The rest is politics - “The Taliban took over the country and it's much safer”

Well 'we' didn't get a say about what the mostly male decision makers decided to do in Afghanistan. There wasn't a referendum. I'm not surprised the women there were left to their obvious fate.

If anything it bolsters my argument that women in the UK (and the US) need to be very aware of what a lot of men would consent to happening to us if given the chance.

Edited to add: grooming gangs - also an indication of what this society thinks is acceptable for girls.

Look at how fast it happened in Afghanistan. There were men there like Rory who worked alongside women, who did sweet fuck all as they were stripped of their human rights.

I did say last night I’d leave everyone to their echo chamber, but I’ve now listened to the episode after posting on here, so although I suspect this will be unpopular, here goes…

First of all @AnnaMagnani did a much better job of saying what I was trying to say.

Secondly having listened, totally get the OP’s reaction to treatment of women being glossed over. It was mentioned in passing without a word of condemnation about it and I think it’s completely fair to criticise this.

That having been said I think some of the reactions on here are over the top. People examining the schools he went to - how is that in any way relevant? Would the same comments be made if he hadn’t come from a wealthy background?

Also my interpretation of what he said is we were in Afghanistan for 20 years and did nothing but make a mess of it. If we really wanted to improve conditions that was the time to do it, not after abandoning them to their fate overnight.

I think this is an important point people are missing out on - we knew when we left Afghanistan what treatment women and girls would be subject to under the Taliban and we didn’t care. We left anyway. The attitude of “their country, their rules” is exactly the attitude our governments took when we left. They are the ones our anger should be directed at rather than Rory Stewart.

Having had that opportunity and done nothing with it, to claim moral superiority because we boycott a cricket match is a bit ridiculous.

There is a difference between being actively misogynistic e.g. the Taliban, and just not having a clue because you never stopped to think about it.

He is currently resisting thinking about it. Like most of us, he's not right about everything and like most of us he makes mistakes. Also like most of us he doesn't always want to think too painfully hard about assumptions that make his life easy. This blindness to the existence and needs of women is a biggie, but when (if) he wakes up, I think he'll have the guts to own it.

Hope so, anyway. I don't want to have to think painfully about my assumption that he's a nice guy.

Hmmm. Were any women asked about this? The suicide rate among women in Afghanistan has sky rocketed so perhaps it's more of a male view that thinks giving up human rights of half the population is worth not getting robbed.

Honestly I think the lack of pressure from governments and the media on Afghanistan shows that a lot of men even in our society wouldn't really object that much if women lost rights in line with the Taliban here.

Back when more journalism by women could still get out of Afghanistan (you know when women weren't banned from using the internet, having jobs, speaking to each other and windows) I read an article which sadly I didn't save about how women journalists thought more men would resist the Taliban's anti women measures. Men, I'd imagine, much like Rory. Who'd chat with them, work with them. Who then totally stood aside and did nothing while they were abused. They were shocked.

We need to learn from the women of Afghanistan.

It's a warning sign when men who are considered 'intelligent' and 'decent' are disregarding this. It's a canary in the coal mine for women. Ignore it at your peril.

Sorry but I think a big part of the problem is women saying 'oh he's a decent and delightful chap but'.. then go on to say he's disregarding the rights of half of humanity.

Would you say 'he's a delightful chap but he's a total homophobe' or 'he's a delightful chap but a total racist' ?

He might be socially able and a charmer but by definition he's NOT decent or delightful if he can say what he did about Afghanistan and disregard such horrendous human rights abuses against half the population (including half the child population) for better (male, western) travel experiences FFS. It's abhorrent.

Yes, co-ed prep school, Eton and Balliol (which was by then co-ed) So he was educated alongside girls for most of the time. I think Eton must have done the damage.

The International Criminal Court have issued arrest warrants for Taliban leaders for entrenching Gender Apartheid

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/01/1159366

I don't think Rory is an unintelligent man, but he is kind of a living Dunning-Kruger Effect.

More ominously, the Taliban are being normalised across the Muslim world

I mentioned Rory's little hissy fit on why all these Silly Privileged Feminists complaining about (what he sees as the ) Noble Tribesmen 😝enforcing this, (kudos to whoever up thread called him Florence of Belgravia) was so telling of what he sees himself as on one of the other threads about Afghanistan. I think on the cricket boycott that's not happening.

He did that series in Why No One Can Ever Rule Afghanistan, and there was an Afghan academic (based in Exeter iirc) who took him down systematically. This was all on twitter c. 2021 so cannot remember details

Women have been prevented from accessing healthcare

How anyone can sit back with a 'their country, their rules' take is beyond me. Women are being treated worse than animals.

I know we have a terrible record of interfering in other countries and Afghanistan in particular, but to describe basic human rights as "western values" is appalling. It's only luck of birth that it's not us in that situation, no women should be living in such oppression and our government and international institutions should be putting whatever pressure they can to improve the situation.

I do find certain things they’ve said are just ignorant, didn’t one of them say ‘well I’m not a woman so I don’t have an opinion’ but then proceed to say something quite anti woman about safe spaces showing that actually he did have an opinion. Sorry I can’t remember the details.

i often wonder about Rory’s poor wife who I believe has a successful career, and presumably does all the childcare and life admin while he is off on silent retreats (how indulgent is that?), and constant trips around the world like Afghanistan and is a visiting professor at Harvard (or it might be Yale).

Their country their rules we got to stop trying to push Western values onto the rest of the world. We tried to make change but the people of Afghanistan didn't want it. I wouldn't chose to live there.

I can't remember who I heard give this explanation of the Taliban, but it has a lot of sympathy for Rory Stewart's statement. I'd like to say it was Dominic Sandbrook as it has one of his golden rules that what people want is stability and safety.

So here goes:
Before the Taliban took over, Afghanistan had become incredibly corrupt. If you are a family running a small business or a farm, you didn't know from one day to the next if all your money would be stolen and whether you would still be able to feed your family.
Plus your children (male and female) were at risk of being taken off for abuse by the local warlord.

The Taliban have basically put a stop to this. You know the rules to follow, your kids are safe, you can run your shop safely and feed your family.

This is going to be a much higher priority for most Afghans than whether or not their girls can go to school, especially as a lot of Afghans are going to be thrilled that their government is practising the same religious laws that are very important to them.

Do individual families want their women not to have access to medical care? - Almost certainly not. But a lot were so poor that they weren't getting any medical care anyway. Even if they disagree with the Taliban on women they are still pleased about everything else.

So this is not my take on it, but it helped me understand a bit of how a society could be so uncaring about women - we just can't comprehend how bad it was.

I think this is what Rory Stewart means when he says it's better in Afghanistan now - you can travel without worrying you are going to be killed by bandits, people can run their farms or businesses. A lot of people (including a lot of women) are going to take this over worrying they will starve.

Did he go to boarding school? Seems to be something not connected right in his brain to not recognise women as humans.

Sounds like Rory is just like the Taliban. He doesn't see women as humans. He only sees men.

How very disappointing that because it's not bombs he doesn't understand that this is not better for women and girls at all.

They are more at risk from death for all kinds of health care conditions and more at risk from male violence because it's viewed as legitimate to beat a woman or rape a girl.

But just so long as the blokes are ok.

What an awful misogynist he is.

Wonder what will come out about him later...

You should - I never thought I would find 20th century American politics interesting, but their series on Nixon, JFK and 1968 were really good.

They're both ridiculously out of touch. I've stopped listening

I put off listening to TRIH as I thought Dominic was just a right wing Daily Mail idiot.

Couldn't have been more wrong and now I love him, he is incredibly sensible about issues facing women.

Tom Holland can be a bit of an idiot, I starting shouting at him during the series on Byron when he kept referring to him cross-dressing as 'expressing his feminine side' - er, no Tom, he was just expressing that he was a very rich man who could get away with being sexually vile.

I like Dominic Sandbrook but haven't ever listened to TRIH, will do so.

I can just hear DS saying "what utter tosh"

(About RS that is!)

Series sounds brilliant, do you mean TV or podcast?

And agree that he adopts the 'bluff John Bull' persona as a counterpoint to TH's 'weedy right on Guardianista'. They're both exaggerations and both fundamentally decent men.

It can take a long long time and a lot lot lot of thought for some of women's oppression to be grasped even by women!

Let alone a man who hasn't really thought about it. I'm thinking of, say, Douglas Murray, who said 'genderism' finally revealed to him what feminists had been saying for years. And other men who had not seen it before.