Almost exactly five years ago, the Taliban swept back into power in Afghanistan and created the most violent and hostile environment for women and girls on earth. Through more than 160 official decrees, the Taliban have erased women from every aspect of public life: They are not allowed to attend school past sixth grade, are banned from nearly all professions, are unable to leave their homes without a male chaperone and are even forbidden from singing or speaking to each other in public.
This legally mandated, institutionalized system of oppression meets the criteria for apartheid on the basis of gender.
Despite repeated calls from Afghan women and girls for solidarity and condemnation, the Taliban continue to push the limits of gender-based oppression, and seemingly nothing is stopping them.
Now, as world leaders prepare to gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly’s High-Level Week, Sept. 18 to 28, they must not allow the rights and freedom of Afghan women and girls to become an afterthought.
When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the feminist movement and the international community at large were captivated by the horrifying reality unfolding for women and girls. International organizations issued strongly worded statements, feminist groups led rallying cries and countless think pieces were published in mainstream outlets.
But over the last five years, I have watched anger and concern over the plight of Afghan women and girls wax and wane. We have seen the U.N. capitulate to Taliban demands, humanitarian organizations shut down operations and abandon their women staff, and influencers from around the world, including some foreign-born Afghans, promote positive images of the Taliban. What concerns me most, however, is that feminist circles in the West have gradually stopped talking about it too.
The backsliding on progress toward gender equality is at its most extreme in Afghanistan, but misogyny and hatred are not contained by any border.
In the U.S., 13 states now have a total abortion ban, and another seven states enforce strict early gestational limits. Ms. has reported at least 12 deaths directly linked to the inability to access abortion care, the majority involving Black women. ICE’s reign of terror and legislation seeking to restrict voting rights, such as the SAVE Act, are direct attacks on women and marginalized communities that already face systemic barriers to political participation.
At the global level, the U.S. has become a leader in slowing and stalling progress on gender equality, with the U.S. mission to the U.N. pushing to remove the word “gender” from every U.N. resolution.
This prevailing far-right conservative ideology trickles all the way down to the individual level, infiltrating social media trends and the content young women and girls consume every day. The rapid rise of the “tradwife” trend encourages women and girls to voluntarily opt into the kind of life currently forced upon Afghan women and girls. For many American feminists, this trend is deeply disturbing. But it is increasingly evident that American feminists are failing to connect the dots, not recognizing gender-based oppression and violence as a continuum of escalating atrocities spanning Afghanistan, the U.S. and beyond. Feminists know that we are all deeply intertwined, and that none of us will be free until all of us are free. So why are Afghan women persistently left out of the conversation?
The American tradwife trend presents an imaginary future that is compelling to some because they cannot see where it leads. If you want to know how it feels to be denied an education, to marry as a child before you even understand what marriage is, to be forced into pregnancy and childbirth, and to have your entire existence relegated to reproductive and domestic labor, you can simply ask some of the women in Afghanistan who already live this way:
“With all the efforts I had made, I once imagined my future to be very bright. I worked very hard for it. But for now, I have locked all those dreams inside my heart, hoping that one day we will wake up from this heavy and empty nightmare.”
“These changes have not only altered our personal lives; they have wounded the soul of our society. Fear, hopelessness and silence have entered many homes.”
“Over the past five years, our lives have changed in ways we could never have imagined. Five years ago, we studied with hope, worked, made plans and thought about a bright future. But today, many of those same dreams have either been put on hold or silenced under the shadow of fear and restrictions.”
The fight for gender justice has felt particularly dark and heavy lately because we are carrying the weight of what it means to be a woman amid an aggressive global rollback of progress. In 2026, we watched women be charged with murder for having an abortion by the same government that keeps pregnant women shackled in ICE custody. The violent extremism of the “manosphere” has moved from fringe online spaces into mainstream political discourse and social media, accompanied by a documented rise in technology-facilitated gender-based violence. This is directly linked to young women and girls regurgitating manosphere talking points and celebrating their pursuit of the trad wife lifestyle, which amounts to decorating their own oppression to make it easier to swallow.
But when I think about a feminist future, I look to the leadership of Afghan women and girls. They are the vanguard of the feminist struggle in Afghanistan and around the world. By fighting for their freedom every day, they remind all of us that we can never afford to lose sight of where we came from or how far we have left to go.
If we, as feminists, lose touch with women and girls in Afghanistan, we lose touch with ourselves. Afghan women are being killed and arrested, and they are carrying an unimaginable burden of grief and oppression. But they have not given up on themselves. They are finding ways to communicate with one another, to read and study together, and to fight for even an inch of autonomy for themselves and each other. It is our duty to continue bringing their voices into spaces they have been systematically barred from entering. The rising tide of gender oppression has already engulfed Afghanistan and many other parts of the world, and it is now making its way to you, too. We are much stronger together than we are apart, and women need each other now more than ever.
At the five-year mark of gender apartheid in Afghanistan, learn more and take action through the Stop Gender Apartheid campaign.
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A note from Ms. editors: We want to hear from you for The Majority, a new campaign collecting stories about how reproductive freedom has enabled readers to build the lives they want and need.
Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans support reproductive healthcare access. Yet public debate overlooks the lives shaped by abortion access, contraception, IVF, miscarriage care, maternal healthcare or comprehensive sex education—countless women who chose to pursue an education, have children, not have children, protect their health and chart their own future. What’s your reproductive freedom story? Add your voice. Together, these stories will help show not only why reproductive freedom remains a majority value, but also what it makes possible.
