In 2025, according to data from Police Headquarters, at least 21,939 cases were filed across the country over allegations of violence against women and children.

For many brides in Bangladesh, it is seldom a surprise that in their new household, they are entitled to neither respect nor their own choices; rather, they are treated as someone who needs permission to move, smile, or even breathe.

I often think of women as shapeshifters, not because they lack a shape of their own but because they navigate changing landscapes like water, carrying entire worlds within them yet always harbouring the latent strength to erode boundaries and make their own way.

If we want decent men, we must start by raising decent boys.

Because these posts and memes normalise a specific emotional image of women— impulsive, dramatic, unstable, and self-absorbed.

When that girl on the bus screamed, no one stood by her.

This is how patriarchy stays alive, not just through men who benefit from it, but through women who enforce it.

These stories subtly highlight how even within patriarchal structures, men, too, are shaped, sometimes twisted by the systems they benefit from.

The expansion of animosity and prejudice is rooted in toxic patriarchy.

In countless homes across this region and beyond, patriarchy does not always arrive with fists raised.

Our misogynistic attitude towards women is so normalised that it moves seamlessly across political parties, economic classes, and generational divides.

Review of ‘Renegotiating Patriarchy’ (LSE Press, 2024) by Naila Kabeer

Psychological violence in the workplace—rooted in patriarchy—undermines equity and well-being.

Women in indigenous, prehistoric, and precolonial societies, across all continents, were actually in positions of power and privilege

Stories of resilience and heroism against patriarchy

At the core of a patrilocal society lies the notion of women occupying a lower status than men.

The way we perceive the word “emotion” through the gendered lens contributes to systematic oppression because it dismisses those who fall under the umbrella of the emotional radar and it is easier to silence their voices as emotional beings because they are often, according to the patriarchal society, deemed as unstable, illogical, or disoriented.

What do such attacks say about women's status in Bangladesh?

The theocracy is crumbling in its seat

What greases the wheels on this vicious cycle?