International Women’s Day 2026

 

The graph below shows the global ratio of female and male students at the university level. Observing the ratio over the past 55 years from 1970 to 2025, we can see that the number of female students has been steadily increasing since 1975, and over the last decade, starting from 2015, the total number of female students at universities has surpassed the total number of male students. Unfortunately, in the world’s most populous countries, women still face discrimination by men at every step in various ways.

Yet, women are moving forward—and all credit for this progress belongs to them.

Female-male students ratio at tertiary level

Some people—including highly educated men—question whether women receive any special advantage simply because they are women, and whether that advantage is the reason they surpass men in certain areas. There is no need to answer such frivolous questions. Just looking at the historical record of the world’s most prestigious universities proves how women were treated.

Oxford University was established in 1167. For the next seven and a half centuries, they did not admit a single female student. Women were allowed to enroll at Oxford in 1920. Today, 52 percent of Oxford’s students are women.

Cambridge University began admitting male students in 1209. For the next 740 years, no women were allowed to study there. Female students were first admitted in 1948. Today, about half of Cambridge University’s students are women.

Harvard University was founded in 1636, yet women were granted permission to study there only in 1977. Today, 53 percent of Harvard’s students are women.

Even in the medical colleges of our subcontinent, women were initially not allowed to study. The first Bengali female medical student was Abala Das (whom we all know as Abala Basu, wife of Jagadish Chandra Bose). There was no admission for women at Kolkata Medical College. She had to attend Madras Medical College in 1882. Although she could not complete her degree due to ill health, Abala Basu became the first Bengali woman to earn the LMS (Licentiate of Medicine and Surgery) degree in 1885. Today, the number of female students in our medical colleges far exceeds that of male students.

For hundreds of years, women around the world were denied the right to education. Women had to struggle immensely just to gain the right to learn. Even today, they have to fight for their rightful place in the workplace. And yet, some shamelessly sexist men still take pride in humiliating women!

On International Women’s Day, I salute and send love to all women across the world.