Three years of reflection at Equality Now

When I stepped into the role of Global Executive Director at Equality Now in January 2023, I knew we were at an inflection point. We stood on a human rights legacy shaped by over three decades of courageous advocacy and legal victories, while facing a world that felt increasingly uncertain.

Three years later, the urgency of our mission is sharper than ever.

We are living through an era of backlash. Gender equality is being politicized, rolled back, and, in many places, deliberately undermined. Civil society is shrinking. Authoritarian regimes are gaining ground. Gender is being weaponized as a tool of control.

But here is what I know to be true: the backlash is loud, but it is not everywhere. Its reach is amplified by fear and disinformation. It is not the whole story.

Across communities, cultures and continents, I see people working every day to build a different future. I see girls refusing to be silent. I see lawyers, journalists, lawmakers, artists, mothers and fathers rising up. I see a global movement refusing to give up. The 43 laws we’ve helped reform in just the past three years are a testament to what this global resistance can achieve when fueled by clarity, skill, and grit.

Looking back, I want to reflect on what feminist leadership has required and how we must continue to center legal change as the foundation, not the ceiling, for true equality.

Leading within political complexity: Be multilingual in strategy 

One of the key challenges of feminist leadership today is staying principled while working across political and cultural divides. I’ve learnt that courage and diplomacy are not opposites but are partners in the pursuit of justice.

At Equality Now, we work in countries with a wide range of political systems, legal traditions, and cultural norms, from liberal democracies to authoritarian regimes. Progress rarely comes from a single approach. It requires persistence, pivots, and strategic pressure.

Sometimes we mobilize from outside through media, litigation and global coalitions. Other times we work quietly behind the scenes, supporting reformers inside government or amplifying survivor voices who cannot safely speak out.

We often operate in spaces where feminist ideals are misunderstood or deliberately mischaracterized. We don’t walk away. We remain engaged, not to compromise our values, but to move them forward precisely where they are most under threat.

That means being multilingual not only in language, but in approach. We bridge legal advocacy with cultural understanding, knowing that real change demands navigating disagreement with care and skill.

We elevate voices across regions and generations. We connect across law, technology, faith and economics because women’s rights are central to solving global challenges. We invite those who may not always see themselves in the conversation, especially men, youth and allies from other justice movements, because our work cannot be siloed. We’ve learned that staying in the work, especially where it’s uncomfortable, is how justice moves forward.

Feminist leadership begins from within

Leadership also means turning the mirror inward. 

In the past three years, I’ve been proud to help build not only a legal advocacy organization, but a workplace rooted in feminist values. We’ve taken deliberate steps to center care, equity, and sustainability in how we lead ourselves and each other.

We are soon launching our next five-year strategic plan through a global, participatory process. We have reimagined the structure of the organization to create space for career growth, operational excellence, and improve inter-departmental and regional relationships. We have introduced professional development budgets for every staff member across all regions. 

We have invested our financial reserves with a 100% gender lens to ensure mission alignment. 

These are not just policies, they’re signals of what we believe leadership should look like: sustainable, equitable, and aligned with our deepest values.

Be audacious, but make it sustainable.

This moment demands more than business as usual. Feminist leadership must be bold but it must also be built to last. We must act with both urgency, audacity and sustainability in mind. At Equality Now, that means taking risks, speaking hard truths, and holding governments accountable even when it’s uncomfortable. 

It also means resourcing the work like it matters. Too much of the global women’s rights movement runs on underfunded brilliance. That is not sustainable. 

1. I often tell funders: philanthropy is not about benevolence. There is nothing “charitable” about creating a just world for women and girls, it’s necessary. And it benefits everyone.

2. Our work is demanding, and often carried out under immense pressure and uncertainty. Funding operations are essential to easing that burden. Strong internal systems streamline complexity and free teams to focus their energy where it matters most: driving impact and change.

3. We have to resource our teams not just to deliver, but to grow and to be generative. That means budgeting for our own capacity as seriously as we budget for our programs. Investing in professional development, in time to reflect and restore, and in space for family and life beyond work is not optional but it’s how meaningful impact is sustained. The results are deeper, broader, and more enduring because rested and fulfilled teams are a joyful thing.

At Equality Now, we’ve made this part of our culture. In 2024, we introduced quarterly “focus weeks”: intentional pauses to step back from the noise and reconnect with purposeful reflection. We shut down over the December holidays. We are actively rebalancing how we work – not because we want to do less but because we want to prioritize what matters most. 

A legacy of legal impact, a mandate for more

Since our founding, Equality Now has helped reform and implement 134 laws in countries around the world. These reforms have protected girls from child marriage, held traffickers accountable, ended “marry your rapist” laws, and pushed governments to recognize women’s equality as a legal and human right.

In the last few years, we’ve significantly expanded the scope and scale of our work. That growth has been intentional. Because the threats we face are not isolated, they are interconnected, global, and intensifying.

From Colombia’s ban on child marriage, to the fight for consent-based rape laws in Bolivia, to opening up over 400 professions previously banned for women in Kyrgyzstan, we are helping to build legal systems that don’t just acknowledge harm, but actively work to prevent it. At the same time, we are confronting a tidal wave of backlash: attacks on economic rights, rollbacks of abortion access, and renewed efforts to legalize FGM.

This is a critical moment. Not one that’s coming. One we are in, right now.

What to look forward to

In 2026, we’ll launch our boldest organizational strategy yet: one that aims to transform ecosystems, shift culture, and strengthen societies. It’s built on everything we’ve learned: bold, unapologetic, and delivered by an organization that is strong, sustainable, ambitious, curious, and above all, feminist at its core. An organization I’m most proud and humbled to lead. 

To everyone who has walked alongside us: our partners, donors, staff, board, and fellow movement-builders, thank you. You have helped us grow, adapt, and lead with conviction. Now, as we step into this next chapter, we do so with bold ambition and deep gratitude. The work ahead is urgent and we are ready to meet it, together.