There will be pink cupcakes. Branded hashtags. Corporate breakfasts where men speak about women’s empowerment. And far too many female experts asked to speak for “exposure” at events that generate revenue and reputational glory for everyone but them.
You may think that sounds cynical.
Good.
Because what I am witnessing right now does not feel like progress. It feels like regression. And if I’m honest, it has left me nervous, maybe even scared, for my daughter. A girl who is stronger, louder, and more capable than I ever was at her age.
Why?
Because women’s voices are being silenced so that power can remain comfortable.
Women are being excluded from rooms where decisions about women are being made. Women spoken about – not listened to. Whether that is reproductive rights, sexual health, domestic violence, pay disparity, or economic security.
When survivors come forward, they are DISMISSED.
When women demand justice, they are labelled DIFFICULT.
When women speak up, they are told to SOFTEN their tone.
We are being bombarded daily with stories of those in positions of power humiliating and destroying the lives of women and children for their own amusement. I won’t detail those stories here – not because they aren’t real, but because naming them often results in silencing of a different kind. What I will say is this: when survivors demanded justice, they were not heard until they made enough noise that they could no longer be ignored.
That is the level of pressure required for systems to change.
It won’t happen overnight. But it needs to happen now.
In 2026, the UN’s theme for International Women’s Day in Australia is #BalanceTheScales.
It feels hollow when what we are witnessing is not balance, but ignorance and inaction from the highest levels of government. And inaction doesn’t mean things stay the same. It means they move backwards.
Loneliness is metastasising into violence.
Blame is being placed solely on the shoulders of women while entire systems collapse.
More women are being pushed off the glass cliff as organisations scramble for relevance in an increasingly polarised world.
And here’s the part that really gets me.
For decades, we have invested in programs to teach women to be more confident. Speak up. Lean in. Use your voice. Back yourself.
We have run workshops on executive presence. On negotiation. On courageous conversations.
And yet when women do exactly that?
They are told they are too much. Too loud. Too aggressive. Too ambitious. Too difficult. We have trained women to be powerful inside systems that still punish them for using that power.
In the last 18 months, I have watched female leadership programs quietly cancelled as executives bend to the pressures of those who benefit most when women are silent.
Programs designed to elevate women. To strengthen their influence. To expand their authority. Cancelled. Not because they weren’t working. Not because they weren’t delivering commercial results. But because they made some people uncomfortable.
I have been asked to soften program names so they don’t appear “too focused.” So they don’t look like they are “favouring women.”
Read that again.
After decades of imbalance, we are worried about being seen to support women.
That is not strategy. That is fear disguised as neutrality.
And let me be clear.
There are extraordinary women leading change. Women in boardrooms. In government. In community. Women building powerful businesses, influencing policy, shifting culture. There are organisations that have doubled down – who understand that influence, authority and financial power are not “nice to have” initiatives but commercial imperatives.
We are not without progress. But progress without protection is fragile.
And power that is tolerated, rather than respected, can be withdrawn just as quickly as it was granted.
Those organisations that truly back women will win long term. Because silencing voices has never built sustainable growth.
And if you think this is abstract – policy-level, boardroom-level – it isn’t.
Last month, I ran a masterclass for the women in my community. The topic was finances – revenue, commercial power, personal wealth. It was about understanding your numbers in business and in life, because financial literacy is leverage.
Even in that room, there were stories of belittling.
Accountants talking down to capable women about their own P&L. Financial advisers dismissing questions or subtly redirecting authority as though the woman in front of them was not the one building the asset. Male partners casually positioned as the final decision-makers.
Yes. Even in 2025.
These were not isolated incidents. They were patterns. Women running profitable businesses. Women controlling significant revenue. Women still being treated as though financial authority must sit somewhere else.
And I remember hosting a women’s lunch a few years ago. The conversation turned to domestic violence.Fifteen women in the room. Successful. Intelligent. Established.
Seven had experienced some form of violence.
Seven.
This is not theoretical. This is structural.
And yet on International Women’s Day, we will be encouraged to celebrate.
It would be easy for me to stand on stage, smiling, indulging in a pink cupcake.
I won’t.
I refuse to speak for free simply because I am a woman.
I refuse to discount my expertise to make others comfortable.
I refuse to build programs that shrink ambition to fit outdated expectations.
That is not who I am. Nor the legacy I want to leave for my daughter.
The work I do is about building financial power for women. Because in the world we live in, financial independence is a voice. It is safety. It is freedom of choice. It is leverage.
Years ago, I worked with a group of young women just outside Sydney, helping them expand their sense of possibility beyond the two futures they believed were available to them: addiction or prostitution. That story is not from another country. It is from here.
Economic power changes lives.
So if you ask me what I am doing instead of complaining?
I am commercialising women’s brilliance.
Helping women charge properly.
Helping them position powerfully.
Helping them build businesses that give them options.
Because when a woman controls her income, she controls her decisions.
And as I write this, there is still a small voice that whispers, “Careful. Don’t upset the corporates. Don’t be too strong. Don’t alienate the partners.”
We internalise the very thing we stand against – silencing.
The polite, socially acceptable version of oppression. The part where women edit themselves before anyone else has to.
Not this time.
This International Women’s Day, don’t send me a greeting card.
Use your voice. Back a woman. Pay her properly. Open a door and don’t shut it behind you.
And if you are reading this thinking, “I have been playing smaller than I should,”
Maybe this is your moment.
I am done being polite about potential.
Are you?
Janine