Why Feminism is Still Necessary in 2026

Men are waiting for us to stop fighting so they can oppress us again.

Photo by Gary Yost on Unsplash

The other day, I saw a video of a woman saying she was moving to Afghanistan because she fell in love with a man from that country.

She couldn’t bring him to the United States because there’s no US embassy in Afghanistan, so she decided to move there instead to be with him.

The comment section was brutal.

Everyone was against her move, everyone was telling her she was making a mistake, and everyone was trying to convince her not to go, even though she was mad at people for even suggesting that.

And I wondered why everyone was so upset about her decision (I didn’t know much about that country because I’m from the Dominican Republic, and we don’t hear much about it here). So I decided to investigate what’s actually happening in Afghanistan for women.

And what I found was alarming.

This is a country that hates women.

Afghanistan is a country that basically hates women and where women have no rights.

Women in Afghanistan are banned from speaking in public. They don’t have a voice. They can’t express themselves, can’t share their opinions, can’t be heard.

They’re banned from parks and gyms. They can’t exercise, can’t have spaces of their own, can’t exist in public spaces.

They’re banned from education past sixth grade. Girls can’t go to school, can’t learn, can’t develop themselves intellectually. Their education stops at twelve years old.

They’re banned from reading books written by women. They can’t access knowledge from female authors. They can’t learn from other women’s experiences or perspectives.

They deleted minimum marriage ages, so men are allowed to force marriage on minors.

They’re not allowed to leave their house without a male chaperone. They need permission to go anywhere. They can’t be independent, can’t run errands alone, can’t have autonomy over their own movements.

They’re not allowed to see male doctors. But there are almost no female doctors because women aren’t allowed to receive a college education. So women are essentially banned from receiving healthcare. They suffer in silence because the only doctors available are men they’re not allowed to see.

They can’t drive. They depend on men to take them anywhere. They can’t be mobile, can’t be independent, can’t go where they want when they want.

This is life for women in Afghanistan. This is what a country that hates women looks like.

And this is what that woman is moving into.

This is our future if we don’t protect feminism.

People think it can’t happen here. That women’s rights are so established, so protected, so ingrained in Western society that we could never go backward.

But Afghanistan didn’t wake up one day with these laws already in place. Women had rights. Women had freedom. Women had education, jobs, and voices.

And then the Taliban came. And everything changed.

Rights that women had fought for, that women had built over generations, were taken away in what felt like overnight. Women went from having autonomy to having none.

And it happened because people thought it couldn’t happen. Because they didn’t fight. Because they stopped being vigilant about protecting what they had.

That’s how it works. You don’t lose your rights all at once. You lose them slowly, piece by piece. You lose them while people tell you it’s not that bad, it’s not really happening, you’re overreacting.

One day, women can work. Then women say they prefer to stay at home. Then women can only work certain jobs. Then women can only work if their husbands approve. Then women stop being allowed to work at all.

One day, women can drive. Then women can only drive to certain places or at certain hours. Then women need permission to drive. Then women can’t drive anymore.

One day, women can get an education. Then women’s education is restricted. Then women can only study certain subjects. Then women can’t study at all.

It happens gradually while people are distracted. And it happens because people stop fighting.

And if we stop fighting for feminism, if we decide that we’ve already won and we don’t need to keep pushing, if we let men take back control, this is exactly what could happen.

This is not an overnight decision.

They move gradually until one day women realize they’ve lost everything their grandmothers fought for.

And the scary part is that it’s already starting.

We’re closer to losing our rights than we think.

Right now, there’s a trend of young women promoting the “stay-at-home wife” lifestyle on social media.

Girls in their early 20s are saying they don’t need education, careers, or independence. They just want to be wives and mothers and be dependent on a man.

And on the surface, it seems harmless.

It’s just a lifestyle choice, right? It’s just what they want to do.

But it’s not harmless. It’s a warning sign.

Because when women voluntarily give up their independence, when women voluntarily choose to be dependent on men, when women voluntarily remove themselves from education and careers and economic power, we collectively lose ground.

It starts with a few women choosing to be stay-at-home wives. Then more women follow. Then it becomes normalized. Then it becomes expected. Then it becomes mandatory.

One woman choosing to be dependent on a man is one woman losing her autonomy. But thousands of women making that choice is a collective loss of power. It’s a step backward.

And men are watching. Men are seeing young women voluntarily giving up their independence, voluntarily choosing dependence, voluntarily accepting a life where they have no control over their own futures.

And they’re thinking: we could make this mandatory. We could legislate this. We could make women dependent on us by law.

This is how it starts. Not with laws taking away women’s rights immediately, but with women voluntarily giving them away first. And then once it’s normalized, once enough women are doing it, it becomes law.

Afghanistan didn’t happen because women fought and lost. Afghanistan happened because women gradually stopped fighting. Women gradually accepted restrictions. Women gradually gave up their power.

And now it’s the law.

That’s what I’m afraid of happening here. I’m afraid of a generation of young women who think feminism isn’t necessary anymore, who think independence isn’t important, who think it’s fine to be completely dependent on a man.

Because once that becomes the norm, once that’s what society expects, once that’s what men demand, it won’t be a choice anymore. It will be a requirement.

The woman moving to Afghanistan thinks she’s making an individual choice. She thinks her decision only affects her.

But it doesn’t. Every woman who gives up her independence, every woman who chooses dependence, every woman who removes herself from the workforce, education, and economic power contributes to a world where women have less power collectively.

And that’s how we lose our rights, through individual choices that add up to collective loss.

Why feminism is still necessary in 2026, even though many men say “we’re not fighting for anything worthy anymore.”

Men keep saying that feminism is outdated, that women have already won, that we’re fighting for nothing because we’ve already achieved equality.

But Afghanistan exists. And young women are choosing to give up their independence. And women are losing access to healthcare. And men are still controlling women’s bodies, women’s choices, women’s futures.

Feminism is still necessary in 2026 because women are still being oppressed (not in the same ways, maybe, but in ways that are just as dangerous).

A woman who can’t drive in Afghanistan and a woman who can’t afford healthcare in the United States are both being controlled by systems that don’t value their lives. The methods are different, but the result is the same: women losing their power.

Feminism is still necessary because rights aren’t permanent. They’re not something you win once and then keep forever. They’re something you have to fight for constantly, or they get taken away.

The woman moving to Afghanistan is about to find out what happens when women stop fighting. When they accept restrictions. When they believe the system will protect them.

It won’t.

And the young women promoting the stay-at-home-wife lifestyle are unknowingly paving the way for a future where women don’t have a choice. Where dependence isn’t a lifestyle, it’s the law.

Feminism is still necessary in 2026 because we’re closer to losing our rights than we think. Because men are still in power. Because women are still being exploited, abused, and controlled.

Because a girl in Afghanistan can’t go to school and a girl in the United States can, but that could change.

Because rights are fragile. And the moment we stop fighting for them, we lose them.

So yes, feminism is still necessary in 2026. Not because women haven’t accomplished anything. But because everything we’ve accomplished is at risk.

And if we don’t keep fighting, if we let women voluntarily give up their independence, if we stop speaking up about our rights, we could very well become them.

And I refuse to let that happen.

Every right women have today exists because someone before us fought for it.

The right to vote. The right to work. The right to own property. The right to open a bank account, go to university, file for divorce, or make decisions about our own lives.

None of those rights appeared on their own, and history has shown that rights can be weakened or taken away when people stop defending them.

That’s why feminism still matters.

When I read about women in Afghanistan, I don’t just see a country far away. I see a reminder of how much our freedom matters and how devastating it is when women lose it.

I hope we never stop talking about women’s rights simply because we’ve become used to having them.

Because equality isn’t something you achieve once and keep forever. It’s something every generation has to value, protect, and defend.

And as long as there are women anywhere in the world who are denied the same freedoms others take for granted, feminism still has work to do.

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