Right now, I’m watching in alarm as women’s rights and progress towards equality are being rolled back across the globe.
Decades of progress is being undone – lead by toxic online spaces which are increasingly influencing real-world behaviours and enabling dangerous attitudes towards women and trans people.
Misogynistic ideas from the extreme right are flooding into mainstream conversations and the rights of women and trans people are under attack.
In the US, we’ve seen abortion rights rolled back and a shutdown of USAid, much of which was the sole source of reproductive and sexual health services for women around the world.
In the United Kingdom, the government is developing policy that excludes trans women from women-only spaces in venues like shops, schools, health services, leisure centres or anywhere that provides services to the public. As well as endorsing the fiction that trans women are a threat, it leaves trans women, some of the most vulnerable women across the world, with nowhere to go.
Research tells us that violence and abuse seen in pornography can negatively shape how young people view sex, consent and relationships. Men are able to see a lack of respect for women affirmed and reinforced by what they view online.
Here in Australia, reporting of violence against women and sexual assaults is at an all time high.
All of this is emboldening those who secretly harbour a desire to roll back women’s rights. Just a few weeks ago, a Liberal-National MP in the Federal Parliament stood up and said women are more drawn to caring professions, while men prefer maths and trades.
What he didn’t acknowledge is that gender segregation in our workplaces often keeps women in lower-paid, less secure occupations.
Women, children and trans people cling onto the rights we have won when others would do anything to take them away from us.
And globally, women still bear the brunt of conflict and are still being murdered – mostly by men.
Gender equality can’t be separated from the broader issues we face, including climate change, truth-telling and Treaty with First Nations communities, ending gender-based violence, achieving LGBTIQA+ equality, tackling housing and homelessness and protecting reproductive rights.
Now, we have a chance to take meaningful action to stop these attacks on women’s rights, with Melbourne hosting the Women Deliver conference in 2026, the first time it is being held in the Oceania region.
Women Deliver is more than a conference – it brings together advocates, lawmakers and decisionmakers from more than 170 countries, many cultures and different walks of life.
This is a chance for us to come together, work towards a shared purpose and to re-energise an indominable global movement.
In the lead up to the conference, I’ll be listening to women across Victoria to develop our collective vision on what we want to say to the world.
Victoria leads the nation in our work on gender equality – from introducing legislation on gender-equal budgeting, to our landmark free pads and tampons program and world-leading strategies to get women into male dominated industries like energy and manufacturing.
This is our time to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with movements from across the globe, amplify diverse voices and work towards a common goal – gender equality for all women, everywhere.
We have so much to learn from each other. In the face of the anti-rights movement, women are organising with each other to counter the rising misogyny we’re seeing across the globe.
That unity, more than anything, gives me hope.
From 27–30 April 2026, the Women Deliver Conference will be regionally hosted for the first time — by the Oceanic Pacific — in Narrm (Melbourne), Australia, on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. Registration is now open.
Feature image: Victorian Minister for Women and Prevention of Family Violence, Natalie Hutchins.