Every year, around 8 March, we watch the same rhythm unfold.
It’s time we confront an uncomfortable truth: much of what is celebrated, in fact, is carefully packaged optics and tokenism.
Who Is Benefitting from Celebrating International Women’s Day? Not the women!
The growing spectacle around Women’s Day has become a moment that benefits everyone—brands gain relevance, institutions signal virtue, ecosystems appear inclusive. But beyond the optics, the lived reality for women remains largely unchanged. The messaging gets sharper. The intent feels stronger. The visibility is undeniable.
And yet, I find myself returning to a far more uncomfortable truth—I still see women burning the candle at both ends.
Holding ambition in one hand, responsibility in the other. Building businesses, leading teams, while quietly carrying an invisible load that rarely makes it into boardroom conversations.
So I have to ask—what exactly are we celebrating?
Data Says It Better
Because if data, studies and trends show us something, it is that celebration without structural shift is beginning to feel like an illusion. Not progress but illusion of progress. And that is where tokenism quietly thrives.
In 2026, women represent approximately 33% of high-growth entrepreneurs globally.
Representing roughly one-third of all entrepreneurs, female-led ventures contribute nearly 30% of global GDP and are driving growth in sustainable and social-impact industries.
And yet, access to capital tells a completely different story.
Women Are Innovating Despite the 2% Funding Gap
The “2% Funding Gap” refers to the stark gender disparity in venture capital, where women-led startups receive only about 2% of global VC funding.
Despite creating high-performing businesses, women founders face systemic barriers in accessing capital, with 98% of funding going to male-led firms. This gap is often more pronounced in marginalised communities.
Despite increasing participation in high-growth sectors, women-led startups continue to receive a disproportionately small share of global venture capital (VC) funding. As of early 2026, female-only founding teams secured less than 2% of total global VC funding. This persistent disparity remains largely unchanged for over a decade.
Women-Led Startups Deliver Higher Returns-per-Dollar invested; roughly double of men-led Start-ups
Women-led startups generate approximately 78 cents for every dollar invested, showing double the revenue efficiency compared to male-led startups.
A study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in partnership with MassChallenge, titled “Why Women-Owned Startups Are a Better Bet,” analyzed five years of investment and revenue data from 350 companies.
The key finding: for every dollar of funding, startups founded or co-founded by women generated 78 cents in revenue, while male-founded startups generated only 31 cents.
And yet, capital continues to flow in the opposite direction.
Women Could Add $5 Trillion to Global GDP with Equity
According to analysis by the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and Boston Consulting Group, if women were able to participate equally as entrepreneurs, global GDP could be boosted by as much as $5 trillion.
This is not a marginal gain. This is equivalent to the size of one of the world’s largest economies, Japan.
Women Disproportionately Carry The Weight of the Caregiving
Globally, women perform 75% of all unpaid care work, totaling 12.5 billion hours daily.
Women carry the majority of caregiving responsibilities across the world. Studies indicate that 57% to 81% of all caregivers for the elderly are women—often wives or adult daughters.
In high-income countries as well, women are significantly more likely to provide high-intensity care for family members.
So while we celebrate women stepping into leadership, we continue to build systems that rely on their unpaid labour to function.
Is This New? Is Lack of awareness Keeps us Here?
This is where I find myself pausing.
Because none of this data is new, and none of it is hidden. Yet the gap between what we celebrate and what we enable continues to widen. We have become incredibly good at creating moments—moments of recognition, moments of visibility, moments that feel like progress.
But moments don’t build momentum unless something structural shifts behind them.
It is far easier to applaud women than to show this applause by breaking down the inequalities. Far easier to amplify stories than to change how capital gets distributed.
The Illusion of Progress
What makes this more complex is that tokenism today does not feel like a barrier. It often feels like inclusion. I have seen women, myself included, step into spaces that signal progress—panels, features, leadership conversations. These matter, but they can also create a false sense of arrival. Visibility begins to feel like real power; to shift and celebrations begins to feel like advancement.
But the outcomes the day after tell the same old story.
If access to capital, time, and decision-making power remains unchanged, then what we are experiencing is not progress—it is participation without leverage.
The Collective Force Women Must Yet Haven Not Built Yet
This is the part I keep coming back to—the force of women, collectively, is still more an idea than a reality.
Individually, I see extraordinary women building resilient businesses, creating impact, and navigating complexity with remarkable strength. But collectively, we are still fragmented. Our efforts are not compounding in the way they could.
A true shift would mean moving beyond individual success into shared advancement. It would mean women not just building enterprises, but backing each other with capital, opening doors deliberately, and influencing how decisions are made at the highest levels.
That kind of alignment is powerful—but it is also intentional. And we are not there yet.
The World Needs to Shift; From Applause to Answers
For me, this is where the conversation needs to change.
If we want different outcomes, we have to start asking different questions—about where capital flows, how time is valued, and who gets to make decisions. And more importantly, how we, as women, choose to show up for each other within that system.
Because the shift we are looking for will not come from more noise. It will come from alignment—quiet, deliberate, and collective.
