In the annals of history, there are moments when ordinary people rise — unarmed, unheard, yet unstoppable — and change the course of a nation. Bangladesh witnessed such a moment in July last year. When the streets of Dhaka erupted in 2024 during mass protests, it was the fire in the eyes of women that first caught the nation’s attention. Draped in hijabs, saris and jeans alike, they marched.
Students, garment workers, artists, teachers, rickshaw-pullers’ wives — women from all walks of life took to the streets to stand against what many called the fascist stronghold of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League regime.
Young women carrying placards — drenched in rain, yet undeterred and not fearing serious threats — broke through the darkness of the night to bring us light.
Side by side with their male counterparts, they chanted, they bled, they endured. And for a moment, it looked like the revolution belonged to everyone. But one year later, that moment feels like a fading mirage.
During the critical weeks of the 2024 mass uprising, women were not only present but also essential. In Shahbagh, it was a group of university students, mostly women, who organised food and water for protestors. Following their lead were mothers, housewives, whom we endearingly address as ‘aunties’ were handing out food and bottles of water to the frontliners as tear gas filled the streets. They turned their homes into infirmaries and livestreamed the violence when the mainstream media went dark.
In Chattogram, women garment workers were the first to break police barricades, becoming symbolic of class solidarity and gender defiance. The image of a woman, standing, despite injuries, in front of a riot control vehicle— almost as if attempting to push it back — but unyielding after being assaulted by the police, became an icon of the revolution. But as the months passed and the provisional civilian coalition formed to fill the power vacuum, many more women found themselves sidelined.
Out of the 72-member Civil Reconstruction Council that was formed post-uprising, only 6 were women. None were part of the original organising cells. Instead, senior male academics, NGO heads and party defectors filled the seats.
Moreover, as the power struggle deepened and order faltered, women bore the brunt of the chaos. In the period immediately following the regime’s fall, incidents of gender-based violence spiked dramatically. According to a leaked report from the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), nearly 40 per cent of post-uprising political detainees who identified as women reported some form of sexual abuse or harassment in custody.
Makeshift vigilante groups, claiming to act in community interest, targeted women under vague accusations of ‘immorality’ or ‘sedition’. In rural districts, many of which were formerly AL strongholds, women suspected of participating in the protests were paraded and publicly accused. Several cases of gender-based violence in Khulna and Barisal were linked to such accusations, but none resulted in formal investigations.
In the vacuum left behind by the fascist regime’s collapse, religious groups enforcing strict interpretations— some formerly suppressed by the Awami League for political reasons — re-emerged, as bans on the groups were lifted. They tried to enforce strict interpretations of rules regarding female modesty, education and public presence.
In Rajshahi and Bogura, reports surfaced of girls as young as 12 being pulled from schools due to fatwas allegedly declaring co-education “un-Islamic.” Female journalists attempting to cover these stories were routinely harassed online and physically intimidated.
“When the regime changed, I thought it would be a new day,” says Tanzeela Afroz, a secondary school teacher in Jessore. “But now I feel we’ve gone backwards, not forwards. It’s not the state controlling our lives now; it’s the men in our communities.”
If the streets became unsafe, the screens were worse. Women who had been vocal during the uprising now face daily online harassment. Accusations of ‘moral corruption’, doctored photos and rumours of relationships with male leaders became routine.
Several female organisers were doxed by anonymous Telegram channels that appeared after the uprising. Social media platforms were flooded with posts vilifying them — most notably ‘#Naribadi’, a derogatory term implying feminists who speak up against misogyny, religious fundamentalism and gender-based violence.
Fatema Khanam Liza, former coordinator and spokesperson of the Chattogram unit of Students Against Discrimination (SAD), has announced her departure from politics, citing harassment by male colleagues.
In a Facebook Live, she revealed that the same men who once protected women during the July uprising are now responsible for harassment. She criticised leaders of the organisation for failing to address online abuse of female activists.
In the wake of the July Uprising that toppled a decades-old regime, a dangerous vacuum has allowed gender-based violence to surge unchecked. While women were on the frontlines — leading marches, organising resistance and braving police brutality — the post-uprising period has seen them systematically sidelined, harassed and silenced by the very male activists who once called them comrades.
One year later, the men who capitalised on the revolution have formed alliances, parties and ministries. Meanwhile, the women who risked everything are either invisible, under threat or fighting yet another battle — this time, for their own dignity.
The question remains open-ended: What have we truly, collectively achieved as a nation?
Institutional reform takes time; policy reform work is not something that can be laid out in days but the bare minimum — where mobs do not take up law in their own hands, where men do not have the right of way to bully women on their choice of clothing, or for smoking in public, or for being sex-workers — a trade where 100 per cent of the client base is men — are vilified for simply existing.
To counter this regression, women must radicalise their presence: forming autonomous women-led collectives, reclaiming public discourse through independent media and refusing alliances that tolerate patriarchal behaviour.
Direct action such as naming abusers within movements, occupying male-dominated platforms and organising self-defence and legal literacy workshops can shift the balance. The revolution will fail if it forgets the women who birthed it; it must now make space for them to lead, not just follow.
As the new Bangladesh grapples with nation-building, the stories of the women of 2024 must not be forgotten. Otherwise, history will repeat itself — with different leaders but the same silencing of women’s voices. Correction is not retribution. Inclusion is not charity. The women of Bangladesh’s uprising did not fight to be remembered; they fought to be counted.