Posting on social media is easy. Confronting everyday misogyny is not.
Every year on March 8, brands, institutions and social media feeds fill with messages celebrating women for International Women’s Day. Purple graphics appear. Quotes about empowerment circulate. Universities host panels and campaigns encouraging people to support women.
Once the day passes, the question remains: if society truly values women, why does misogyny still shape everyday life?
Misogyny today rarely appears as openly as it once did. It is often quieter and embedded in jokes, expectations and social dynamics that many people dismiss as harmless. While these behaviours may seem subtle, they still reinforce unequal treatment.
“I think a lot of people treat International Women’s Day like a branding moment,” Aisha Qureshi, a third-year criminology student, said. “You’ll see posts celebrating women, but the same people will dismiss women’s ideas in group projects or talk over them in class.”
For many students, misogyny does not always appear as outright hostility. Instead, it emerges through subtle assumptions about leadership, authority and credibility.
Emily Carter, a first-year psychology student, said she often notices different reactions to men and women speaking in academic settings. “When a male student speaks in my psych classes, people will see him as knowledgeable,” Carter said, “but when a woman, like me, does the same or says the same thing, she is often labelled as aggressive or ‘too much.’ It shows how differently we interpret the same behaviour.”
Unfortunately, these patterns are not new. Scholars within feminist criminology and gender studies have long argued that misogyny functions less as individual hatred and more as a system that polices women’s behaviour. The issue is not just extreme cases of sexism, but everyday attitudes that reinforce who is expected to lead, speak and be taken seriously.
When looking at the role that social media plays, it can be seen that it has intensified some of these dynamics. While online platforms should be used to elevate women’s voices, they have often been used to expose women to harassment and criticism at far higher rates than men. The anonymity of the internet makes it easy for people to hide behind a screen and post misogynistic comments they might never say in person.
Some men have also taken to social media on International Women’s Day to argue that “every month is about something,” suggesting that dedicating a day or month to women is unnecessary. These types of comments often miss the point entirely. Rather than recognizing the purpose of the day, they undermine it by shifting the conversation away from the real issues women continue to face.
For some students, the commercialization of International Women’s Day has also become part of the problem.
“Companies post about empowerment while still benefiting from the same systems that disadvantage women,” said Kara McDowell, a first-year health sciences student. “It makes the day feel performative instead of meaningful.”
None of this means that celebrating women’s achievements is pointless. Recognition matters. Representation matters. However, those celebrations lose meaning if they are not accompanied by honest conversations about the sexism that still exists today.
International Women’s Day originated due to labour movements and protests demanding better conditions and rights for women. Over time, many of those radical roots have softened into branding and symbolism.
If the day is meant to stand for equality, confronting misogyny must remain part of the conversation. Otherwise, the celebration risks becoming something easy and far less powerful: a day that praises women without challenging the systems that continue to limit them.
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