What is it like, being a woman in 2024? It depends on where you live.

• Since returning to power three years ago, the Taliban have been eliminating women’s and girls’ rights in Afghanistan. With more than 70 edicts, directives and decrees being issued, girls are limited to primary-level education, and women are banned from most professions, while also being prohibited from using parks, gyms, and other public places.

Women must veil their bodies entirely, including their faces, to avoid “leading men into temptation and vice.” Under new restrictions, women’s voices have literally been taken away. They are not allowed to be heard in public. Singing or reading aloud inside their own home is also banned. –

• Turkey has seen a wave of femicides this year. Women’s rights groups say current president Recep Tayyip Erdoan’s government is promoting a sense of impunity in what is already a horribly patriarchal society. Erdoan also withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, a tool to tackle violence against women and girls, sending the appalling message that violence against women doesn’t really matter.

• In the US, the over-turning of Roe v. Wade – resulting in numerous deaths, as abortions were denied women – was a brutal blow to women’s right to bodily autonomy. Now, the election of Donald Trump has left us all wondering just how bad things might get with a rapist as President.

Not all developments were negtive. In March, France became the first country to inscribe in its constitution the guaranteed freedom for women to have recourse to abortion.  Supported by nearly 70% of French people, the resounding success of the amendment offers the possibility that other countries might follow suit.

One thing is certain. The drift to the right in parts of Europe is bad for women’s freedom and independence. It should be opposed every step of the way.

Read the full Whole Hog End of Year Special in the Hot Press Annual 2025 – out now: