Feminism has revolutionized the rights of women around the world. From having almost no rights to suddenly being set free, the women of Afghanistan have faced a drastic change in their lives. After the Taliban was overthrown in 2001, the women of Afghanistan have gained new liberal rights that were once lost under the Talban’s rule. However, the women lack protection to be able to safely use these freedoms and continue to be abused for not complying with the rules of the past. These new liberal rights will set the path for the women of Afghanistan towards equality. Under the rule of the Taliban beginning in 1996, women in Afghanistan faced gender apartheid. The Taliban’s desire was to completely destroy the existence of women in public. They had been completely banned from a public life and were entirely deprived of their equality rights. They were no longer allowed to wash their clothes in streams, use the public baths, or any other public facilities. Windows that were close to the ground had to be blackened so that no one could see them in their homes. They were not allowed to speak loudly in public or to be seen in any form of media. This is because the Taliban did …show more content…
Women were not allowed to wear anything that drew attention to them, which banned high heels and white stockings. Wearing a burqa outside the home, a veil that covers the entire body leaving only a grid for sight, was required. Their mobility rights were violated since they were only allowed to leave their house if accompanied by a close male relative. Those who were poor and could not afford a burqa, or had no male relatives, were essentially put in house arrest. Women were not allowed to ride bicycles, in taxis or motorcycles, and buses were segregated by gender. This demonstrates the Taliban’s ignorance of women’s rights, and displays their violations of women’s mobility
In Afghanistan, Women’s rights were very denied and completely dismissed. Women were treated horribly. They were beaten, abused verbally, and even killed. Under the rule of the Taliban, women were better off staying in the safety of their own homes.
This furthers the gap between the notion that most non-Islamic people have around the world, which relates to the aspect of vainglory, because in the US, like many countries around the world, women are seen as political figures, physicians, and have simple freedoms. Compared to other ares of the world that contain a predominantly Islamic ethnicity, the rights of women less restricted as they are in Afghanistan. In the US and other countries that allow freedom of religion and expression, the burka is completely optional based on the individuals preference. In order for the Taliban to gain power, they had to convince the public that they were in the best interests of women and not only men. However, the truth is that the Taliban regime has cruelly reduced women and children to poverty, worsened their health by denying them adequate healthcare, and deprived them of their right to an education. In some cases they are denied the right to practice their religion. As a result of these measures, the Taliban was ensuring that women would continue to sink deeper into poverty and deprivation of rights. This would ensure that their future would consist of them having limited skills needed to be considered a civilized individual in modern day
Women were banned and forced to do many things. Women were forced to wear a burqa which cover everything but their eyes. Women were banned from going to school, banned from going out in public without a male chaperon, and banned from showing skin in public. These girls and
As soon at Taliban came in control in Kabul woman had no right to do anything.They weren't allowed to step out of their doors, they weren't allowed to work, woman/girls weren't allowed to go to school, ban on woman laughing.Those that didn't obey the laws were whipped in public, were beaten etc.The Taliban had stated that this was being done for their protection.An example of Taliban's violent treatment against the woman is; a woman wearing nail paint had her fingertips chopped by a Taliban officer. Taliban had just the say thing to say against this, “it was being done to safeguard
Khaled Hosseini presents the struggle Afghan women go through every day by discussing honour, marriage and the place of women in society in Afghanistan.
In addition to this, women did not have the opportunity to be educated. “I wanted to study, but the Taliban shut down the schools in our village and all the villages of Kunduz. There was no school for girls” (184). This part of my research struck me as devastating and made me outraged. It made me want to do something to help and it also made me more aware of the many freedoms I have that I take for granted.
Before everything happened such as the Taliban, women were allowed To choose their own clothing. They were allowed to leave the house without a male by their side every second. The Taliban was a big controversy with women because They outlawed education for women, There was a lot of abused physically and mentally, And I had to wear full veils from top to bottom. If you didn't follow the rules or betrayed them you would either go to jail, They would cut parts of your body are, they would leave you to flee for your husband, Are you at have a public death. The rules were even more enforced and
Since the beginning of time, women have had to fight rigorously for basic human rights. In the western stratosphere, those human rights were achieved in the early 20th century, but in a lot of eastern countries the battle for the women is just beginning, or worse hasn't even started. Women in Afghanistan have been subject to heinous circumstances, even though their religion, Islam "demanded that men and women be equal before God,"(Qazi). Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner offers a very insightful view of the governing politics of Afghanistan pre-Taliban regime and during the Taliban regime, and the differing situation of women in both those eras. Based on the book and outside research, it is evident that the situation of women in
Growing up and living in Afghanistan as a woman has its challenges. Parents choose who can marry you and they choose everything for you. In this book, Laila and Mariam both show the struggles it is to be a girl, and how much disrespect they get in Afghanistan. Both Mariam and Laila are married to the same man, and he is abusive to both of them. They also live under Taliban rule, and the rules that they set are very unfair for women. In Khaled Hosseni’s novel, he has many different themes but the most prevalent one is of woman inequality, and that is shown through multiple accounts of abuse, disrespect, and unfairness.
The reason I chose to study Islamic Feminism and Afghanistan, is that for many people, these words do not belong in the same sentence. Afghanistan has come to be recognized as a country that follows strict and fundamentalist Islam, hindering the lives of women and even damaging their lives. Since I entered high school, Afghanistan has been known to me and my generation as a country
Today in the post –Taliban era, women still struggle with their rights. Resolutions were produced and rights for women have advanced since September 11th but in order to move forward, much work needs to be done. Hundreds of years of repression for Afghan women will take a lot longer than a few years to actually revolutionize. There is violence towards women that are not practicing traditions customs and fear retaliations from the Taliban. Customs are difficult to change as well as government policies. (Bora Laskin Law). In Afghanistan, religious and cultural values, politics, and an uncertain acting government have played a major part in the struggle for women’s rights.
The Taliban implemented laws restricting the movements and actions of women in Afghanistan in public places. While attempting to visit her child in a home for young girls, Laila is beaten within an inch of her life as a consequence of walking outside without a male escort (Hosseini). The extreme course of action, beating a woman for walking alone, demonstrates the illogical and unjustifiable actions the Taliban promotes the practice of in Afghanistan. The women and men have dramatically unequal rights.
While this remains to be true, our desires for these women could mistakenly be much different from their desires for themselves; different cultures have different yearnings about justice. LILA ABU-LUGHOD articulates this idea in her fieldwork, she found that these women do not envy the women that make up the Western societies, “they will never cry for themselves, for they are down under yoke of centuries of oppression (Van Sommer & Zwener 1907:15/2002:789). Their true envy is the oppression they have suffered in terms of the militarism and poverty their country suffers. In relevance to this issue, after the liberation of the Talibans, the Muslim women did not remove their ‘forced’ identities as people. The fact that their Burqa was not removed resembles that they are a product of their own environment, they are proud to symbolize who they are in terms of the symbolic separation of men and women.
As odd as the restrictions women had, the punishments for violations were even more unbelievable. To humiliate the women, most of the punishments were available to be seen by the public. The penalties for broken laws were often held public in sports stadiums, town squares, or other densely populated areas for everyone to see. For a minor infraction, oftentimes the one who committed the transgression was often beaten until unconscious. A woman once had her thumb removed because her thumb nail was exposed, and when the Taliban guard saw this, she was taken into the town square to have her exposed thumb taken off. The things that the Taliban do to innocent citizens are cruel, and they should be the ones being reprimanded, not the other way around. In general, many of the punishments that the Taliban give out to women are, in most cases, much too excessive for such insignificant “crimes”. (Delcan Walsh)
The women of Afghanistan have been enduring unfathomable suffering since the Taliban, a religious faction, seized control of the country in 1996. (NOTE TO STUDENT: my teacher gave me a B+ and said I would have had an A if I had had more detail on the Taliban's reasons for these laws) Since 1996 Afghan women have been living fear for their safety and lives. A myriad of discriminating laws has been placed on Afghan women. The punishments for violating these laws are unimaginably inhuman.