Afghanistan

The Women of Afghanistan

Its safe to assume that the condition of women in Afghanistan is improving though, obsticles continuosly line their way. Education is a big issue in Afghanistan considering its illiteracy in the total population of the country is 28% of which in the sum of all women in the population of Afghanistan, only 12% are literate (definition: over the age of 15 and can read and write) as opposed to the 43% of males being literate. This inbalance of education rates, as in our example, often poses the question gender equality. We can clearly see that the greatest factors that contribute to the inequality are often those that pertain to cultural/traditional values, as in this case of women, and its modern significance. From that we will be to observe trends through historical analysis of Afghanistan from more contemperary times in order to draw some interesting conclusions about the future of womens rights.

The society of Afghanistan traditionally is a male dominated one. From the era of the empires of great and often ruthless Shah’s to its visible reminants in contemporary Afghan culture, women have often played a minimal to non-existant part its history and society. The traditional dogma stating men as the breadwinner and the women as the child bearer lives on even today as we see a great deal of the female population married at young ages, or even in the sense of being seen as property. This was usually tipical of the rural-village areas where back in the 1900’s the practice of a young women being “married off” at a young age (below 16) was common because most poor families couldn’t afford to keep daughters as they were a burden: taking up space, food, and cloth. The price the girls paid for that was often being tramatized psychologically and physically abused by their husbands who were often older.

But now its the  70’s and citylife around Afghanistan’s capital brought new hope for enlightenment and modernization as the new generation, as I will label, the  ”intelligentsia” and the newly budding middle class begain to brigde the socio-economic gap that, as I would see could have brought new meaning to being a woman in Afghanistan. The fact is, during the era of Shah Zahir to the end of Soviet Occupation with the fall of Dr. Najib Afghan women began going to college, holding political office (in the Khalq and Parcham governments), and joining the military. Not too ong ago these were mainly male activities in which women could have only dreamed about. Shah Zahir might have unknowingly spirred this modernization as Queen Suriya, his wife, was often pictured without a headscarf or a burka making her the image of “the modern woman”. This perhaps had a “trickle down” effect on the populace as usually the masses often emulate the “elite”. The subsiquent years of communist rule (Taraki and the “Khalq”, Karmal and the “Parcham”) probably had a greater influence on brigding the gap of gender equality. As we all peharps know, communism preaches equality in its extreme (social and economic plus the “abolition of traditional family roles”) and thus at this time period we find women activists, women in the political parties, some women in government, and in the military. A good outcome from the wrong method or perhaps a rapid modernization process akin to a “social” Five Year Plan.

If the United States didn’t back the Mujaheddin, and the Soviet Union won in Afghanistan the world would be a very different place. Perhaps it would still be the cold war, Afghanistan would be a satillite, most likely the country would be more modern than in the events after the fall of Dr.Najib and the rise of the Taleban. The Taleban for the global observer is the more current in the mind. We see a sharp downwards trend on the rights of women in this time period (1995-2001). A woman was like a piece of property; she was nothing unless she had a husband and 6.5 children and even then she was considered nothing by society. Many of the basic rights of a human being (see Universal Declaration of Human Rights) were taken away in favor of a ultra-strict interpretation of the Qur’an (see Shariya Law for a basic introduction to Islamic Law). And thus we find the women who had once held a career or a high position stuck in at home.

In today’s Afghanistan, we see a trend of slow re-intergration of women in society and in the professional fields. Though a great deal of gender equality ideas in the third world comes from globalization of western culture and modernization in general, the surge of media and information in Afghanistan most likely contributes to this “new wave” of enlightenment. As the current generation of youth thirst for knowledge and opportunity we may observe an upward swing in the number of women who participate in actively in society. Currently there are many women in the “Loya Jirga” or parliment plus many in the work force. The condition of the Afghan woman will perhaps improve by the next generation of youth, meaning that true equality and freedom may not be reached in our life times but hopefully in the life time of our children (>50 years). Through what we can observe so far, there is certianly hope for the women of Afghanistan.

Photo front: by tj_200pk http://flickr.com/photos/12397654@N08/2919733917/

Photo in post: by: german http://flickr.com/photos/12439365@N04/2049445265/

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