International Women’s Day: A Call to Remember, A Call to Protect Women’s Rights Everywhere

International Women’s Day is meant to be a celebration. A moment to honor the courage, strength, resilience, and achievements of women across the world. But for millions of Iranian women who have lived under the Islamic regime, this day is also a reminder of deep wounds that have never healed.

Across Iran and many other countries governed by sharia law, women have been executed simply for refusing to wear a hijab. Under these systems, women have no meaningful rights as their bodies and lives are controlled by the state. In parts of Somalia and other regions, young girls are subjected to forced genital mutilation, a violent act that scars them physically and emotionally for life. In still more places, girls barely in their teens are forced into marriages with men old enough to be their grandfathers, traded like property and treated as servants rather than human beings. Under the regime’s interpretation of Islamic law, a woman beaten by her husband has no legal protection. These are daily realities for millions of women who are denied the most basic freedoms.

And yet, despite these suffocating laws, Iranian women have never stopped resisting. They have fought boldly, publicly, and at great personal cost for the simple right to live as human beings.

This year alone, the regime killed tens of thousands of protesters in just two days, deliberately targeting young, vibrant women and men to break the spirit of their families.

International Women's Day reminds us that women’s rights are never guaranteed. They must be defended, again and again, in every generation.

And that brings us to American women.

Here in the United States, a nation that once led the world in expanding women’s opportunities , we are watching a troubling reversal. After decades of hard‑fought progress under Title IX, California and other states are now allowing biological men into women’s sports, women’s locker rooms, and women’s private spaces. Opportunities that women fought for, scholarships, championships, safety, dignity, are being chipped away.

Women who spent years training are losing titles to biological men. Girls who once felt safe in their locker rooms now feel exposed and violated. Mothers who fought for fairness for their daughters are being told to stay quiet. And when women speak up, many are demeaned or dismissed as if defending women’s rights is somehow controversial. Whoever thought this would be happening in America?

Women’s rights are human rights. They are not negotiable or conditional and must never be sacrificed. International Women’s Day should unite us in this understanding. Whether in Iran, where women risk their lives for the right to show their hair, or in America, where women are fighting to preserve the protections they earned, the struggle is the same at its core. And we must stand together across borders, cultures, and politics to protect these rights.

As we honor the bravery of Iranian women and the determination of American women who refuse to be erased, we will not go backward. We will continue to fight for freedom, liberty, fairness and a better future for all women by speaking up, standing firm and refusing to surrender the rights so many fought and died for.

Carol Pefley
Candidate for Ca State Assembly