Women banned from university study in Afghanistan

[BenCoopersSupportWren]

And so it goes on… 😢

Taliban closes universities to women www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64045497 Taliban closes universities to female students

This is the kind of development which makes a mockery of splitting FWR. It is a serious feminist issue whichever way you look at it. Women prevented from accessing education that is available to men is a fundamental inequality. But if you humans are no longer categorised by sex, how do you know which ones to place at a disadvantage? I bet the Taliban know which half of their student population to barring the doors against.

Afghanistan protests: Taliban use water cannon on women opposing university ban https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64086257

Don’t be childish. No one is keeping score of any mythical “points”. You can be sure the women of FWR feel anger and sadness for the women of Afghanistan more than most, for we are the ones who recognise how women are disadvantaged in so many different ways, and the ones who are fighting for womanhood itself to be respected.

The Taliban have just announced that women will be banned from working for NGOs. A lot of them are involved in food and medicine distribution etc. but of course the Taliban don't care.

There really is a war on women isn't there? Afghanistan, Iran and yes, Scotland now as well. Different issues - just degrees of difference, but same shit.

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Absolutely agree.

Biden has a hell of a lot to answer for. If America had withdrawn from Afghanistan in a measured, organised fashion, women there might be more than sex slave servants.

It’s horrific.

Yes.

They did? Obama started the withdrawal in 2016.
This was an inevitable result of any withdrawal. The US occupation was never able to consolidate its hold on Afghanistan beyond certain urban areas.

This is the fault of the Taliban and their mindlessly atavistic take on religion, and nobody/nothing else.

Yes if course it's more complicated than that in terms of however they reached the point of taking power, and we can point at other elements there. But ultimately, a bunch of dumb men with guns have decided that what's really important is to force women into poverty and sexual servitude and have put a big religious sticker on it. Their decision.

Hardly fair to put the entire blame on Biden. The US stuck it out the longest no thanks to many other western countries, ffs. Other pulled out earlier, so maybe take it up with your own leaders. Despite the world's failure to stop the Taliban, I can agree that how it went down was painful to watch - seeing all those men on US planes - why the US military didn't give priority to women and children, I don't know. Men storming the tarmac literally ran over women and children. The last pullout was bound to be ugly, so I suppose it could have been worse.

Now the women have been banned from buying SIM cards. So no remote learning

ffs. Ffs ffs

Oh bloody hell, and so many other things.

Bastard bastard men

I feel as powerless against the Taliban as I feel about the people that cannot see women’s rights affected by selfID. However, I will not dare to argue with any Taliban and I’m in awe of women and men who confront them.

Much horrible walking back on women rights there.

The Taliban aims at a society where women are completely invisible in public spaces, as if there was no such thing as human beings of the female sex.

Women's status will be entirely dependent on how the male guardians decide to treat them within families. This works very much like slavery for those men who choose to treat 'their' women that way.

It is terrible..and it will get more terrible for women in Afghanistan, but really..tying it into the culture war?

We just get murdered in these places, with ?one exception do you think that they're suddenly OK with trans people or any LGBTQ person..of course not. Patriarchal dominance fucks us all.

Afghanistan does have a loooong tradition of cross dressing under the "bachi bazi" system but that has a lot more to do with quite horrendous child sexual exploitation than gender identity. And also links in with the idea of women as sex slaves (and rape culture/victim blaming)- "I want to use this adolescent as a sex slave therefore he is now a woman because that is what women are". All the shame/punishment is pushed onto the dancing boys, not the men using them. The Taliban claimed they would eliminate it but they also claimed that last time in the 90s and in fact participated in it so hmmm.
Sorry - I know that is slightly off topic but I had someone I know try to argue that the bachi bazi system was a sign of genderfluidity in other cultures and it is the closest I have ever come to punching someone ever (I am not a violent person usually). None of which takes away from the fact that transwomen in Afghanistan (many of them CSE survivors) are incredibly at risk and come high on the list of those deserving asylum. But lets not romanticise it!

Thank you namitynamechange.

I will add that this was often tolerated by the US military as a "local custom" - although I am sure if they had deigned to ask e.g. the mothers of those children they would have found it not quite so universally accepted.

The female equivalent would be the Bach Posh - less of a CSE angle, and it it genuinely interesting how accepted these sorts of practices are in traditional societies. But still, a much more complicated work around than just accepting that girls can take on traditionally male roles (with a very sad ending when the girls become women): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_posh

I recall reading about that before, namitynamechange. Horrific.

Content warning: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi

I'm disgusted that this issue is being exploited to score points on the trans debate here. I don't care which side of the trans debate someone is on. But education is a fundamental human right and using this appalling, but hardly unexpected, move by a bunch of extremists ( and I would remind you that the Taliban, like ISIS, has women members) is not the place to score points. This is the place to show solidarity with Afghan women, and nothing else.

We are constantly told how oppressed male people who claim to be women are, and how privileged female people are. It's simply not true, and the example of the Taliban is a stark reminder of the global oppression of women and girls on the basis of their sex. This is the feminist board for sex and gender issues. So, sex and gender is the prism through which feminist issues are discussed here. Feminism is the liberation movement for women and girls. It's not an all-purpose social justice movement. Women and girls are allowed to organise against our own oppression.

And people who don't seem to understand what feminism is for lecturing women on the sex and gender board we've been corralled into so we can discuss women's sex-based oppression and rights certainly have a brass neck.

Oh, come now, Eresh, we are being put in our place by our betters, who have decided they must dominate this board because they hate us all so much know better. We should be meek and listen well as they repeatedly insult and impugn us.