patriarchy keeps rewarding masculine aggression while demanding feminine compliance.

This isn’t just a "fight for equality" anymore. It’s a fight against regression. Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, put it bluntly: "International Womxn’s Day is no longer a case of addressing unfinished business on the gender justice front, but one of bracing ourselves to resist active regression and a mounting assault on our rights."

The Paradoxes of Womxnhood

To be a womxn is to exist in a paradox.

We are told to be independent, but penalized for being too strong.
We are told to love ourselves, but only if we fit into a specific beauty standard.
We are told we can have it all, but motherhood and career ambitions still come at a cost.
We are expected to be perfect, yet never made to feel enough.

And the micro-moments of womxnhood—the learned behaviors, the quiet compromises—reinforce the reality we rarely say out loud. Carrying your keys between your fingers. Covering your drink at the bar. Texting your friends when you get home. Shrinking in meetings because you don’t feel confident enough to speak. These moments tell the real story of our lives under patriarchy.

Celebrating While Holding the Contradictions

Maybe IWD feels strange because The Georgie Collective is built for womxn every single day of the year. It doesn’t need a campaign or a hashtag or a perfectly curated event. It’s about something deeper. Something lasting. Something Georgie—my best friend, and the reason this collective exists—would be proud of.

It’s why we’ve never hosted an International Womxn’s Day event – the space feels fleeting. But this year, I launched something real—a product created for womxn, by womxn. It’s called Queen of Hearts, a card game designed to cut through the small talk and spark real conversations—the kind that go beyond the surface. Because if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that connection and conversations means everything. And yet, I hesitated to promote it. Because even when we create, build, and lead, we second-guess our right to take up space. We shrink ourselves, even in the spaces we carve out for womxn. But here’s the truth: there is no right or wrong way to connect. Just like there’s no right or wrong way to show up for IWD. What matters is that we do.

So What Now?

There’s no roadmap. No perfect way to navigate today. No singular solution—because there is no singular experience of womxnhood.

What I do know is that womxn need space, community, and connection. We thrive in tribes. We move forward together. And while the statistics are bleak and the systems feel immovable, what we can do is refuse to stay silent.

Call out misogyny. Call out everyday sexism. Challenge the invisible systems that keep us small. Because today isn’t just about acknowledging how far we’ve come. It’s about making damn sure we don’t go backward.

Note: The spelling of ‘womxn’ is intentional and is used at the intersection of feminism, as an alternative spelling to avoid the suggestion of sexism perceived in the sequences m-a-n and m-e-n, and to be inclusive of trans and non-binary womxn.