Women in Afghanistan - killed for working in the media

[ArabellaScott]

Life in Afghanistan continues to be bloody impossible for women. Whatever the geo-political shifts it seems women come off worst.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-56488749

Tragic and enraging.

Women must be treated less than men because of the outdated traditions of patriarchal religions. Really? Traditions that appear to rest on blatant aggressive hypocrisy rather than any true moral high ground. Makes me sick.

Been reading Nawal El Saadawi's 'Hidden Face of Eve' (1980), which talks about the constant sexual aggression towards girls & women (FGM, shame, threats, forbidden/outlawed things for women & girls) in Egypt, so I am even more wound up than usual on the topic of abusive religions 🤬

A really great book about women and girls in Afhganistan is Jenny Nordberg's 2014, The Underground Girls of Kabul: The Hidden Lives of Afghan Girls Disguised as Boys.

There is a poem at the beginning of the book by Roya, Kabuk, 2009. The last three lines say,
"I would love to be anything in nature
But not a woman
Not an Afghan woman"

There is a huge battle for women's liberation being fought all over the world. Afghanistani women, girls & enlightened men are fighting for their rights in extremely difficult circumstances.

(Poem is in Nordberg's book)

Afghanistan has always had the most regressive anti-female traditions even when it was a predominately Hindu country. Burkha, laaj, even female infanticide and the model of current Indo-Pakistani prostitution ‘traditions’ like dancing boys and prostitution marriages came from there. Kabul while modern was the pretty western face of what has always been a society of several competing regressive cultures for local women.

The Taliban is just one facet.

Not sure how much can change without a grass roots revolution - people there need to want to treat women fairly and that can only happen when inequality reduces, the youth drug problem is resolved, and there are real work opportunities available for everyone. There’s an old Afghan saying that the worst husband is an idle one, and it’s the truth there. Unemployment and underemployment, drugs, and illiteracy has led to a huge misunderstand around religion and the roles of both men and women, and a really toxic level of masculinity.

What Afghanistan needed was strong support and leadership from Pakistan and India (not western countries) in how to proceed with a model of government that could manage all the regressive sub-cultures the country while restoring business and investment opportunities. This has begun and once the country begins to make real money again then the problem of it’s women can be addressed in a meaningful way. Sad but true.