"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, …..” The opening lines (paraphrased) from Charles Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities, kind of summed up the situation for women in two hotspots of the world -- Iran and Afghanistan this past year. Women were the talking point in international forums across the world.