Feminism in Afghanistan: A Crushed Dream
Image courtesy of Unsplash
Waking up this week to news of Afghanistan slipping back into Taliban regime is surreal and jarring, to say the least.
I grew up with little exposure to Middle Eastern culture, history, and people. It’s a blindspot in my upbringing that was eventually rectified through dutiful indulgence in current events, history books, and personal narratives. I vividly remember my first exposure to the women of the Middle East when I was flipping through the pages of National Geographic. I stared at the infamous portrait of Sharbat Gula (Afghan Girl by Steve McCurry, 1984), tracing my small fingers over the shape of her weathered maroon hijab. Her piercing eyes, green and soulful, reflected an unknown source of pain that haunted me (and still does). It was an image of mystery that provoked my curiosity for something I was too young to understand at the time.
Once, during dinner, I asked my father why Sharbat Gula wasn’t dressed the same way as my friends and me.
My father paused before answering me. “Not everyone in this world lives the way people do in America, and not everyone is lucky to have the same privileges you do. You don’t know what war is or what war sounds like because you go to sleep knowing you’ll be alive tomorrow. You go to school, and you can read. You are not afraid to speak your mind. You are a very lucky little girl. Now finish your vegetables.”
It wasn’t until years later that I finally understood what my father meant.
During the years of US presence in Afghanistan post-9/11, Kabul briefly saw glimpses of social progress. Some women went to school, took jobs, and had the freedom to choose what to wear. Not all parts of the country practiced these rights in uniform since rural villages still leaned conservative, but each step forward was deemed significant for all Afghan women. In the wake of the recent turnover of power, however, the Taliban reversed the two decades of work cultivated by the US-backed Afghan government in just a matter of days. Afghan women now face an insurgent group that undermines women to a near degree of totality. They are on the verge of losing the privileges they had fought so hard for, including freedom to go to school, to work, and participate in political, social, and economical aspects of life. They’re even forbidden to travel alone. Consequences to violating any of rules for women include cruel punishments ranging from flogging to the possibility of public execution by stoning.
In the past 24 hours since the fall of Kabul, posters of women with no headscarves have been painted over or stripped down. Women born after the ousting of the Taliban in the early 2000s now fear their loss of identity knowing they may be barred from education. Of all people most negatively impacted under Taliban rule, it is women. Taliban officials have offered reform, peace, and more inclusion of women in public life, but news continue to report behavior that have contradicted these false promises. I have no doubt these women are incredibly scared of this new era that is tainted with the possibility of more violence and oppression.
As #MeToo and other gender equality movements continue to power feminist momentum forward in the West, Afghanistan is regressing back to its archaic practices, once again denying women of their basic human rights. In witnessing this unfathomable inverse, I can’t help but feel heartbroken and frustrated. How many more women are going to suffer under the hands of the Taliban? Will there ever be another Malala Yousafzai to help spur change? Feminism in Afghanistan was once a possibility, if not reality. One can only dare to hope as the world watches in alarm. For now, it’s a crushed dream.
Afghanistan stands at an unpredictable crossroad. What the future holds for Afghan girls and women is uncertain, and it cannot be ignored.
