Afghan women forced to wear burqa

[GoodieMoomin]

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

@Tuscancat

Why has the middle east been taken over by fundamentalists? Is there an idiots guide i can read? Not intending to derail there is just so much i don't know

Your comment made me think of an article I read which said (roughly - I'm paraphrasing from memory) that the news (as broadcasted on TV particularly) is like the world's longest running soap opera with no catch-ups or explanations of what's come before and the expectation that you already know all the characters and storylines.

Obviously with the rise of the Internet, it's much easier to find out the background of things but sometimes it's really difficult to know where to start!

@PumpkinSpiceWoman you constantly, constantly tell posters on here that we're transphobic for believing in the biological reality of sex. You're an unbelievable hypocrite with luxury beliefs. You live in a country where you can hold these beliefs. Women living in Afghanistan cannot identify out of their sex or the oppression they experience because of their sex.

I don't even know why I'm replying to you - you never, ever engage with the conversations here. Just plop and run.

@WinglessSonglessBird

I might get flak for this, and kinda embarrassed to say:

First off, I do not think any woman should be forced to wear a burqa. And obviously there's the religious aspect to it. But I have read that some muslim women actually like them and prefer them. So they should be allowed to wear them, if they truly want to. I read one time that some of the muslim girls feel safer in burqas and related garb vs the skimpy sexualized Western clothes.

With that said, I honestly wouldn't mind wearing a burqa every time I left, for the reason of it feeling safer (obviously you can be attacked regardless of what you wear). But no men, no human, can even look at your body. I like that idea. The forcing it and the religious and abusive-misogynistic undertones and history to it, no, do not like that. But as pure ideological concept of hiding your body so nobody can see it...I honestly love that idea. I'm not gonna go around in a burqa cuz I'm not muslim and I'd feel I'd be being disrespectful...also cuz muslim people anyway get abuse cuz of their religion. But just in terms of clothing options, I'm not gonna lie, I like it and would do it if it became a fashion. Some of us feel better hiding and more empowered hiding our bodies. It shouldn't have to be that way, but til reality is safer for women...

Anyway, just putting that out there that some muslim women even if not forced, would want to wear these garbs. And when I read about how they don't understand the West's view of the burqas etc being oppressive cuz to them the West's idea of freedom is going around half naked all the time? Yeah, I do see the appeal for some women to WANT to wear them. I know Westerner's hate that idea, but -shrugs- one person's idea of empowerment and freedom is another's prison and oppression. Choice is the key word here.

In the West you are derided as a woman if you cover up. "look more grown up", means look more sexual, show more skin. Not everyone thinks that is freedom or empowering. No, you shouldn't HAVE to cover up to feel safe or ok out and about, but since male predators are everywhere, people have to do something.

Those poor muslim women need the freedom of choice and autonomy. Their clothes I don't think are the real issue. It's just a symptom. But, seriously, I bet I'm not the only one who wishes our society prized covering up almost totally as a "normal" thing. Obviously some muslim women probably hate the garbs, but some do feel safer in them, for legit reasons.

So if the burqa is so great, why don't men want to wear it?

Obviously some muslim women probably hate the garbs, but some do feel safer in them, for legit reasons.

And what is that legit reason? Because men will stare and harass if they don’t.

That’s where the issue lies. Start with that.

@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.

This ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ needs shouting from the rooftops, about the end point of misogynism.

Those poor women.

So if the burqa is so great, why don't men want to wear it?

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

In the West you are derided as a woman if you cover up. "look more grown up", means look more sexual, show more skin.

What an offensive and absurd comment. Women in "the West" dress however choosing to as individuals who are prople not property. I think yo"" find most do not choose to show any more "skin" than men. In fact far less, mostly.

[quote Chaotica]@WinglessSonglessBird I agree that the dress should be a matter of choice, although I've always thought burqa is too extreme as it covers your face and eyes so no-one can even see your expressions. That does make it difficult to interact with others as an equal. (Apparently, women in Kabul used to carry patterned umbrellas so that they could be told apart.) Hijab on the other hand is just a way of covering up which should be acceptable if you want to do so.

Feminists who I've met from Iran and Pakistan have always stressed that the dress isn't the main problem, it's all the other inequalities.[/quote]
But still totally fucked up that women should be expected to "cover up" and be ashamed of our bodies or even our hair etc while men can do whatever they like? Why the hell do any women support this misogynistic nonsense??

@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.

Omg

@PumpkinSpiceWoman

The problem is you do not engage with the actual substance of discussion on these boards. You pop in from time to time, accusing everyone of transphobia and occasionally start threads along the same lines never bothering to return and respond to the substantive points made.

We have already had a poster on here saying that the women of Afghanistan would benefit from gender ideology. When challenged as to how they would benefit, the poster didn't return to explain.

Are you going to provide an explanation?

There have been some really passionate and articulate posts on this thread. When are you going to address any of the points made about how women are oppressed on the basis of their sex, not their gender identity? When are you going to provide the counter view to the statement 'gender ideology is a luxury belief'?

Really - is 'you're all tranphobic' the best you've got?

Really - is 'you're all tranphobic' the best you've got?

Yes, it looks like it.

Really - is 'you're all tranphobic' the best you've got?

I suspect the prejudice that drives some posters to follow the feminist threads and post one or two posts that are meant to deride, shame, or as we saw up thread monster others, mostly women, will never be acknowledged.

Some posters have been convinced that they are the arbiters of righteousness and have moral superiority. It very soon becomes apparent they hold very deep prejudices of their own. Which is why they have such an affinity for a misogynist movement that silences women being able to discuss the impacts of that movement on their lives.

Let’s face it. How can they post evidence and robust science to support incisive thinking when the entire movement is based on experiments, both thought and medical. There is nothing left but emotive reasoning, manipulation and attempts at silencing.

Noticing how my llittle Talibfact has shocked some, perhaps a little background would help.

The original Talibs of the 90s were the male war orphans from the Soviet occupation. They were kept in crowded compounds in Pakistan, boys only, raised by men, children who knew no female contact except for whatever distant memories they retained of their mothers, mostly dead.

They were educated in madrassas where scripture was the only lesson on the timetable, reciting passages day in and day out, getting hit with a stick when they got it wrong. They were groomed as cannon fodder for the war and duly sent back.

You could compare them to the Japanese troops in WW2 raised in the Bushido cult, only much worse.

A quote from Danny Finkelstein in this mornings Times - I hope he doesn't mind but it relates to many things we discuss here -

The US is a country in which there are heated debates about micro aggressions that somebody may have detected in a book, but shrugs both its left and right shoulders over abandoning millions of women to the most brutal kind of oppression.

Also heard this morning that Pakistani PM Imran Khan has called the Taliban takeover a 'liberation from the chains of slavery.'

So nice to hear from the former Worcs All-Rounder and West End Playboy turned hair-shirt muslim. His treatment of wives no.1 and 2, Jemima Gldsmith and South Today weathergirl Reham Khan, and numerous other women, makes interesting reading.

Excellent article by Muslim feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali https://unherd.com/2021/08/bidens-most-heartless-betrayal/

Now, the Taliban are claiming that women and girls will be able to continue their education, as long as they wear full burkas. Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen explainedd^ that the “policy is that women can have access to education and to work”. However, the reality for Afghan women seems rather different; they are now, for example, barely to be seen on the streets of Afghan citiess^.
Yes, the “modernised” Taliban has done some media training, but we should not be fooled. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will be governed by the same draconian Sharia law as the Taliban regime of the past. Reportss^ are already emerging of girls being taken as child brides, with the Taliban “ordering local religious leaders to give them a list of girls over 15 years of age and widows under 45” to marry their fighters.
Women’s faces are being whitewashedd^ from billboards throughout Kabul. Women in Kandahar have been toldd^ not to return to their jobs at Azizi Bank, and that instead “male relatives could take their place”. In a small village in the Faryan province, the Taliban knocked on doors and demanded to be fedd^. If women protested, they were beaten and even killed. This is just the beginning.
Over the last several days, I’ve wept bitter tears for the women and girls whose futures are now blighted through no fault of their own. I have felt an overwhelming sense of impotence, even as I have personally tried to help get vulnerable people out of Kabul. But this sense of impotence is now giving way to a feeling of anger and of renewed purpose.

Hirsi is right. Anyone who is taken in by the Taliban's media training and new PR touch is deluded. Not that this applies to anyone on this thread.

Thank you very much @ArabellaScott and @Jaysmith71 I will look those up.

Thanks, Ereshkiga.

So if the burqa is so great, why don't men want to wear it?

because men aren't getting massively raped, attacked, harassed, is why. So some women, even Muslims, feel safer with bodies hidden.
I'm not saying it should have to be that way at all.
But it's reality that women's bodies aren't often safe just for existing. It's trying to protect yourself or feel more empowered and safe with whatever is available to you in your current timeframe.

No, women shouldn't HAVE to be in fear. but they are, many are.
and I'd still rather cover my whole body than have anyone looking at it. It's less acceptable to do that in the West. The majority of people aren't walking around with burkas, niqabs(spelling?) or nuns' habits etc. It's less socially acceptable. And obviously currently more associated with religion, which inivites it's own attacks on you sometimes. How many famous people, influential people, do you so massively covered up?

I'm not saying everyone should feel this way, feel better and more empowered covered up. And it shouldn't even need to be a consideration. but it is.

and same could be said for makeup? why do we need to cover our faces in makeup to feel pretty, or show our faces to the world, or feel empowered. Obviously it's different in most ways, but it's a similar premise: shouldn't women be ok and feel ok to be in society without any extra shit to their bodies?

the men don't have to worry about safety as much in terms of their appearance. It's just a fact that we do. So some cope differently to feel safe than others. Should women have to carry keys in fist in dark parking lots to feel safe? No. But many do, I do.

It's obviously a false sense of security, any clothing, but humans grasp at what they can get.

the clothing is a way to try and feel in control when in reality pretty much every woman knows deep down that it doesn't matter what you do, what you wear or don't, etc etc, you are amongst the population that males may target for abuse.

it's all a false sense of security, but there aren't as many options otherwise. Even never leaving the house, in real, someone could get in, etc etc.

It's a potential threat. And in some places more than others, obviously.

I don't think women should be shamed for trying out coping skills to feel safe on this hell-hole planet.

But yes, it is angering and sad that women even have to waste energy and thought on safety like this.

and then sometimes clothes are just clothes, for fun or culture or tribe etc. But many women do consciously think of the safety aspect. How can we not. We are nothing but bodies anyway to much of society.

But, seriously, I bet I'm not the only one who wishes our society prized covering up almost totally as a "normal" thing.

It is a totally normal thing. I'm sitting here in jeans/t-shirt/jumper. Completely normal clothes for a man or a woman, and the only skin you see is my hands and face (wearing socks too). My children are wearing much the same, and I've worn pretty much this every normal day of my adult life.

You say you think covering up to feel safe is OK - yet these women who cover up are still abused, still raped and attacked, because covering up isn't a solution. Stopping the men raping and attacking is the solution.

Nobody in history has found a solution to stopping men attacking. I don't have one either. Until we do, there are only false senses of security left. Cuz yes, you get attacked no matter what, even in a burka, I get that.

But I mean literally covering all of you, head, hair, face, eyes, all of it, burka. I have however, since covid, since we have mask mandates, taken to wearing large hoodie, mask, sunglasses sometimes. and pants. I actually honestly like it most the time. I do feel safer and empowered. I know it's a false sense. but still. And it's not just safe from being attacked. I'm so sick and tired of everyone even women just seeing my stupid body. Your body is only a source for either attack or for people to make fun of cuz of facial features or etc etc. eff all you then, you are not allowed to even see my body, or face. that's just how I feel. I'd rather people look at literally ONLY the clothes and not any part of me. I like being invisible and can't wait til I'm an older woman and invisible like society makes older women. Some lament it, but I can't wait til I'm over 60 for that!! I'd wear an invisibility cloak 24/7 if I could find one. I've done the whole try and display your body and do it for yourself type thing; it's not for me. I admire women who can and do though, for sure!!!

Some cope differently even if it doesn't keep you full safe.