My husband says a global war is being waged on women. He is right. What is going on in the East, West, South and North cannot be attributed to “the backlash” or a new “masculinism” or a reactionary fight back. It is a brutal war without rules or redress, beyond the reach of international laws or institutions.

Last week the BBC broadcast India’s Daughter, made by Leslee Udwin, whose films include the much loved East is East. The documentary revisited the savage murder-by-gang-rape of the young student Jyoti Singh in Delhi in 2012. Five men were found guilty and sentenced to death. One hanged himself, the others have appealed. Udwin got permission to interview one of the rapists, Mukesh Singh, in prison.

Singh blames the woman and is unrepentant. “A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy,” he said. Two defence lawyers also expressed extreme misogynistic views – views shared by millions in India and in countries around the world where females are seen as cursed, sinful, and upholders of honour. The apoplectic Indian government has banned the film and accused the BBC of tarnishing India’s shining image. Oh, and the tourist industry.

On Saturday I went to the South Bank Women of the World festival, a three-day carnival, full of much joy, and much pain too, as females from here, there and everywhere described their struggles. I was on a panel with the broadcaster Sandi Toksvig, the formidable feminist Beatrix Campbell, and Mariane Pearl, the journalist and managing editor of Chime for Change, a global network championing female rights. (Pearl’s husband Daniel was beheaded by Pakistani terrorists. She was pregnant at the time.)

We agreed that life is getting harder for females. Campbell thinks of it as the “great repudiation” of gender equality. Pearl, a soft-spoken humanist, just back from Kurdistan, said she saw a pricelist for women being sold there: “I think my price would be £10.” Neo-liberal capitalism is ruthless. Women disproportionately suffer as it demolishes social welfare, equality laws, childcare entitlements, other progressive ideas and policies. On top of that, the political space to object and resist has been slashed too.

The women who are shaping our world Show all 27 1 /27 The women who are shaping our world The women who are shaping our world Janet Yellen (US) Women hold positions of power in the United States like in no other country, but in terms of raw power none challenge Janet Yellen, Chair of the Federal Reserve, whose decisions determine the cash in not only every Americans’ purse but ours too. AP The women who are shaping our world Oprah Winfrey (US) Oprah still directs the US national conversation through her TV appearances, stadium tours and, most recently, her backing of ‘Selma’, which finally gave Martin Luther King the deserved cinematic attention. Getty The women who are shaping our world Christine Lagarde (France) Managing Director of the IMF (the first woman to run the 188-country financial organization), Lagarde’s leadership has coincided with one of the worst modern economic crises. She is willing to say the unpalatable as she demands politicians reform their economies to “effectively address the predicament of the 200 million jobless worldwide.” AP The women who are shaping our world Nicola Sturgeon (UK) The Queen? No, the person whose political career has been built on a commitment to tear apart the union who (at this moment) holds the actual power. With the SNP likely to sweep Scotland in the forthcoming general election, it will be Sturgeon who will have the greatest say over Britain’s future. Tom Pilston/The Independent The women who are shaping our world Emma Watson (UK) It’s what she’s done since Hogwarts that has so impressed. The fashion world may have adopted her as a muse, but it is in the area of sexual politics that she has found her voice, becoming a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and helping launch the UN Women HeForShe campaign, calling for men to advocate the cause of gender equality. Getty Images The women who are shaping our world Angela Merkel (Germany) In Germany she is known as ‘Mutti’ (or ‘Mother’) but it is in her international dealings that the Chancellor’s power has been most marked - whether breaking the post-World war II taboo on military actions by sending arms to Kurdish fighters facing ISIS or working tirelessly to seek a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Ukraine. Getty Images The women who are shaping our world Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (Germany) One of only 12 female Nobel Prize winning scientists, pioneering geneticist Nüsslein-Volhard is a global expert in genetic mutations and the ethical implications of recent developments in genomics and biotechnology. She campaigns for rights of mothers worldwide. Getty The women who are shaping our world Lubna Olayan (Saudi Arabia) A corporate trailblazer, and is one of the most influential businesswomen in the Middle East, Olayan is CEO of her own financing company, which runs 40-plus companies across the region. She has also pushed progressive business practices where few others do, promoting women and celebrating their contribution to business culture. AFP/Getty The women who are shaping our world Wajeha al-Huwaider (Saudi Arabia) The co-founder of the Association for the Protection and Defense of Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia is one of the few voices for equality in a country where women are must have a male guardian to travel, open a bank account and seek employment. Her campaign to permit women to drive gained international acclaim. YouTube The women who are shaping our world Shahnaz Wazir Ali (Pakistan) Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan and chairperson of Higher Education Commission and a rare female voice in the country - since the assassination of Benazir Bhutto there has been a dearth of women at the highest levels of power in Pakistan. AFP The women who are shaping our world Malala Yousafzai (Pakistan) Shot by the Taliban in 2012 for blogging about life under their rule, Yousafzai has become an inspirational campaigner for education for women and girls. She is the youngest person to receive the Nobel Prize, giving her access to political leaders worldwide and helping turn her advocacy into a global movement. Getty Images The women who are shaping our world Margaret Chan (China) Chan has not had an easy time as DG of the World Health Organisation, her second term seeing one of the worst global disease outbreaks in recent times in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The WHO’s late response was criticised, leading to Chan to admit the agency “underestimated the magnitude, the complexity and the challenges”. AFP The women who are shaping our world Yao Chen (China) She is not just the doe-eyed ingénue starring in some of China's biggest romantic comedies over the past five years. Yao has also used her popularity – and the 71 million followers she has on the social media site Sina Weibo – to address troubling social and environmental issues in her country, as well as the plight of South-east Asian refugees. Getty The women who are shaping our world Indra Nooyi (India) Born to a Tamil-speaking family in Madras, Nooyi (CEO, PepsiCo) is now one of the world’s most powerful businesswomen, having taken Pepsi from its sugary drink origins to the second largest food and drink behemoth in the world. It is an achievement that rewards her with a reputed $17m per year. Getty The women who are shaping our world Julie Bishop (Australia) Since Julia Gillard left, there has been a lack of women in senior posts. Bishop is the exception, having been Foreign Affairs minister since 2013. Her handling of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 won plaudits, leading to her being touted as a contender for PM Tony Abbott’s job. AFP The women who are shaping our world Cathy Freeman (Australia) Since winning gold at the 2000 Olympic games, sprinter Freeman has campaigned for Aboriginal rights with her Cathy Freeman Foundation, working to improve the educational prospects of Australia’s indigenous children. Getty The women who are shaping our world Rapelang Rabana (South Africa) At 23, Rapelang Rabana founded Yeigo Communications, the hugely influential communications software development company based in Cape Town. Listed by Forbes as one of 30 under 30 Best Young African Entrepreneurs, she made Oprah's 2012 O Power List and this year was hailed by the World Economic Forum. The women who are shaping our world Thuli Madonsela (South Africa) Widely known as ‘Mrs Anticorruption’, public prosecutor Madonsela played an instrumental role in drafting the country’s new Constitution that saw Nelson Mandela becomethe first black president of South Africa and has been tireless in standing up for human rights and punishing corruption. AFP/Getty The women who are shaping our world Folorunsho Alakija (Nigeria) Alakija’s first company was a fashion label that catered to Nigeria's elite, including the wife of former military president Ibrahim Babangida. This connection paid off - he gave her a prospecting licence for lucrative oil fields and she has now replaced Isabel dos Santos as the richest woman of Africa (estimated worth $41.83bn). AP The women who are shaping our world Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria) The author of ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction, has been hailed as “the most prominent” of a “procession of critically acclaimed young Anglophone authors [that] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature”. Getty The women who are shaping our world Rihanna (Barbados) Little explanation is needed for this Barbadian phenomenon. Rihanna is one of the most famous women in the world - she uses social media such as Twitter and Instagram to communicate directly with her millions of fans. Not all of her actions are deemed to be feminist, though. Getty The women who are shaping our world Michelle Bachelet (Chile) President Bachelet (the first woman to head her country) is now serving a second term, having ended her first with an 84 per cent approval rating. In her earlier career, her commitment to standing up for the oppressed caused her to be jailed, tortured and exiled and, between her presidencies, she served as Executive Director of UN Women. AFP/Getty Images The women who are shaping our world Isabel Allende (Chile) Hailed as the world's most widely read Spanishlanguage author, Allende’s influence is greater even than that. A life that has seen her experience political intimidation, exile and the loss of a daughter has made her a powerful campaigner for the empowerment and protection of women. AFP/Getty The women who are shaping our world Dilma Rousseff (Brazil) Brazil’s first female president. Rouseff has been in power since 2010, leading a $2.2 trillion economy and 200 million people. With the World Cup and the Olympics, the eyes of the world are firmly on her country at a time when she is seeking to redistribute wealth during an economic recession. AFP/Getty Images The women who are shaping our world Gisele Bündchen (Brazil) The world’s highest-paid model for the past eight years, Bündchen made $47m in 2014. She is also Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Environment Programme, and on the board of the Rainforest Alliance, a charity working to conserve biodiversity and sustainability. Getty The women who are shaping our world Shakira (Colombia) Since launching her music career at age 13, the singer has sold almost 60 million albums and topped the charts in 55 countries. Her social media reach is also immense – she is Facebook’s "most liked" person, with 93 million followers. Getty The women who are shaping our world Sofia Vergara (Colombia) She may be best known for US TV’s ‘Modern Family’ but it is Vergara’s business achievements that make this 41-year-old actress so important to her country. Her savvy steering of her firm, Latin World Entertainment, has made it a regional $27m-a-year talent management, marketing and tech powerhouse. Getty

The pay gap in this country has not narrowed, as Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, proudly avers. Only women under 40 working full-time in well-paid jobs have edged towards parity. But part-time or zero-hours work – which millions of women do – is insecure and underpaid. Local council employment was good for such women. That is all but gone. Benefits cuts – as we know – have been catastrophic for impoverished women, particularly lone mums. Men suffer too, those who are single parents or disabled. But overwhelmingly the suffering falls on females.

Porn is everywhere, reducing females to meat. Plans to teach 11-year-old schoolgirls the meaning of consent are necessary, but we more urgently need to teach it to young boys. Young girls in the richest societies, of all classes, are turning to self-harm in alarming numbers. Psychiatrists tell me they carry within them a deep and corrosive sense that they are not “perfect” and never will be. How did this happen? Go look at teen mags, websites, the messages drummed into young people every minute of their lives.

I have met an 18-year-old who is cutting every day. Assaulted by a young lad when she was 16 and then verbally abused by him online, she told no one but started cutting. He did well in his GCSEs and she, expected to get A grades, did not. Sexual assaults and harassment are rife at our universities but the authorities do nothing.

Wherever you look, women and girls are not safe, not thriving. Females are subjugated and violated in African, Asian, Arab, East European and Central Asian countries. Democracy has not tamed barbaric men. Child rape, FGM, forced marriages, honour killings, abductions are rife in the developing world. And are imported into the West: sickening, but true.

In the West, where gender equality has improved, women are still discriminated against and also violated. Worryingly, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights found that better gender parity increased violence against women. Nearly 50 per cent of females report physical and sexual assaults in Sweden, Denmark and Finland, where equality is embedded in the culture. The UK has the fifth-highest incidence – 44 per cent.

Could this be a war against modernity itself? The Pakistani grooming gangs and Isis clearly despise liberal cultures, autonomy and female emancipation. Conservative Africans cannot accept homosexuality or free choice either. Here in Western Europe, rage on the internet, homes, universities and streets seems to be provoked by feminism and egalitarianism, modern ideas that won’t go away.