This weekend, as the world marks International Women’s Day, the Hong Kong human-rights barrister Chow Hang-tung is preparing to return to court on March 9 to defend herself against a regime with the world’s highest proportion of women in its prison population — about three times the global average.

Chow is a protagonist in another Hong Kong show trial, just weeks after British publisher Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison for printing truths that displeased the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). She is charged with “incitement to subversion” and faces up to 10 years in prison for her role in commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre through peaceful candlelit vigils.

Denied bail, she continues to challenge Hong Kong’s authorities even from prison, most recently by bringing a judicial review against a dress code that forces female inmates to wear long trousers even in brutal summer heat, while men can wear shorts. In January 2026, a male judge dismissed her legal challenge as baseless and ordered Chow to pay all costs.

The symbolism is hard to miss: Hong Kong, under Beijing’s tightening grip, insists on regulating women’s bodies, even behind bars, in ways it does not impose on men. Prison authorities punish Chow with solitary confinement for staging hunger strikes around the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary, yet she has not stopped asserting her rights and those of others.

From prison cells in Hong Kong to exile communities abroad, Chow’s legal challenge is one example of how women in our city’s pro-democracy movement face attacks that are explicitly gendered and political. Misogyny in Beijing-controlled Hong Kong is not a cultural by-product; it is part of the CCP’s playbook to delegitimize women’s leadership and weaken our struggle for freedom through propaganda, character attacks and targeted harassment.

During the 2019 pro-democracy protests, women reported sexualized searches, harassment and assaults by police officers. The Hong Kong people’s demand for democracy was met not only with batons and tear gas, but with violations and a lack of accountability designed to instill fear among women and girls — to keep Hong Kong women from engaging in the protests.

The same playbook has followed Hong Kongers into exile and onto the digital frontlines. When women rise to visibility, the CCP sexualizes us to undermine our competence. In 2023, the Hong Kong government put a 1 million Hong Kong dollar ($128,000) bounty on my head, along with other overseas pro-democracy activists. The Beijing-controlled authorities accused us of “inciting secession” and “collusion with foreign forces” under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law, a crime that can carry a sentence of life in prison.

This threat to my freedom is real and ever present. But there is also a deep misogyny in this assault on my liberty. As a woman activist now living abroad and targeted by the Hong Kong government, I have lost count of the comments attacking my appearance, calling me derogatory names and reducing me to sexual insinuation. The implication is clear: A woman who rises to relevance must have slept her way there and is little more than a sexual object.

Deepfake harassment campaigns targeting my fellow bountied activists in exile have reinforced the message. Last year, digitally manipulated sexual images of U.K.-based pro-democracy activist and former Hong Kong district councilor Carmen Lau and the wife of former Hong Kong legislator Ted Hui in Australia were sent to their neighbors, accompanied by offers of sexual services. These are warning shots to all dissidents who dare to challenge the regime: Speak up, and you, or women in your life, will pay a horrific personal cost.

Over my decade-long activism for a free Hong Kong, I have watched women take on a more visible role in the movement, challenging the perception that political leadership is a male domain and shows of resistance are not limited by gender. When women bring our unique experiences to the agenda, our fight becomes more inclusive, helping our movement grow.

This is precisely what threatens the CCP. The party understands that women’s leadership expands our reach and legitimacy. That is why it turns sexism into a tool of control — through state media narratives that paint women as immoral or hysterical “troublemakers,” through online mobs that sexualize and slander us and through laws and policies that punish women who refuse to be silent. Autocratic regimes across the world have long weaponized misogyny to crush dissent; Hong Kong is no exception.

And yet, despite prison sentences, bounties and smear campaigns, women in our movement keep rising. Female political prisoners like Chow and Gwyneth Ho, the former journalist now imprisoned in Hong Kong for participating in a democratic primary, remain steadfast in their principles, inspiring us all to keep fighting. We are far from fading.

On this International Women’s Day, we honor the women who are behind bars, in silence, and in exile — all those who refuse to be sidelined, no matter the odds. Our freedom movement must also be a fight for women’s rights if it is to be stronger and impossible to ignore. I hope women around the world can take courage from our fight.

© The Japan Times