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REVOLUTIONS have long been nourished by the blood and defiance of women, yet when the dust settles, their voices are drowned out by the very structures they fought to dismantle. Bangladesh’s July uprising is no exception. In the euphoria of change and reform, as new political hierarchies emerge, women are once again relegated to the sidelines. Their faces, stained with the blood of resistance, become symbols for movements, but they are no longer permitted to lead.

This betrayal is neither new nor unique. History is littered with the corpses of revolutions that used women’s bodies as battlegrounds but never as governing forces. The French Revolution, whose cries of ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’ echoed through the streets, swiftly turned its back on the women who had stormed Versailles demanding bread and justice. The Russian revolution, ignited by striking women workers, soon replaced its promises of gender equality with state-sanctioned repression. Algeria’s war for independence celebrated the heroism of female freedom fighters, only to banish them back to the domestic sphere once the French had been defeated. The Arab Spring, which saw women at the forefront of protests, ultimately led to the resurgence of reactionary forces that curtailed their rights rather than expanded them.

Historically, women’s political participation has been shaped by an imposed duality: either they conform to patriarchal expectations and gain limited power within the existing system, or they reject those norms and face brutal suppression. This can be seen in post-colonial states, where women who fought for independence were pushed back into the margins of political discourse once the new state consolidated its power. Bangladesh’s own history reflects this contradiction. While women have played central roles in movements from the language movement to the liberation war, they have rarely been allowed to dictate the direction of political transformation.

And so, the cycle continues. The women who faced tear gas, bullets, sexual harassment, and the brutal machinery of repression are now being erased from the leadership of the very movement they sustained.Ìý

The Anti-Discrimination Students’ Movement, which claimed to be the vanguard of a new Bangladesh, formed a central convening committee in October 2024 — it consisted solely of men — except one woman, Umama Fatema. Students have also criticised the newly launched student organisation, Bangladesh Democratic Students’ Council, for its failure to form an inclusive central committee, as about 90 per cent of the committee members were men and most of them were from the University of Dhaka.

Women leaders and activists, who actively participated in the July uprising, pointed out on different occasions that equal representation of women was not ensured in the reform commissions or other state institutions. The 10 commissions formed primarily by the interim government to bring reforms in different sectors had incorporated only seven women members among their 52 members, including the commission chiefs. Shireen Huq, the chair of interim government’s ‘Women’s Affairs Reform Commission’ — the commission that was itself added only after criticism over lack of representationÌý — expressed disappointment about the disappearance of women [students]. ‘They were not to be seen in any serious decision-making.’Ìý

Some also spoke about how they have been systematically sidelined in the post-movement period. Even those who clawed their way into decision-making spaces continue to face daily resistance, forced to fight not only for their ideals but for the right to be heard at all. Umama Fatema, spokesperson for the Students Against Discrimination, said in November 2024 that there was a ‘deliberate and successful attempt’ to sideline women in the aftermath of the uprising. She shared her experience at a seminar and said she began experiencing an identity crisis. If she makes an important political point, no one pays any attention, as she said in an interview. ‘But if a man says the same thing, people fall over themselves with applause.’ She also expressed disappointment about the indifference and inaction of people in power about the harassment of female activists online.Ìý Nazifa Jannat, a student of East West University and coordinator during the movement, felt that women were compelled to assert that they, too, were part of the movement.

Italian-American scholar and activist Silvia Federici reminds us that ‘capitalist accumulation has been made possible by the degradation and devaluation of women’s labour.’ This insight extends beyond the economic sphere to revolutionary movements, where women’s contributions are essential yet systematically erased. The same pattern is repeating here, once again, where women’s organisational and intellectual labour fuels mass movements, yet they are discarded once male leaders consolidate power.

Another frontline activist, Shahjadi Fanana Kotha of East West University, talked about how women were often excluded from post-movement decision-making. She shared that when they enquired about the selection criteria for leadership roles, they were told that connections matter more than contributions.

British political scientist Carole Pateman’s critique of the ‘sexual contract’ shows how modern democracies, while claiming to be inclusive, are built on the implicit exclusion of women. This exclusion is not only external but is also internalised by women themselves. Decades of patriarchal conditioning teach women that their role is to support rather than lead, to step back for the ‘greater cause,’ and to accept their exclusion as natural.ÌýThis manifests in revolutionary movements where women are repeatedly told to ‘wait their turn’ — to fight for political transformation first and gender equality later. However, history has shown that this ‘later’ rarely comes. Even within movements that claim to be progressive, women’s demands for leadership are dismissed as distractions from the ‘real’ struggle.

Newly formed political party, initiated by the Students Against Discrimination and the National Citizens’ Committee, the National Citizens’ Party’s senior joint convener Samanta Shermeen addressed that the strategy of cornering women in leadership and the decision-making process was part of the socio-political system being practised for long and called for ‘fascist practices’ to be abolished, stressing that a new political settlement was critical to ensure equal opportunities for women and all backward communities.

But as this very strategy of cornering was experienced by uprising leaders themselves, this reminds us that internalisation is one of the most insidious forms of oppression, as it conditions women to accept a system that continually marginalises them. The fight against this requires not only external resistance but also a radical reimagining of women’s own perception of their place in political and social movements.

Social media is also like a battleground where women’s autonomy is constantly scrutinised, policed and attacked. Algorithms designed to reward engagement disproportionately amplify misogynistic content, as outrage and hate generate higher interactions. The weaponisation of digital spaces ensures that women who step into political or social leadership face immediate character assassination. Their personal lives are dissected, their credibility questioned and their voices drowned out in a storm of harassment.

Recently, senior joint member secretary of the National Citizens’ Party, Tasnim Jara, a medical professional, was targeted online following her appointment in the party. She wrote about this experience: ‘When honest and competent individuals enter politics, we are quick to question their integrity and capabilities. In effect, we do everything possible to push them out of the political sphere. And if they are women? The scrutiny is even harsher. So, is this our way of ensuring that politics remains corrupt and exclusively male-dominated?

The concept of ‘moral panic’ ties into this: women’s autonomy is framed as a societal threat, leading to widespread attempts to tarnish their reputations. Any assertion of independence is met with digital witch hunts, reinforcing the idea that a woman in power is an anomaly that must be corrected. This extends beyond individual actors to systemic efforts to exclude women from leadership, often justified under the guise of protecting cultural values.

Across civilisations, historical myths, religious narratives and cultural tropes have cemented rigid perceptions of women as either virtuous caregivers or dangerous disruptors. This binary framework dictates the roles women are allowed to occupy — those who conform to the nurturing, self-sacrificing ideal are venerated, while those who challenge patriarchal norms are vilified. In many South Asian contexts, the idealised mother figure is revered, while independent, assertive women are cast as threats to social harmony.

In the eyes of this reactionary apparatus, a woman in power is not a political actor but a moral aberration, her authority constantly undermined by whispers of scandal and manufactured disgrace. American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler’s critique of gender performativity is evident here: ‘The construction of identity is not a singular act but a process, a repetition of norms which solidifies gender roles.’ Those who deviate from this script — who refuse to stick to norms, demand political agency, or challenge authority — face societal backlash. The branding of such women as ‘shameless,’ ‘immoral,’ or ‘destructive’ serves as a tool to maintain patriarchal order. In Bangladesh, as in many other countries in similar situation, the contributions of women in mass movements are often glorified in rhetoric but erased from political power once stability is restored. The mythology of the self-sacrificing woman, essential to nation-building narratives, is strategically wielded to keep women in subordinate roles.

The co-optation of feminism by the ruling elite further complicates this struggle. Token female representation in government and bureaucracy does not dismantle patriarchy; it strengthens it. When women in power serve the interests of the state rather than the liberation of their own gender, they become agents of the same oppression that revolution sought to overthrow.Ìý Women activists and university students also talked about how they felt some of the appointments were nothing more than tokenism, ‘showcasing’ a few women to meet a quota without giving them real decision-making power.

Bangladesh’s long history of female leadership has done little to shift the material conditions of most women, instead reinforcing dynastic rule where gender is wielded as a tool of legitimacy rather than transformation. Lithuanian-born writer and activist Emma Goldman’s assertion that ‘true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in a woman’s soul’ is a reminder that political office alone is not liberation. The presence of some women in high office does not necessarily signify progress if the structures beneath them remain deeply misogynistic.

Real reform cannot be cosmetic. The public perception of women must be dismantled and rebuilt from its roots. This demands a confrontation not only with state power but also with the very cultural psyche that justifies women’s exclusion. The struggle is not merely against individual men but against institutions that are designed to keep women in subordinate roles. Without dismantling these structures, women’s political engagement will always be conditional, their presence tolerated only as long as they do not threaten the status quo.

Philosophers and theorists have long argued that true emancipation cannot be handed down from the existing power structure but must be seized through collective action. Theories of direct democracy and horizontal organisation, often discussed in feminist and radical political thought, provide a framework for genuine inclusion. Rather than demanding token representation within patriarchal hierarchies, women must assert their own political autonomy, creating spaces where power is not simply redistributed but fundamentally reimagined. The idea that representation alone leads to justice is a fallacy; true change requires dismantling the very mechanisms that enforce gendered oppression.

The July uprising was an opportunity to redefine these dynamics and break the cycle, but instead, we see a repetition of historical erasure. Women are called upon to protest, to bleed, to sacrifice, yet when the time comes to build the new order, they are cast aside. The slogans of mass uprising mean nothing if they do not include women’s liberation at their core. The institutional exclusion of women is not an accident — it is a calculated move to preserve the gendered hierarchies that underpin all systems of power.

If the July uprising is to mean anything beyond another cycle of male dominance repackaged as change, then the role of women must not be reduced to that of spectators in their own revolution. The exclusion of women from leadership is not an unfortunate oversight; it is the death knell of any true revolutionary progress. A new Bangladesh cannot be built on the foundations of the old, where men dictate and women obey. If women’s liberation is once again postponed in the name of political pragmatism, if their rights and freedoms are sacrificed for the comfort of the patriarchal order, then this uprising is already doomed to rot in the pages of history as yet another failure. The struggle continues, and it will not be won through symbolic gestures but through the absolute dismantling of the structures that have, for too long, held women captive to the whims of power.

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Rafia Tamanna is an editorial assistant at ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ·.