The 79th World Health Assembly closed at the end of May with a session of the executive board. Some of the discussions outside the official meetings were turning around the question of who will succeed Dr Tedros at the head of the WHO. At the same time, another important position is open for change: the UN Secretary-General. Both positions are important in the multilateral network and will have to deal with our fragmented world to give future directions. At the top of the UN, there has never been a female Secretary-General so far. Female candidates were not lacking, but it never materialized.
There is something other than gender equity, gender justice behind this fact: it is institutionalised gender injustice. As in the UN world, other institutions fail to equally represent men and women in their leadership. All studies demonstrate that women are capable, if not better than men, in conflict resolution, crisis management and consensus building. Competencies we are eagerly looking for in situations that are dominated by a lack of dialogue, a lack of will to listen and the absence of trust.
We also have proven to deal better with money than our male counterparts, but still, out of the CEOs of big tech, there are no women.
The gender injustice is institutionalised; the glass ceiling and the glass cliff theories are only an incomplete description of the gender imbalance that has persisted since time immemorial. Women do not access the places where they could make a difference for our societies, not because they are incompetent or unwilling. The reason why they are not at these places is fundamentally simple: the way is blocked by chauvinists. Institutions that are not created by and for women cannot be truly just.
The word gender justice sounds like a misfit also because in many places worldwide gender is a justice-free zone, because women live in a "law-free" space, in the sense that they are not considered full human beings but just objects that can be owned, sold, ignored, and disinherited. In many countries, animals have more protection rights than female human beings.
I am writing from Europe, where women are in a more privileged situation than two-thirds of their sisters; in many places around the world, the rights of women that have been gained step by step are being eroded. The 'manosphere', a strange network of online communities promoting male dominance, antifeminist ideologies, and regressive models of masculinity, in recent years has gathered momentum, often linked to extreme views about national pride. Misogyny is, these days, normalized online, with narratives intersecting with far-right and authoritarian agendas. Self-described religious influencers use faith-based, supposedly theological arguments to legitimise patriarchal hierarchies. Legal access to important enhancers of the health of women, including family planning, pregnancy termination, equality of access to chronic disease diagnosis and medical care, education and employment, is absent or tenuous for over half of the world's population, just the half that happen to be female. Just imagine what would happen if half of the world's men were systematically prevented from accessing education, employment, safe housing and so on.
Worryingly, even within the UN system, we observe an imperceptible creep of ideas, with pushback from various member nations, including Russia, Belarus, and the United States. The real-world consequences of these ideologies include the rising number of femicides, the non-reactivity of the justice system against perpetrators, and the slow disappearance of women in the public space. This includes the removal and even elimination of women, especially from politics, journalism, and the sciences.
Actually, men should be very worried about this! Men should take action, because a lack of female civic and political participation drives suboptimal child survival, economic disparity, workplace discrimination, and physical violence of all kinds.
Misogyny also re-enforces rigid masculine stereotyping, known to pose a great danger to the mental and physical health of men (and women); patriarchal ideas about masculinity encourage risk-taking behaviour and discourage help-seeking or health-enhancing behaviour; men are more likely to be sick or injured and less likely to seek help when these things happen.
For a peaceful world, these attitudes are dangerous: it has been shown that countries with more gender balanced laws are much more likely to be at peace with their neighbouring countries, and if women are included in peace negotiations, chances are 35 % higher that the resulting treaties will last (see UN Women).
For a prosperous world, women's participation is the basis of life. The recent World Bank flagship report called "Women, Business and the Law", 2026, not only underpins that women do not receive the same rights as men but reminds us that this is hampering innovation and prosperity.
Back to the title of this piece: the reality is that there is no justice, and the small and fragile pieces of gender equity which do exist in some places are right now eroded by political and economic forces. There is an urgent need to systematically work towards the inclusion of women in all areas and levels of civic and political life, everywhere. In the long run, we will have to change our institutions to make them fit for an equal and just world. Today's situation is not healthy, not for the individual, nor for the planet and our societies.
For a safe and peaceful planet with the survival of both men, women and nature, we need to work for real gender justice that is translated into institutions and not into quotas. The World Congress on Public Health in Cape Town, with a focus on equity, inclusion and sustainability, will address the gender injustice from many different angles.