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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Afghan women forced to wear burqa

261 replies

GoodieMoomin · 15/08/2021 18:03

As the taliban continues to gain ground, the forward looking young women of Afghanistan are having to prepare for some major changes.

I cannot imagine how these women are feeling right now, watching their freedoms slip through their fingers. Honestly, I could cry.

^"My mother says we should buy a burqa. My parents are afraid of the Taliban. My mother thinks that one of the ways she can protect her daughters is to make them wear the burqa,” she says.

“But we have no burqa in our home, and I have no intention of getting one. I don’t want to hide behind a curtain-like cloth. If I wear the burqa, it means that I have accepted the Taliban’s government. I have given them the right to control me. Wearing a chador is the beginning of my sentence as a prisoner in my house. I’m afraid of losing the accomplishments I fought for so hard.”^

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/aug/15/afghan-womens-defiance-and-despair-i-never-thought-id-have-to-wear-a-burqa-my-identity-will-be-lost

OP posts:
VioletSunlight · 16/08/2021 03:57

@Jaysmith71

Last time they were in charge, the Taliban came up with two prinicples:
  1. Male doctors cannot examine women.
  2. Women can't be doctors.
Fucking hell. 😡😡
Coyoacan · 16/08/2021 03:36

Personally I would not take what mainstream media say about a distant country as gospel, especially when said distant country is obviously of enough strategic importance for the UK and US governments that they have been occupying it for umpteen years.

NotBadConsidering · 16/08/2021 01:25

Why not bring in gender ideology? After all, all the reasonable, sensible, non-Totalitarian examples of the importance of recognising sex - prisons, sport, healthcare, refuges, rape crisis centres etc - have all been dismissed as trivial and unimportant, clearly it takes a Totalitarian regime to make it obvious Hmm.

Blessex · 16/08/2021 00:44

Jackgrealishscurtains

Etulosba
One has to wonder how the taliban can tell which people must wear a burqa, and why those who don't want to don't just self-ID as male

Is this a joke?

No, it's not a joke. It's a very serious comment on the ridiculous notion that sex is something that one can identify into and out of, and that the idea that one can identify as a woman or a man is an incredibly privileged luxury belief.

No it’s not a joke. It is a very serious point.

trancepants · 16/08/2021 00:35

@wizzywig

This is like handmaid's tale. I can't even find the words to say how scary it is that people's freedoms can be swiped away, just like that.
The Handmaid's Tale was based in very large part on the Islamic Revolution in Iran which happened only years before MA started writing it.
TrainedByCats · 15/08/2021 23:47

My heart breaks for the women and girls of Afghanistan, and is full of fear for women and girls everywhere. I remember when women in Afghanistan had similar rights to women in the west and am horrified how far they have diminished due to the actions of men

Whataboutye88 · 15/08/2021 23:21

@Warmduscher I’m asking because having spent a lot of time in Afghanistan it’s not something I’ve seen myself. So I’d like to know more about @LastSummerHere ‘s partner’s experience because it differs from my own, and I’d like to broaden my knowledge. Is that not allowed?

Ereshkigalangcleg · 15/08/2021 23:09

Fucking, fucking hell. How quickly the veneer that women are human beings slips away.

Yes, it really does.

OhWhyNot · 15/08/2021 23:05

What an absolutely horrendous situation

All apart from those that lead are suppressed especially girls and women. I would want my young son to be wearing a Burka too to keep him safe from being hopefully forced to fight or being sexually abused but then would that make his life worse if he was found out

Truly a horrendous situation I’m thankful I live here and my family are not suffering in such a way

Waitwhat23 · 15/08/2021 23:02

That should have read 'how quickly the veneer that men think of women as human beings slips away'.

Too saddened by this to think straight.

Waitwhat23 · 15/08/2021 23:00

@littlbrowndog from the article you linked -

'Meanwhile, the men standing around were making fun of girls and women, laughing at our terror. “Go and put on your chadari [burqa],” one called out. “It is your last days of being out on the streets,” said another. “I will marry four of you in one day,” said a third.'

Fucking, fucking hell. How quickly the veneer that women are human beings slips away.

GoodieMoomin · 15/08/2021 23:00

I just read that @littlbrowndog. It's heartbreaking, truly awful

OP posts:
Warmduscher · 15/08/2021 22:35

[quote Whataboutye88]@LastSummerHere that’s interesting. I’m surprised any ISAF soldier during Op Herrick were safe to go to ‘bars’ where sex trafficking victims (male and female) were offered. I’m not disputing your partner’s account at all, I’m just surprised. Where was this? When I last in Kabul there weren’t bars as such.[/quote]
Actually you do sound like you don’t believe that poster, despite claiming the opposite.

Whataboutye88 · 15/08/2021 21:35

@LastSummerHere that’s interesting. I’m surprised any ISAF soldier during Op Herrick were safe to go to ‘bars’ where sex trafficking victims (male and female) were offered. I’m not disputing your partner’s account at all, I’m just surprised. Where was this? When I last in Kabul there weren’t bars as such.

manatsu · 15/08/2021 21:34

It makes me so upset. Our freedoms and rights as women seem so precarious. And it's all so, so stupid. People with penises decide that people with vaginas shouldn't do anything except stay at home. Why? Not for any logical reason. Pathetic. But so horrible for the poor women and girls. Especially if you've had a taste of freedom and being treated as something approaching a human being and then suddenly it's stolen away from you.

GoodieMoomin · 15/08/2021 21:33

@Waitwhat23 it's simply incomprehensible. I just cannot imagine what the women must be feeling. Truly terrifying

OP posts:
RedDogsBeg · 15/08/2021 21:30

Here we have an actual crisis for women

Yes BlueberryCheezecake FOR WOMEN and GIRLS - Adult and Juvenile Human Females based on their immutable sex, not some effervescent gender identity. The women and girls in Afghanistan cannot identify their way out of this brutal oppression, they are being oppressed because of the sex they are born. Is it sinking in yet?

The Taliban are well aware of which group of people to oppress on the basis of their sex as is every other male dominated totalitarian regime, they never fail in their identification, no doubts at all.

Proof, if ever any were needed, that TWAW are not women, sex cannot be changed and women are oppressed on the basis of their sex the world over.

littlbrowndog · 15/08/2021 21:26

My cuzzie. She served as a doctor. Going into to retrieve the wounded and the dead to bring them back

At this time thinking back to how we fel5 knowing she was going there

The holding breath almost till we knew she was safe but knowing that

Well

Sometimes it’s good to know for people who monitor us that we all have different life experiences.

But we all do know that sex matters

Cailleach1 · 15/08/2021 21:17

It is not point scoring. It is more that we all know that there is in fact no validity to the 'belief' the west is disseminating (no pun) about sex being changeable on will.

Therefore we know which immutable, biological sex will be more oppressed as a class and more freedoms taken away. All the more reason to protect any women's rights or freedoms wherever we are. Irrespective from which country the males who wish to tyrannise women are from.

supermoonrising · 15/08/2021 21:15

@Tuscancat
It’s been a catastrophe since the day the Western powers invaded. Read up on it. The generals literally didn’t know year to year what they were trying to achieve, nor half the time who the enemy on the ground was. Meanwhile, several hundred Afghan citizens, including huge numbers of children, were being killed yearly by US air strikes and thousands more in the ensuing civil war chaos. Another “you cannot bomb/arm every country into peace” lesson for the West.

LastSummerHere · 15/08/2021 21:14

[quote Whataboutye88]@LastSummerHere may I ask in what capacity your husband served in Afghanistan? As part of Op Herrick or earlier?[/quote]

Op Herrick for five months and then Gibralter which he hated.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 15/08/2021 21:13

The point is that "gender-identity" is a luxury western belief system. What is happening in Afghanistan is a stark illustration of what really matters and that is sex. When men want to oppress they know which sex to oppress.

What is happening in Afghanistan is horrific, and women and girls can do nothing to escape it. We all knew it was going to happen and what was going to happen and could and can do nothing about it.

All this. Well said.