It could be many years before anyone is able to definitively conclude whether the 30 female participants in #womencrossdmz2015 accomplished anything at all, much less the “enormous triumph” that 81-year-old activist Gloria Steinem declared upon her arrival on the South Korean side of the inter-Korean border on Sunday.

However, the case for skepticism is robust. None of the coverage the women received on North Korean television and in the country’s print media during their visit suggests that Pyongyang even attempted an honest accounting of the goals of the walkers. Equally, the symposium in which they took part appears – at