This International Women’s Day We’re Celebrating Women’s Resilience and Fighting Like Hell for What’s Ours

March 8. 2026

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For Immediate Release
Mar 8, 2026

Media Contact
Nazirah Ahmad
[email protected]

Statement by Noreen Farrell, Executive Director

International Women’s Day (March 8) is a day to honor the generations of women who fought for rights that seemed impossible and won them anyway. This year, that legacy is not just a sentiment, it’s a call to action.

Because this is the year to flex our power, as workers, voters, and consumers; to topple plans by the Trump administration to rollback women’s progress. Make no mistake, we are under attack. The Trump administration is tearing down the protections that allow women to enter, stay in, and advance in the workforce, one bureaucratic maneuver and executive order at a time.

And the timing could not be worse. In the past year, half a million women were pushed out of the labor force, mothers of young children are leaving at the steepest rate in 40 years, and the gender wage gap has widened for the second consecutive year, the first back-to-back decline since the 1960s. 

“The Trump administration is tearing down the protections that allow women to enter, stay in, and advance in the workforce, one bureaucratic maneuver and executive order at a time.”

The Trump administration’s response to women losing ground has not been to help; it’s been to accelerate the damage using a playbook that is deliberate and documented. It has gutted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency responsible for investigating and enforcing workplace discrimination law; shuttered the office that monitored federal contractors for pay discrimination; targeted the 105-year old Women’s Bureau for elimination; and rescinded workplace harassment protections millions of workers depended on.

As our new report, “Under Attack but Not Defeated,” makes clear: the laws protecting women workers are still on the books, but the agencies charged with enforcing them have been decimated. The report also makes clear how women are winning, especially in the courts and state legislatures across the nation. We are leading with our vision for this country and beyond, pushing progress on pay equity, workplace justice, and support for workers with caregiving responsibilities. This is our blueprint to replicate, again and again, across the nation, until the work of this movement is done.

“Now is the time to take a page from how women outside the U.S. mark International Women’s Day—marching the streets, leading bold solidarity actions, and making clear demands to push women’s progress.”

Women did not come this far to be pushed to the margins. So now is the time to take a page from how women outside the U.S. mark International Women’s Day—marching the streets, leading bold solidarity actions, and making clear demands to push women’s progress.

What generations of women spent decades building is under a rapidly moving threat. This International Women’s Day, we won’t mourn what has been taken. We’re fighting to take it back.