Rani Reads September 2025

September Reckonings: Rights, Safety & The Price of Equality

September has been a month of reminders that feminism is still fighting on every front, globally, locally, and even in morning TV debates. From women losing hard-won rights in conflict zones, to laws on UK streets, to tricky conversations about pink taxes, the common thread is clear: equality doesn’t maintain itself. It has to be fought for, over and over again.

A new UN Women report is sounding the alarm: conflict, aid withdrawal, and backlash are actively pushing women’s rights backwards. Gains in maternal health, education, and safety, things once seen as progress, are no longer guaranteed. Humanitarian crises, climate breakdown, and government divestment are hitting women and girls the hardest, especially those living near conflict zones or in precarious communities. The message is blunt: legal rights on paper mean nothing without enforcement, funding, and political will. If governments don’t step up, decades of progress could unravel in a heartbeat.

In the UK, nearly 1.5 million young women report experiencing harassment in public spaces. Catcalling, groping, stalking, the list goes on. Yet the law designed to protect them, the Protection from Sex-Based Harassment in Public Act (introduced in 2023), has barely made an impact. Why? Because almost no guidance has been given to police or prosecutors. On the ground, “legal protection” often feels like empty words. For too many young women, silence is still mistaken for safety, and the message from the state is clear: you’re on your own. That has to change.

On This Morning recently, Ashley James sparked debate by discussing whether women should pay less tax than men. At first glance, it sounds bold, maybe even radical, but dig deeper and the conversation gets more complicated.

Women already shoulder hidden financial burdens. Everyday products marketed to women, from razors to shampoo, are routinely more expensive, a phenomenon dubbed the “pink tax.” And beyond consumer goods, the structural costs of caregiving often fall disproportionately on women. Taking time off work for childcare or eldercare doesn’t just reduce short-term earnings, it slashes pensions, savings, and long-term economic security.

So, would a gender-based tax fix those inequalities? Ashley James argued the fight for equality isn’t that simple. Different tax rates by gender raise tough questions about fairness, administration, and whether such a system might entrench stereotypes instead of dismantling them. Still, the debate matters. Talking about how inequality is baked into everyday economics, from supermarket shelves to payslips, keeps the spotlight where it belongs.

September’s stories, from UN warnings to UK streets to live TV, remind us that feminism has to operate at every level at once. None of these fights are simple. But they’re all essential. Equality isn’t a straight line, and it certainly isn’t guaranteed, it’s the work we choose to do, every single day.