There are moments when your work stops being abstract and becomes something you feel personally. Moments when policy, advocacy, and lived realities collide in a way that stays with you. The seventieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70) in New York was one of those moments for me.
Exactly one month later, I find myself still sitting with the weight of that experience, replaying the conversations, interrogating silences, and reflecting on what it all truly meant. It didn’t begin in a conference room. It began with uncertainty.
My travel came together at the very last minute. Visa delays meant I had already prepared a backup plan. That alone says something about the state of global participation in events such as CSW today: access is no longer guaranteed.
When I finally boarded that flight, it wasn’t just relief, it was a quiet reminder of how unequal access has become and in many ways that set the tone for everything that followed.
One session on advocating for nominating a woman as the next United Nations Secretary-General stood out for me and not in a good way, but because of what it revealed, the fact that at this age and time, we are debating this. It was clear for me- it wasn’t only about representation; it was about power. Who defines global priorities. Who gets heard. Who gets ignored. And how much longer women must wait to lead at the highest level of global governance. I found myself asking: why does this still feel like a radical ask?
Other moments were quieter but no less powerful. In a WE-Care session we held with partners, we explored the intersection of unpaid care and domestic work with sexual and reproductive health and rights. On paper, it sounds technical. In reality, it is deeply human. Unpaid care work is often the invisible tasks like cooking, cleaning, and caring for children, the sick, or the elderly. It is essential for families and societies to function, but it is mostly carried by women and girls without pay or recognition.
Women talked about how the invisible weight of care shapes every decision they make every single day including the ability to access healthcare at all.
It reminded me that care is not a “soft” issue, it is infrastructure, it is economic and it is political. Sadly, it is not a subject that receives the attention it deserves. Even in a space like CSW in New York, attendance was low.
That unsettled me.
Because if the very spaces meant to amplify these issues are thinning out, then what does that mean for the urgency we claim to hold?
The Unease We Cannot Ignore
This year, CSW70 felt different.
Not just because of lower participation, particularly from Africa and Asia due to visa restrictions, but because of a deeper shift in the room. Or perhaps, what was happening around the room. The anti-rights movement is no longer subtle. It is organised, funded and increasingly confident.
At one point, there was a proposal to redefine “gender” in narrow, binary terms- rolling back decades of progress grounded in frameworks like the Beijing Platform for Action. Seeing some African countries supporting this was deeply uncomfortable.
Not surprising, but still uncomfortable.
Because it forces us to confront a difficult truth: the struggle for gender justice is not only external. It is also within our own regions, our own systems, our own narratives.
There is a growing framing of anti-gender positions as “protecting culture” or “family values.” But beneath that language is something else, control. Control over bodies. Over choices. Overpower. And that should concern all of us.
Where Power Really Sits
Across sessions, from land rights to just transitions, one truth kept resurfacing: gender equality is about power. Who owns land, who accesses resources, who is safe, who makes these decisions and perhaps most importantly, who is expected to change, and who is not.
That’s where another conversation kept surfacing for me, the role of men, not as bystanders, but as active participants in reshaping systems. Because the reality is simple: we cannot dismantle inequality without addressing those who benefit from it. Let me be clear: The future of women’s emancipation is directly tied to how we engage men – through what I’d call progressive masculinity. This cannot be treated as a side conversation; it must be central to the interventions.
Because the problem is not just that systems exclude women. It is also about men unlearning dominance, and actively choosing equity, even when it is uncomfortable. And let me be honest: it is uncomfortable.
But discomfort is not the problem. Silence is.
Walking Away with Both Hope and Tension
I left CSW70 with mixed emotions.
I was inspired, by the resilience of feminist movements, by the clarity of grassroots voices, by the urgency that still exists in these spaces.
But I was also uneasy.
Because the backlash is real, access is shrinking and because progress is being contested more aggressively than before. And yet, perhaps that is exactly why this moment matters. Not because it is easy. But because it is not.
CSW70 reminded me that this work is not linear. It is contested. It requires strategy, courage, and uncomfortable honesty. And above all, it requires us to ask, not just what kind of world we want to build, but what kind of people we are willing to become to build it.
