Irish Examiner view: A week of setbacks for women’s rights

Texas and the Taliban have more in common than their citizens might acknowledge

Women gather to demand their rights under the Taliban rule during a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan. Picture: AP Photo/Wali Sabawoon

It has been a dispiriting week for the progress of women’s rights in two hugely different countries which now have more in common than their citizens might acknowledge.

In Afghanistan, where the now media savvy Taliban arranged for a female journalist to interview one of their leading militant leaders after the fall of Kabul, the honeymoon was short before they began to reveal that a leopard doesn’t change its spots.