Feminism is not over, the work goes on everywhere every day

As it happened, I was in Edinburgh the day Roe v Wade was overturned, and the next day I caught a train back to London and did what I usually do when I get anywhere near King's Cross station.

- Rebecca Solnit

I took the short walk to the old St Pancras churchyard to visit the tombstone of the great feminist ancestor Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. To be there was to remember that feminism did not start recently - Wollstonecraft died in 1797 - and it did not stop on 24 June.

Women in the US gained this right less than half a century ago - a short time when the view is from Wollstonecraft's memorial. I have regularly heard the opinions that feminism achieved nothing or is over, which seems ignorant of how utterly different the world (or most of it) is for women than it was that half century ago and more. I say world, because it's important to remember that feminism is a global movement and Roe v Wade and its reversal were only national decisions. Ireland in 2018, Argentina in 2020, Mexico in 2021 and Colombia in 2022 have all legalised abortion.

So much has changed that it would be hard to itemise all; suffice to say the status of women has been radically altered for the better, overall. Feminism is a human rights movement that endeavours to change things that are centuries and, in many cases, millennia old. Setbacks and resistance are neither shocking nor reasons to stop.