The Declination of the Status of Women

Women have been fighting alongside men on battlefields for centuries upon centuries, giving their greatest fight to lead their team to victory. Although women are given this opportunity, direct ground combat amongst women remains against the law till this very day, allowing a gender to define what a female can, or cannot do. The human race continues to evolve every day, yet a simple discriminatory law that decides what a woman’s capabilities are without being aware of just how empowering that specific woman is is the same as it first was. Despite the idea that women do not meet certain requirements in order to take place in combat units, women continue to provide an endless amount of support to men on battlefields, bringing a completely

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam and Laila are learning to live in a war zone when the Taliban gains control of their country. Consequently, the Taliban's laws are one source of major female inequality within

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.

In most societies, men feel the need to reinforce the idea of their superiority upon women, so thus they use religion to prove their dominance. A Talib told Mariam of how ‘God made us differently’(Hosseini 324). These “differences” that the Talib speaks of is one of main ways patriarchy is defended, since God made man and woman differently, the Afghan community assumes that they must be treated differently as well. Also, there must be one sex that is superior to the other then, many communities along with the Afghan community chose to place men above women due to sexist beliefs of the

The Constitution that was created in Afghanistan during the 1920’s, stated equal rights for women and men. In fact, during the year of 1959, new policies created educational and career opportunities and voluntary removal of having to wear the burka. Women’s roles become similarly equivalent to male roles; they had the opportunity to acquire knowledge from universities, and were provided jobs in industrial, business, and entertainment settings. The atrocities that came about during the Mujaheddin and Taliban control were unheard of years prior, when women lived in peace and prosperity

“I do not wish for women to have power over men, but over themselves” Mary Wollstonecraft. In the vast majority of places around the world, men have the upper hand over women, whether it is in the household, workplace, or government. Even in America, the land of the free, women are still discriminated against to a slight extent. A man and woman could have the exact same job, but the man would bring home a greater salary than the woman. In spite of the fact that this is unfair, at least women in America are permitted to work. Khaled Hosseini brings awareness to the women of Afghanistan who are victims of the inhumane and unjust laws of the Taliban. In his novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini uses agonizing scenes and imagery to analyze the ways Afghan women continue to subsist in an oppressive and discriminatory society from the 1950s to today.

During the mid 90’s, an Islamic fundamentalist group called the “Taliban” took control of central Afghanistan. This sudden regime change caused a catastrophic loss of civil liberties as well as civil disrupt throughout the entire country, causing many surges in Afghani immigrants. Political journalist of “The Taliban: War, Religion, and the New Order in Afghanistan” Peter Marsden, writes about how women in Afghanistan were forced to wear chakri 's in public, and could not leave the home without a male guardian. In afghanistan, women faced many internal barriers that violated their unalienable rights, and this in turn impeded their ability to evade from such violation through

The Taliban started to control the country and their leadership directly impacted the women. Women who once had jobs outside of their home, using their skills to provide for their family were no longer allowed to work from anywhere outside of their home. Instead, they were forced to stay inside their house. The restriction that was put on the women made it harder on them to provide for their families and find ways to work. The restriction not only affected women who wanted to work but also women who wanted to further their education. It would be very difficult for a women to be educated just within the home, so not only were women limited in their work but also education. Whenever a woman wanted to leave the home, the rule was that a male

The Taliban is an extremist Islamic group highly emphasizing a strong interpretation of sharia law that arose in the early 1990s after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Referencing the BBC article, a common belief holds that the Taliban first emerged in religious seminaries that preached a hard line of Sunni Islam. The Taliban’s promise to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the surrounding area was to restore peace and security using their interpretation of the sharia law once they were in power (“Who Are the Taliban?”). Along with the many new policies and regulations of society, there arose a new interpretation of the role of women in society. Women became very restricted and had to live in a way that was extremely submissive to men to the point where it was almost dehumanizing, as many would argue. Although the Taliban has been out of control in Afghanistan since December of 2001, remnants of their oppression towards women remain. In this paper, I will demonstrate the Taliban’s remaining effects in Afghan society regarding many aspects of everyday life, such as the workforce, education, healthcare, and human rights. To begin, I will give a brief overview of how Afghan women participated in society before the Taliban came to power. I will then provide information and examples that shed light on women’s life during Taliban rule. In the final section of this paper, I will describe how the lifestyle of women has changed as a result of the Taliban’s oppressive laws and

Before the rise of the Taliban in the early 1990s, women in Afghanistan were mostly treated as equals and with respect. Though women were still expected to be

Before reading The Underground Girls of Kabul I assumed women in Afghanistan had at least some semblance of a meaningful life. I assumed female children had the opportunity to go to school. I assumed they were treated on a human level, and I assumed there was hope for equality in the not too distant future. None of these things seem to be the case. For the majority of women in Afghanistan your life is pre-determined from the moment you are born. “The ownership of an Afghan girl is literally passed on from one male—her father—to the one who becomes her husband. He will take over the ruling of her life, down to the smallest details if he is so inclined.”(Page 44).

During the Enlightenment, few acted violently on the need for women’s rights, but new ideas were made. In modern societies, women still aren’t completely equal to men, and some aren’t even close to equal. Keep in mind the societies that women still aren’t equal in haven’t had major changes since before the enlightenment. Take the Middle East, there was a lot of exploitation of women, they didn’t have free speech, and the Taliban ran by their “beliefs”. Those “beliefs” were a false version of the Quran, which was written in 609 CE, way before the Enlightenment. In source 8 it says “ On the day the Taliban rule came to an end the dreams of millions of Afghan women were reborn.” Also, take the United States, we had our major change in government in the revolutionary war, (the civil was big,

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

Furthermore, women are often seen as a symbol of cultural preservation and a measure of family honor. In conditions of war and colonial rule, which represents an attack on men’s honor and dignity, attention to women’s roles as prescribed by cultural tradition is often intensified. However, the unusual conditions of war and resistance to colonial rule also may provide openings for women to reconfigure their roles and rights, based on new needs of society.

Religion goes hand in hand with culture, and in the Muslim countries this is very apparent. The cultural importance of men over women may have stemmed from religion, however it was further recognized when imperialist countries introduced capitalism and class divides. “Islam must combat the wrenching impact of alien forces whose influence in economic, political, and cultural permutations continues to prevail” (Stowasser 1994, 5). Now, instead of an agrarian state where both men and women had their place, difficulties have formed due to the rise in education and awareness that women can and do have a place in society beyond domestic living Though women are not equal to men anywhere around the