Women have a lot to say about how to advance women's rights, and

The words of Charlotte Bunch, pioneer of global feminism, resound with clarity and strength: “Women have a lot to say about how to advance women’s rights, and governments need to learn from that, listen to the movement and respond.” In this declaration, we hear both wisdom and warning. She speaks not as one casting a wish into the wind, but as one summoning rulers and nations to humility. For too long, decisions about women were made without women, laws crafted about their lives without their voices. Bunch insists upon a simple yet revolutionary truth: that those who live the struggle know best how to overcome it, and that governments must bow their ears to the wisdom of the movement if justice is to be born.

The meaning of her words is rooted in the age-old pattern of power. Throughout history, men in councils, parliaments, and courts presumed to decide what women could own, where they could walk, how they should dress, and whether they could even speak. Yet how could these rulers know the weight of burdens they never carried? How could they design justice for those whose suffering they never endured? Bunch reminds us that governments err when they legislate from above without listening to the cries from below. To listen is not weakness—it is the highest form of wisdom.

History itself provides the lesson. Consider the struggle for women’s rights in the United States during the twentieth century. Leaders in power often dismissed the suffragists, telling them to wait, to be patient, to trust the system. Yet it was the voices of the women themselves—Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Alice Paul—that revealed the path forward. They marched, they protested, they endured ridicule and imprisonment, and only when governments finally listened did the Nineteenth Amendment emerge. The change did not come from the goodwill of rulers but from the relentless pressure of the women’s movement.

Another striking example is found in South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle. Women there not only resisted racial oppression but also fought for gender equality within the resistance itself. In 1956, 20,000 women marched on Pretoria to protest unjust laws restricting their movement. Their chant, “You strike a woman, you strike a rock,” became a symbol of their unyielding strength. Governments had no choice but to respond, for the voices of women shook the very ground of injustice. Here, too, Bunch’s words are proven: the advance of rights begins not in the halls of power, but in the mouths of those who suffer most.

The heart of her teaching is this: to ignore women’s voices is to craft laws that are hollow, policies that fail, reforms that collapse. Women know the texture of injustice in daily life—the denial of education, the weight of unpaid labor, the violence hidden in silence. Their voices are not optional additions to the conversation; they are the cornerstone of true reform. To listen to them is to hear the pulse of the people; to ignore them is to betray the very idea of justice.

The lesson for us is clear. If we seek a world of equality, then we must not only advocate for women’s participation, but insist upon it. In government, in workplaces, in communities, no decision about women should ever be made without women. The movement must not be seen as a nuisance, but as a compass pointing toward justice. For it is in the cries of the oppressed that the deepest wisdom is often found, and in their resilience that the blueprint for change is written.

Practical wisdom flows from this: support the voices of women around you. Listen when they speak, amplify their words, and ensure they are present in councils of decision. Governments must build structures that not only invite women’s voices but are accountable to them. And each of us, in our own lives, must ask whether we silence or honor those voices. For to ignore them is to side with the past; to listen is to build the future.

Thus, let Charlotte Bunch’s words be carried forward: governments must listen to women, for they carry the map of justice within their struggle. And let us teach our children that movements are not threats to order, but the breath of progress. When the voices of women rise, may the nations lean in, learn, and respond—for only then shall the world draw nearer to the light of true equality.