It’s shocking how quickly progress can disappear.
In the picture, a woman is cutting a birthday cake. She isn’t from the West—she’s Iranian. The year is 1973, just five years before the Islamic Revolution. She’s wearing a slightly revealing outfit, her legs are bare, and her hair is uncovered. She looks happy, carefree.
But five years later, everything would change. She would be forced to cover her hair, her arms, her legs, and her chest. Many of the rights she once had—rights she probably thought were hers forever—would be taken away. When she cut that cake, she had no idea that her freedom was about to disappear.
Even today, even in the West, there are people who want this kind of future—women covered up, staying in the kitchen, losing their rights. They want life to go back to how it was fifty, sixty, seventy years ago.
We often take our rights for granted. Or we complain that we don’t have enough. But every right we have was fought for—people suffered for it, demanded it, and took it. It was never just given. And just like that… it can all be taken away.
So don’t get too comfortable.