In Bangladesh, the story of women’s progress is often told in numbers … more girls in schools, more women in workplaces, more female entrepreneurs, more women in leadership. Progress does not emerge from numbers alone; it is built on countless acts of giving, often by women whose contributions remain unseen. The engine behind much of this visible progress is an invisible, undervalued workforce. If our progress depends entirely on the unpaid giving of women in the household, it is fragile progress. True progress will come when giving and gaining no longer fall along invisible gendered lines.
