Every March 8, International Women’s Day (IWD) celebrates the pioneers of gender equality and calls for bolder action. Its roots stretch to 1908, when 15,000 women marched in New York for better pay, shorter hours, and voting rights amid labor unrest. The U.S. launched National Women’s Day in 1909, and by 1913, March 8 became IWD-embraced by the United Nations in 1975 and formalized in 1977. Today, it honors women’s gains while facing a global reality: gender parity remains out of reach, with rights violations and underrepresentation enduring.
In Ethiopia, IWD 2025 illuminates a nation of resilience and promise. Women, long the heartbeat of their communities, were once stifled by discriminatory systems. Making up half the population, their equal role is vital to Ethiopia’s middle-income vision-a goal stalled without dismantling deep-seated barriers.
A Legacy of Struggle
Historically, Ethiopian women’s lives mirrored servitude. Peasant women toiled like slaves; even in affluent homes, passivity or violence prevailed, backed by the adage, “Women and pack animals need a stick.” Pre-1974, groups like the Ethiopian Women’s Welfare Association, often royal-led, aided war efforts-cooking, nursing, and fighting in Adwa and the 1935 Italian occupation. The 1970s saw women challenge male-dominated university protests, while the Derg’s Revolutionary Ethiopia Women’s Association (REWA) rallied five million, marking IWD first in Ethiopia-though its military ties limited impact. Women’s roles as fighters and civilians in the civil war helped topple the junta.
A Collective New Dawn
The 1991 Transitional Government’s charter and 1995 Constitution—via Article 35—enshrined equality, banning oppressive customs and ensuring rights. Since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s 2018 rise, this framework gained momentum. His initial cabinet balanced gender, and by March 2025, women hold 11 of 22 ministerial posts and 15 state minister positions, reflecting a broader parity push. The Homegrown Economic Reform (HGER), launched in 2019, spurred economic gains—loans, training, and housing lotteries lifting thousands. Micro-enterprises now employ over 300,000 women, per 2024 estimates, fostering assets and independence.
Parliament shines too: women hold 41% of House seats (up from 38.9% in 2021), with a female deputy speaker and 40% of committees female-led, bolstered by the Women’s Caucus and political will. Ethiopian Airlines’ annual all-female crew flights, a tradition since 2016, inspire aviation dreams. Education and health leap forward: female literacy reached 70% by 2025 through nationwide school expansions, while 40,000 women health extension workers (up from 38,000) cut maternal mortality by 45% since 2015, per recent data.
Efforts to ease drudgery and violence-like rural stove programs and anti-abuse campaigns via mobile apps-grow through the 2023 Gender Equity Taskforce and over 600 women’s associations nationwide, which safeguard rights and nurture leaders.
The Road Ahead
Yet, the journey’s unfinished. Rural women-crucial yet vulnerable-lag in access and income. Only 22% of rural women over 25 have secondary education, and maternal malnutrition lingers. The HGER’s successor aims for 50% female public office roles and a 25% rural poverty drop by 2030, but rural clinics need supplies, schools need building, and markets need reaching.
Cultural chains-early marriage, violence, male supremacy-resist change. The 2025 Taskforce’s enforcement and radio campaigns nudge progress, but it’s slow.
Women must drive their fight, as the Constitution’s equality vision insists. From coffee cooperatives to health outreach, their resolve powers Ethiopia’s rise across urban and rural divides. Government and society must match this-rural infrastructure, health, and credit can’t wait.
A Call to Rise
This IWD, Ethiopia celebrates its women-past warriors, present builders, future leaders. From 15,000 marchers in 1908 to 40,000 health workers today, the arc bends toward justice. Rural sisters need lifting, education and health deepening, and power fully shared. Women’s associations, policymakers, and citizens-under Abiy’s reform era and beyond-must align, turning constitutional dreams into reality. Ethiopia’s transformation rests on it, one empowered woman at a time.
By Bilal Derso
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 8 MARCH 2025
