For International Women's Day 2026. | Yumiko Sakuma

Let's Tell Our Stories

I have come to have complicated feelings about the concept of "women's solidarity." Growing up in an all-girls school, I was a child who knew nothing else. I then went through a period of thinking I was bad with the creature known as "woman," but after entering society and forming individual relationships, I was able to melt the walls I had built around myself. After encountering civic movements and activism, I began to dream that by bundling our individual strengths, we could transform them into a great force. I tried to believe that if we were looking in the same direction from a grand perspective, we could stand in solidarity. But now, I am living through a phase where I realize that it wasn't actually that simple.

For example, the victim-blaming that runs rampant on social media. Comments attacking people who have been victims of sexual crimes, saying things like, "It's because you take those kinds of selfies" or "It's because you show too much skin." For example, the casual, well-meaning meddling that comes out of nowhere: "Since you were born a woman, you're not a real woman unless you have children." For example, the act of mocking, criticizing, or judging other people's appearances or clothing. For example, regarding unknown women as enemies or rivals. For example, the collective action that suddenly arises to attack someone. The concept of "protecting women's spaces" devised to exclude someone. The perfect role model, lookism, body shaming, microaggressions...

Things like this happen countless times every day, everywhere in the world. How many people must these things be hurting or leaving feeling unsettled? How should we deal with such things?

When looking at it from a bird's-eye view, I think that women hurting, judging, condemning, and excluding other women in this way is all a byproduct of the patriarchal system. We live in a society that looks free at a glance, but in reality, we are not that free. Create a family, have children; women are servants, and children are property and labor. If you live without resisting these frameworks, your roof and food are guaranteed. Those who do not want to enter that framework are excluded from the social mainstream, and who is a woman and who is not is strictly scrutinized.

Many people struggle to survive within this system. Those who are working hard might try to protect that system. In doing so, they express their sense of superiority. And while they're at it, they hurt someone else. People who just want to exist in peace.

The fight for a society where everyone is granted the same rights is more difficult than I had imagined, and it strikes us down. The goal is not getting closer; rather, the hurdles standing in our way seem to be increasing.

But it's okay. What makes me think so now are the stories woven by people who have found their own voices for one reason or another. Women who have realized the various absurdities imposed upon them by their companies, their families, and society have begun to speak of their own pain. And those stories are flowing out from beyond the regions and places where they live, finding each other, and connections where wounds and trauma bind people together are being born every day. Someone's story reaches someone far away and saves their soul. Once you are released from the shackles of the spirit, you can never go back to how you were.

So, let us live our own lives. Let us live our lives while fully feeling our sadness and our frustrations. Let us cherish each other. Let us lean on one another. Let us live together while respecting each other's rights to self-determination and boundaries. And while rejoicing in each other's existence, let us find joy in our lives and in our endeavors. We will be okay.