1 “But Not an Afghan Woman” First published by the U.S. nonprofit Afghan Women’s Writing Project (awwproject.org) in 2010. AWWP was founded by American journalist and author Masha Hamilton. The organization serves as a platform for and offers training to young female writers in Afghanistan.
1 announced that U.S. troops would begin to withdraw In “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” December 1, 2009, whitehouse.gov, the president discussed his policy for withdrawing U.S. soldiers from Afghanistan after the surge: “And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”
In 2011, the president reiterated his commitment to troop withdrawal. See “Remarks by the President on the Way Forward in Afghanistan,” June 22, 2011, whitehouse.gov, where he says: “By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.” In 2014, the president announced that U.S. troop withdrawal would be completed by 2016.
1 Elected to the Wolesi Jirga For more background on the Wolesi Jirga, see Martine van Bijlert and Sari Kouvo, eds., Snapshots of an Intervention, The Unlearned Lessons of Afghanistan’s Decade of Assistance (2001–11) (Kabul: Afghanistan Analysts Network [AAN], 2012).
2 heavily populated with drug kingpins and warlords See Declan Walsh, “Warlords and Women Take Seats in Afghan Parliament,” The Guardian, December 18, 2005, theguardian.com.
3 more girls are enrolled in school The World Bank’s arm for helping the poorest countries, International Development Association, worldbank.org, cites the following figures: “Enrollment in grades 1–12 increased from 3.9 million in 2004 to 6.2 million in 2008. Girls’ enrollment skyrocketed from 839,000 to more than 2.2 million, and boys’ from 2.6 million to 3.9 million—the highest enrollment in the history of Afghanistan.”
4 The majority of marriages are still forced UNIFEM Afghanistan Mission, “UNIFEM Afghanistan Fact Sheet 2007,” unifem.org. This states: “70 to 80% of women face forced marriages in Afghanistan.”
5 honor killings are not unusual Human Rights, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan Kabul, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Geneva, Harmful Traditional Practices and Implementation of the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women in Afghanistan, December 9, 2010, unama.unmissions.org. The report cites one of several harmful traditional practices: “So-called ‘honour’ killings recognize a man’s right to kill a woman with impunity because of the damage that her immoral actions have caused to family honour. It is a killing of a family member by one or several relatives who believe the victim has brought shame upon the family.”
6 involvement of the justice system in a rape case Human Rights, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan Kabul, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Geneva, Silence Is Violence: End the Abuse of Women in Afghanistan, Kabul, July 8, 2009. This report discusses the high incidence of rape in Afghanistan, as well as why victims are reluctant to report it or to seek redress. In particular, it notes: “Shame is attached to rape victims rather than to the perpetrator. Victims often find themselves being prosecuted for the offence of zina (adultery) and are denied access to justice.”
7 Women burn themselves to death Human Rights, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan Kabul, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Geneva, Harmful Traditional Practices and Implementation of the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women in Afghanistan, December 9, 2010, unama.unmissions.org. “Among the most tragic consequences of harmful traditional practices is self-immolation—an apparently growing trend in some parts of Afghanistan.”
8 daughters are still a viable, informal currency Human Rights, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan Kabul, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Geneva, Silence Is Violence: End the Abuse of Women in Afghanistan, Kabul, July 8, 2009. It states: “Monetary compensation or baad is often also part of what is seen as an acceptable solution to all parties.”
9 literacy rate is no more than 10 percent Ibid.: “The adult literacy rate of Afghans over 15 years is 28% including 12.6% for females. In rural areas, where 74% of Afghans reside, it is estimated that 90% of women cannot read or write.”
1 lives of Afghan women were to be improved For information on European Commission aid for Afghanistan and the inclusion of “gender” in its programs, see European Commission, Country Strategy Paper Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2007–2013, eeas.europa.eu.
2 Celebrated for publishing several travel guides See Nancy Hatch Duprée, An Historical Guide to Afghanistan (Kabul: Afghan Air Authority, Afghan Tourist Organization, 1977).
3 the country’s last king, who was ousted in 1973 Afghanistan’s last king ruled for forty years before he was removed. See Barry Bearak, “Mohammad Zahir Shah, Last Afghan King, Dies at 92,” New York Times, July 24, 2007, nytimes.com.
4 stand guard in Habībullāh Khan’s harem Habībullāh Khan ruled Afghanistan from 1901 to 1919. See Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, www.britannica.com.
5 Afghans have been driven out Zarif Nazar and Farangis Najibullah, “Kabul Housing Shortage Leaves the Middle Class Behind,” Radio Free Europe, January 31, 2011, rferl.org.
6 figures ranging from twenty-three to twenty-nine million Andrew Pinney, Snapshots of an Intervention, The Unlearned Lessons of Afghanistan’s Decade of Assistance (2001–11) (Kabul: Afghanistan Analysts Network [AAN], 2012).
7 for an illiterate person to have memorized See Louis Duprée, Afghanistan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973, sixth impression, 2010), pp. 74–75, in which he says Afghanistan “has a literate culture, but a non-literate society.” Duprée’s book, written before the Soviet invasion, is still one of the most comprehensive sourcebooks on Afghanistan, as Louis Duprée was a lifelong researcher of the country. The Louis and Nancy Hatch Duprée Foundation at Kabul University is dedicated to helping to preserve the cultural heritage of the people of Afghanistan and support education about it: dupree foundation.org.
1 The Taliban no longer rules The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, “Some of the Restrictions Imposed by Taliban on Women in Afghanistan,” rawa.org/rules.htm (accessed January 31, 2014), notes: “18. Ban on women’s wearing brightly colored clothes. In Taliban terms, these are ‘sexually attracting colors.’ ”
2 Afghan police are among the most popular targets See Jon Boone, “Afghan Police Hit by High Death Rate and ‘Quick Fix’ Training, Says EU,” The Guardian, October 1, 2009, theguardian.com; and Susan G. Chesser, “Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians,” Congressional Research Service, December 6, 2012, fas.org. Statistics in this report state that in 2008, Afghanistan national army casualties were 259 killed, 875 wounded; Afghanistan national, local, and border police casualties in 2008 were 724 killed, 1,209 wounded.
3 the conviction of martyrdom and the prospect of virgins Ibn Warraq, “Virgins? What Virgins?” The Guardian, January 11, 2002, theguardian.com.
4 Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium Seventy-four percent of global illicit opium production in 2012 came from Afghanistan, and Afghan opium cultivation reached a record high in 2013. See United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, World Drug Report 2013, unodc.org; and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Ministry of Counter Narcotics, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2013 Summary Findings, November 2013, unodc.org.
5 Saur Revolution, when the Communist People’s Democratic Party The Saur Revolution took place on April 27, 1978. See “Afghanistan: 20 Years of Bloodshed,” BBC News, April 26, 1998, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/83854.stm.
6 With ideological and financial backing from Moscow Orzala Ashraf Nemat, Afghan Women at the Crossroads: Agents of Peace—Or Its Victims?, The Century Foundation, 2011. Nemat writes: “The massive reforms of the PDPA regime were all directly supported by the Soviet Union and facilitated by Soviet advisors—which led the majority of the Afghan population to see the government in Kabul more as an agent of alien outside power rather than as an internal grassroots movement.”
7 setting out to replace religious law with a more secular system For background on the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), its ties to Moscow, its aims of secularization and reforms that came to be considered “un-Islamic” by many, see Asta Olesen, Islam and Politics in Afghanistan (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies) (Kindle Locations 8046–49), Taylor and Francis, Kindle Edition.
8 Amanollah Khan had tried to assert rights for women Valentine M. Hoghadam, “Revolution, Religion and Gender Politics: Iran and Afghanistan Compared,” Journal of Women’s History (Johns Hopkins University Press) 10, no. 4 (Winter 1999). Hoghadam states: “The king was forced to abdicate by a tribal rebellion opposed to schooling for girls, restrictions on polygyny and prohibition of the bride price.”
9 Soraya, who famously cast off her veil See Sunita Mehta and Homaira Mamoor, ed. Sunita Mehta, Women for Afghan Women (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), where the authors note that “as early as 1921, King Amanollah Shah abolished the mandatory donning of the burqa, and his wife, Queen Soraya, appeared in the public unveiled and wearing skirts that revealed her legs.”
10 equal rights in the Constitution of 1964 See Arline Lederman, “The Zan of Afghanistan—A 35-Year Perspective on Women in Afghanistan,” in Mehta and Mamoor, ed. by Sunita Mehta, Women for Afghan Women, in which Lederman mentions women’s role in drafting Afghanistan’s 1964 constitution.
11 receive mandatory educations Dr. Huma Ahmed-Ghosh discusses the many social and economic reform programs under PDPA rule and how tribal chiefs “viewed compulsory education, especially for women, as going against the grain of tradition, anti-religious and a challenge to male authority” in “A History of Women in Afghanistan: Lessons Learnt for the Future or Yesterdays and Tomorrow: Women in Afghanistan,” Journal of International Women’s Studies 4, no. 3 (May 2003).
12 Rapid attempts at reforming society and culture See Hoghadam, “Revolution, Religion and Gender Politics.” The author explains one of the most controversial government decrees, Decree No. 7, which “fundamentally would change the institution of marriage and position of women.” In the decree, “the government outlawed traditional cultural practices widely regarded as ‘Islamic.’ Thus, the PDPA placed a limit on bride price, banned forced marriages and the practice of levirate, and prohibited marriage through subterfuge or coercion. Whereas girls usually were wed immediately upon puberty, the new government set a minimum age of marriage of sixteen years for women and eighteen years for men.”
13 “the greatest threat to peace since the Second World War.” President Carter’s quote is mentioned in Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, “Excerpts from The Apostle’s Diary,” in Mehta and Mamoor, ed. by Sunita Mehta, Women for Afghan Women. The authors offer background on the similar goals that the U.S. administration (fighting “Godless communism”) and Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanstan had in the struggle against the Soviet Union, since they shared “a crusader mentality.”
14 In the spring of 1992, Kabul erupted President Mohammad Najibullah’s regime fell in April 1992 and the mujahideen entered Kabul. See Alfred Aghajanian, ed. by Peter R. Blood, Afghanistan: Past and Present/Comprised of Afghanistan, A Country Study and Country Profile: Afghanistan, A Report by the U.S. Government’s Federal Research Division, September 2007.
15 like most other children in Kabul Ahmed Rashid notes the horrors Kabul’s children saw at this time in Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). The author cites: “A UNICEF survey of Kabul’s children conducted by Dr. Leila Gupta found that most children had witnessed extreme violence and did not expect to survive. Two-thirds of children interviewed had seen somebody killed by a rocket and scattered corpses or body parts. More than 70 percent had lost a family member and no longer trusted adults” (p. 109).
1 the United Nations calls the worst place in the world to be born Stephanie Nebehay, “Afghanistan Is World’s Worst Place to Be Born: U.N.,” Reuters, November 20, 2009, reuters.com. Nebehay reports that “Afghanistan has the highest infant mortality rate in the world—257 deaths per 1,000 live births, and 70 percent of the population lacks access to clean water.”
2 And the most dangerous place in which to be a woman See Lisa Anderson, “Afghanistan Is Most Dangerous Country for Women,” Thomson Reuters Foundation, 2011, trust.org, listing “violence, dismal healthcare and brutal poverty” as the three primary reasons.
3 eighteen thousand Afghan women dying each year Statistics are available at United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), “The State of the World’s Midwifery 2011,” unfpa.org.
4 on par with the poorest and most war-torn nations See UNFPA, “Trends in Maternal Mortality 1990–2010,” unfpa.org.
5 The life expectancy of a woman here is forty-four According to the World Food Programme Country Overview of Afghanistan, wfp.org/countries/afghanistan/overview (accessed January 31, 2014): “While life expectancy has increased slightly to 44.5 years for men and 44 for women, many of the country’s health indicators are alarming.” However, the CIA estimates for 2014 a life expectancy of 50.49 years for the total population in Afghanistan, of which male life expectancy is 49.17 years and female life expectancy is 51.88 years.
6 Gerda Lerner pioneered the study of women’s history Historian Gerda Lerner (1920–2013) discovered that the existing historical record was deeply lacking on half the population—that of women. Instead, history books mostly told the story of men throughout the ages. Lerner set out to collect and analyze the existing research on ancient civilization, to understand how humankind began to organize societies from the very beginning. In her book The Creation of Patriarchy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), she explains how patriarchy is not “natural” nor “God-given” but “a historic creation formed by men and women in a process that took nearly 2,500 years to its completion” (p. 212) and provides context for many things that happen in Afghanistan to this day.
1 most rural and undeveloped provinces Badghis ranks as the thirty-first least-developed province out of Afghanistan’s thirty-two and is 61 percent worse off than the world’s least-developed countries. See UNICEF, Best Estimates Provincial Fact Sheet, unicef.org (accessed January 31, 2014).
2 Badghis is dominated by Tajik tribes and has a Pashtun minority The Naval Postgraduate School’s Program for Culture and Conflict Studies fact sheet for Badghis province, nps.edu (accessed January 31, 2014), states: “The province is inhabited by Tajiks who are thought to make up 62 percent of the population with Pashtuns making up approximately 28 percent.”
3 Ahmed Rashid describes those who fought See Ahmed Rashid, “A Vanished Gender,” in Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, 2nd ed. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 105–116.
4 upheld by 130,000 troops from forty-eight countries Ninety thousand of the 130,930 ISAF troops were American. See International Security Assistance Force (ISAF): “Key Facts and Figures,” November 15, 2010, isaf.nato.int.
5 the standard playbook of “state building” In his chapter, “The Failure of Airborne Democracy,” in van Bijlert and Kouvo’s Snapshots of an Intervention, Afghanistan analyst Thomas Ruttig describes how the 2001 Bonn conference “already had substantial democratic deficits” as the Taliban was excluded, in favor of warlords and groups sponsored by Pakistan and Iran. As a result, he writes, “warlords … were allowed to take over not only the ‘new’ democratic institutions but virtually everything else that mattered in the country. Today they constitute the inner circle of advisors for an over-centralised presidential system and, because of their religious self-legitimisation, are difficult to challenge politically. They simply have put themselves above the law.”
6 as one more rationale for the war On November 17, 2001, First Lady Laura Bush took over the president’s weekly radio address, a transcript of which can be found at presidency.ucsb.edu. She said: “Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes.… The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.”
7 After years of being unable to peer out of any window The many Taliban restrictions on women, which included the compulsory painting of all windows, are enumerated in “Some of the Restrictions Imposed by Taliban on Women in Afghanistan,” Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, at rawa.org/rules.htm.
8 the mandated 25-percent-minimum female share of seats Article 83(6) in Afghanistan’s constitution from January 2004 states that two female delegates should be elected from each province; see servat.unibe.ch. Afghanistan’s electoral law of 2005 further details how the quota should be drawn from the respective province; see ecoi.net/file_upload/1504_1215701180_electoral-law.pdf.
9 just as the Koran does The Koran is believed to contain the words of God, directly spoken to the Prophet Muhammad, and later recorded by scribes. Translations into other languages from the original can vary and are sometimes debated. In Iranian-American Muslim translator Laleh Bakhtiar’s English version, The Sublime Quran (Kazi Publications, 2007), sublimequran.org, which is supported by the Islamic Society of North America, several verses affirm the equal standing of men and women. For example, see verses 3:195 (“each one of you is from the other”) and 33:35 (which lays out how God asks the same of both men and women). As for 4:34, the original text that is often quoted in other translations as men being the “protectors” of women and therefore interpreted as though they should have some decision-making power over women, Laleh Bakhtiar instead translates as men being the “supporters” of women.
10 that men and women are equal The Constitution of Afghanistan, ratified January 26, 2004, “Chapter Two: Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens,” Article 22, states: “Any kind of discrimination and distinction between citizens of Afghanistan shall be forbidden. The citizens of Afghanistan, man and woman, have equal rights and duties before the law.”
11 share no common cause Orzala Ashraf Nemat, Afghan Women at the Crossroads: Agents of Peace—or Its Victims? The Century Foundation, 2011, discusses the realities of the women members’ roles in parliament: “Not all of them were there to carry women’s voices, however. In fact, most of the women in the parliament are linked in different ways to powerful warlords and other power brokers, and do not have any agenda to change or improve legislation in favor of women and human rights. Only few outstanding voices came out of the parliament to champion women’s needs, while in general, the record of its achievements is very weak—almost total failure—in terms of legal reforms in support of women.”
12 laws ratified that actually discriminate According to Human Rights Watch: “The law [passed during Karzai’s administration] gives a husband the right to withdraw basic maintenance from his wife, including food, if she refuses to obey his sexual demands.… It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying ‘blood money’ to a girl who was injured when he raped her.” See “Afghanistan: Law Curbing Women’s Rights Takes Effect—President Karzai Makes Shia Women Second-Class Citizens for Electoral Gain,” August 14, 2009, hrw.org.
13 amnesty has been handed out for war crimes Nemat’s Afghan Women at the Crossroads says this about the amnesty law: “Despite having 27 percent of the parliamentary seats filled by women, the parliament has approved a controversial amnesty law, calling for immunity for all those involved in war-time violations of human rights and women’s rights; approved the Shiite Personal Status Law, subjecting Shiite women to traditional religious controls, which later on was reviewed and amended to some extent; and pointedly did not approve presidential nominees for the position of minister of women’s affairs.”
14 The largest religious authority in the country “The Ulama Council: Paid to Win Public Minds—but Do They?” by Borhan Osman for Afghan Analysts Network, November 5, 2012, afghanistan-analysts.org, explains the complicated role of the Ulama Council in Afghan politics and society.
15 Louis Duprée described this contradiction See Louis Duprée, Afghanistan (Princeton: Oxford University Press, 1973, sixth impression, 2010), p. 104.
1 Husbands otherwise have an absolute right to the children Orzala Ashraf Nemat provides an analysis about divorce in an Islamic context under Afghanistan’s civil law in “Roundtable Conference: Comparative Analysis of Family Law in the Context of Islam,” Kabul, August 15–17, 2006, af.boell.org. The Afghan Civil Code affords the husband a unilateral right to divorce the wife for any reason, or for no reason, at any time (Article 135). In addition, Afghan Civil Code, Articles 236 through 255, cover custody issues.
2 Nine out of ten Afghan women will experience For information on the statistics of domestic abuse in Afghanistan, see “Living with Violence: A National Report on Domestic Abuse in Afghanistan,” Global Rights: Partners for Justice, March 2008, globalrights.org. This report notes “an overwhelming majority of women, 87.2%, experienced at least one form of physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage, and most, 62.0%, experienced multiple forms of violence.”
3 According to Mara Hvistendahl Mara Hvistendahl’s Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men (Public Affairs, 2011) reports on the sex-selective abortions of female fetuses throughout Asia.
1 but in the 1980s, Dr. Eleanor Galenson The research was presented in Eleanor Galenson and Herman Roiphe’s Infantile Origins of Sexual Identity (New York: International Universities Press, 1981).
2 Christian countries did not recognize marital rape See websites of RAINN—Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, rainn.org, and Rape Crisis, rapecrisis.org.uk/maritalrape2.php (accessed January 31, 2014).
3 When the United States, the United Kingdom The Sunday, October 7, 2001, online edition of The Guardian had a timeline of the attack on Afghanistan; see theguardian.com.
4 the UN-mandated 2002 emergency loya jirga The structure of the loya jirga is described in press briefing notes from the UN, un.org/News/dh/latest/afghan/concept.pdf.
5 Afghans have been tortured to death by U.S. forces See Tim Golden, “In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates’ Deaths,” New York Times, May 20, 2005, nytimes.com.
1 King James I of England denounced See Anastasia S. Bierman, In Counterfeit Passion: Cross-Dressing, Transgression, and Fraud in Shakespeare and Middleton (University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Department of English thesis, 2013), digitalcommons.unl.edu.
2 France implemented a law in 1800 that said women Lizzy Duffy, “Parisian Women Now (Officially) Allowed to Wear Pants,” National Public Radio, February 4, 2013, npr.org.
3 just as the Bible For instance, Timothy 2:9 says: “Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness.”
4 Veiling predates Islam See Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 5, 11, 12, 55. She writes that veiling was apparently introduced in Arabia by Muhammad, but already existed among the upper-class Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Assyrians. Veiling is nowhere explicitly prescribed in the Koran.
5 According to one Islamic hadith Everett K. Rowson, “The Effeminates of Early Medina,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111, no. 4 (October–December 1991): 671–93. Rowson notes that the Prophet did not really seem to have a problem with cross-dressers, which were common in his time, but he may have grown to believe it threatened established social norms. The hadith is here translated as: “The Prophet cursed effeminate men and mannish women.”
6 The Koran can be read in many ways Sadakat Kadri, Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari’a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia to the Streets of the Modern Muslim World (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), offers a fascinating view into how Islamic law and its many intepretations have developed through the centuries.
7 title of mullah is open to anyone Louis Duprée describes the role of mullahs in his book Afghanistan: “Those at the bottom of the hierarchy, the village mullah, often non-literate farmers, often function as part time religious leaders. Technically, Islam has no organized clergy, and every man can be a mullah. Anyone can lead in prayer” (p. 107).
8 a marketing gimmick invented in the United States in the forties Background on the use of color for gender identification was found in Jeanne Maglaty, “When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?,” April 8, 2011, smithsonianmag.com.
9 famous warrior Malalai of Maiwand Abdullah Qazi, “The Plight of the Afghan Woman: Afghan Women’s History,” January 2, 2009, Afghanistan Online, afghan-web.com.
10 “Before Islam” would be sometime See Library of Congress: Federal Research Division, “Country Profile of Afghanistan, August 2008,” loc.gov, which states: “After defeating the Sassanians at the Battle of Qadisiya in 637, Arab Muslims began a 100-year process of conquering the Afghan tribes and introducing Islam.”
1 Shah Massoud, the “Lion of Panjshir,” See Farangis Najibullah, “What If Ahmad Shah Masud, Afghanistan’s ‘Lion of Panjshir,’ Hadn’t Been Killed?” Radio Free Europe, September 9, 2011, rferl.org.
2 from the war that killed one million Afghans See Rafael Reuveny and Aseem Prakash, “The Afghanistan War and the Breakdown of the Soviet Union,” Review of International Studies (1999), faculty.washington. edu.
3 in Afghanistan, a man is allowed The Afghan Civil Code, Article 86, asianlii.org, states:
Polygamy can take place after the following conditions are fulfilled:
1. When there is no fear of injustice between the wives
2. When the person has financial sufficiency to sustain the wives. That is, when he can provide food, clothes, suitable house, and medical treatment.
3. When there is legal expediency, that is when the first wife is childless or when she suffers from diseases which are hard to be treated.
Polygamy, however, means that both parties could be married to several people, so what the law allows in Afghanistan is actually polygyny.
1 It makes her a very unusual young woman According to Higher Education in Afghanistan—An Emerging Mountainscape, A World Bank Study, August 2013, www-wds.worldbank.org, which states: “Second, education attainment among women is particularly low in Afghanistan. The three percent enrolled in higher education consists disproportionately of male students. Females comprised only 19% of all students enrolled in public universities and higher education institutions in 2012 [MoHE (2013)].”
2 Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission Detailed information about the organization’s mission can be found at their website with a profile of Dr. Samar, www.aihrc.org.af.
3 The word itself is not mentioned once See the full text of the Convention on the Rights of the Child at United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ohchr.org.
1 The three pillars of Pashtunwali The three pillars are explained further in Charles Lindholm, Generosity and Jealousy: The Swat Pukhtun of Northern Pakistan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).
2 gender identity disorder and transsexualism The International Classification of Diseases’s ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders, World Health Organization, Geneva, 1993, who.int, lists the detailed criteria for gender identity disorders in section F64.
1 Marriage is a core component Gerda Lerner explains how marriage was always a key part of the patriarchal system in The Creation of Patriarchy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). She writes: “For women, class is mediated through their sexual ties to a man. It is through the man that women have access to or are denied access to the means of production and to resources. It is through their sexual behavior that they gain access to class. ‘Respectable women’ gain access to class through their fathers and husbands, but breaking the sexual rules can at once declass them.”
2 Afghan prosecutor Maria Bashir See Jeremy Kelly, “Afghan ‘Defender of Women’s Rights’ Maria Bashir Puts 100 in Jail for Adultery,” October 22, 2012, thetimes.co.uk.
3 the rules of succession See Max Fisher, “Last Vestiges of the British Empire Complicate Royal Baby’s Succession to the Throne,” July 22, 2013, washingtonpost.com.
1 According to Butler, just as little children See Butler in a video explaining her work at http://bigthink.com/videos/your-behavior-creates-your-gender. “Nobody really is a gender from the start,” Butler proposes in the video. See also Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), p. 191, where the author writes, “In what senses, then, is gender an act? As in other ritual social dramas, the action of gender requires a performance that is repeated. This repetition is at once a reenactment and reexperiencing of a set of meanings already socially established; and it is the mundane and ritualized form of their legitimation.”
2 central argument in nineteenth-century Europe Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English’s book For Her Own Good—Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women, first published in 1978 by Anchor Books and later by Random House in 2005, recounts the efforts of medicine and science to shut women out of public life and intellectual thought for much of history.
3 group individuals by traditional “male” or “female” traits Sociomedical scientist Rebecca M. Jordan-Young critiques brain studies in Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011). She spent thirteen years going over brain studies dating back to 1967. Most studies had concluded that the male and female brain were very different from birth, making a strong argument for inherent gender differences. But Jordan-Young found the brain studies to be problematic at the outset, mainly because experiments had often been performed on rats, with the results transferred to assumptions about humans. Studies did show great differences between the brains of newborns in general, just as their bodies and skin color were also very different. But the differences between the brains of boys and girls did not constitute two distinct and separable categories.
4 more different than a random man put next to a random woman Janet Shibley Hyde, “The Gender Similarities Hypothesis,” American Psychologist (2005). In this paper, University of Wisconsin–Madison psychologist Shibley Hyde offers the following conclusion: “The gender similarities hypothesis stands in stark contrast to the differences model, which holds that men and women, and boys and girls, are vastly different psychologically. The gender similarities hypothesis states, instead, that males and females are alike on most—but not all—psychological variables. Extensive evidence from meta-analyses of research on gender differences supports the gender similarities hypothesis.”
5 With time, nurture can become nature. Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist at Chicago Medical School, explains brain-based differences in Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps—and What We Can Do About It (New York: First Mariner Books, 2010). According to Eliot, physical differences do exist in the brains of boys and girls, but they are not responsible for gender dissimilarities. Instead, very early on in life, different behaviors and skills are expected from each sex. The language used with each gender is different, and each child, depending on whether it’s a boy or a girl, is encouraged to develop what we think of as typical traits and behavior—for instance, that girls are more quiet and that boys are more active. Through that process of learning and forming habits, the brain will physically develop along the same lines. The brain—especially a growing brain—is so malleable that it will grow, form, and adjust according to the repetitive patterns to which it is exposed. Behavior is ingrained in the brain as it develops and comes to feel “natural.”
1 research by Dr. Alfred Kinsey and others See Theodore M. Brown and Elizabeth Fee, “Alfred C. Kinsey: A Pioneer of Sex Research,” American Journal of Public Health (June 2003), ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
2 how a woman’s uterus could be surgically removed See Ehrenreich and English’s For Her Own Good.
3 only “paltry” references to lesbianism The quote is from page 97 in chapter 5, “Woman-Woman Love in Islamic Societies,” by Stephen O. Murray, in Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature (New York: New York University Press, 1997). Murray also quotes the passage from Muslim geographer and cartographer Sharif al-Idrisi, who lived in the twelfth century, page 99.
4 “Very powerful warlords and regional commanders” For a fuller context of Coomaraswamy’s remark, see “New UN–Afghan Pact Will Help Curb Recruitment, Sexual Abuse of Children,” UN News Centre, February 3, 2011. Also see “An Unwanted Truth? Focusing the G8: Shining a Spotlight on Sexual Violence Against Children in Conflict,” Warchild UK, April 2013, cdn.warchild.org.uk. In this report, the British NGO Warchild UK, which focuses on providing assistance to children in areas of conflict, said of bacha bazi: “The issue remains one of virtual silence and inaction, however, due to the acutely taboo nature of the subject and complicity of senior figures of authority.”
5 the number of boys sexually abused John Frederick for UNICEF, “Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Boys in South Asia and a Review of Research Findings, Legislation, Policy and Programme Responses,” April 2010, unicef-irc.org. See also a Save the Children report from 2003: “Mapping of Psychosocial Support for Girls and Boys Affected by Child Sexual Abuse in Four Countries in South and Central Asia,” sca.savethechildren.se, which states: “Men are seen as needing ‘sexual release,’ the lack of which can even result in poor health. On the other hand, the ideal construction of the female is asexual before marriage, and sexually passive after. There are traditional precedents for ‘accepted’ child abuse. Reports of men using young boys for sexual gratification are well-known and talked about. Traditionally, ‘keeping’ good-looking boys adds status and prestige to the man, and adds to his image (self or imposed) of virility. Under the Taliban, a strict ban on homosexuality made more overt aspects of practise go underground. However, the practise of boys under 18 being brought to parties for entertainment is reported to still be taking place in some rural areas and in and around Kandahar.”
6 “The first sexual experiences” Charles Lindholm, Generosity and Jealousy: The Swat Pukhtun of Northern Pakistan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 225.
7 Author Hamid Zaher recounts Hamid Zaher, It Is Your Enemy Who Is Dock-tailed: A Memoir (iUniverse, 2012), originally written in Farsi in 2009, Kindle Edition.
8 defined three different forms of love Helen Fisher, “The Nature of Romantic Love”—commentary in Journal of NIH Research, April 1994, helenfisher.com.
1 Forty-five-year-old Amir Bibi in Khost For Bibi’s interview, see Terese Christiansson, De är kvinnorna med makt i Afghanistan, Expressen, December 4, 2010, expressen.se.
2 In a study of medieval Europe Valerie R. Hotchkiss, Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), p. 13.
3 Lotte C. van de Pol and Rudolf M. Dekker Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. van de Pol, The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (London: Macmillan Press, 1989).
4 orphan Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar The information on Stålhammar is at the National Swedish Army museum’s website, sfhm.se.
5 Briton Hannah Snell famously served See Julie Wheelwright, Amazons and Military Maids: Women Who Dressed as Men in Pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness (San Francisco: Pandora/Harper Collins, 1989).
6 German women were also found See Dekker and van de Pol, The Tradition of Female Transvestism, p. 96.
7 among the conquistadors in South America Ibid. See also Wheelwright, Amazons and Military Maids.
8 British anthropologist Antonia Young tracked down women Antonia Young’s Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000) reads in large parts like a book on Afghanistan today, even though the two countries are twenty-six hundred miles and an Arab peninsula apart. Information on Albanian virgins cited in this section is from her book as well as an interview.
See also Rene Gremaux, “Mannish Women of the Balkan Mountains,” theol.eldoc.ub.rug.nl, from 1989.
Gremaux also contributed the chapter “Woman Becomes Man in the Balkans” to the book Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History, edited by Gilbert Herdt (Zone Books, 1993). He writes of these women: “Belonging to an intermediate gender category may have caused much inconvenience to the individual’s psyche, yet being betwixt and between also opened new perspectives and brought about opportunitites.”
For a recent documentation of Albanian virgins, see Pepa Hristova, Sworn Virgins (Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag, 2013).
9 Albanian laws stemming from the fifteenth century See Young, Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins.
1 children still freeze to death See Rod Nordland, “Driven Away by a War, Now Stalked by Winter’s Cold,” New York Times, February 3, 2012, nytimes.com.
2 his 1990 study Manhood in the Making David D. Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
3 a “natural” aggression in sons Joshua S. Goldstein, War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
4 women today make up 15 percent of troops The ACLU press release “ACLU Challenges Ongoing Exclusion of Women from Combat Positions,” October 31, 2013, www.aclu.org, reads: “Women make up more than 14 percent of the 1.4 million active military personnel, yet are still excluded from over 200,000 positions despite the repeal of the 1994 combat exclusion policy in January.”
1 a longstanding Hindu tradition of sadhin See Serena Nanda, Gender Diversity (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2000), p. 40.
2 “It’s normal around here” See Anees Jung, Beyond the Courtyard (New York: Viking by Penguin Books India, 2003), p. 125.
3 women dressing as men for purposes See Andrea B. Rugh, Reveal and Conceal: Dress in Contemporary Egypt, Contemporary Issues in the Middle East (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986).
4 religious authorities in Malaysia “Malaysia Bans Tomboys Saying Girls with Short Hair Who Act Like Boys ‘Violate Islam,’ ” Daily Mail, October 24, 2008, dailymail.co.uk.
5 call themselves boyah Lorenz Nigst and José Sánchez García, “Boyat in the Gulf: Identity, Contestation and Social Control,” Universities of Vienna and Barcelona, Middle East Critique, Spring 2010. See also Shereen El Feki, Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World (New York: Pantheon, 2013). El Feki visits a rehabilitation center, and what she is told by a psychologist at the center echoes the story in Afghanistan, in that most teenage girls she counseled who had been brought up as boys didn’t consider themselves troubled or needing a cure. “They feel it’s their freedom; they don’t feel it’s wrong,” a psychologist is quoted as saying.
1 In the 1970s, Louis Duprée wrote See Louis Duprée, Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 1973, sixth impression, 2010) p. 104.
2 Around 1,400 years before Jesus was born See Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices, first published in 1979 by Routledge; and Jenny Rose, Zoroastrianism: An Introduction (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011).
3 “almost any stone thrown in Afghanistan” See Louis Duprée’s Afghanistan, p. 104.
4 recorded these same beliefs Lindholm writes, on page 166 of his book Generosity and Jealousy: “Swatis share with other Pakistanis and South Asians a firm belief that food, drink and even people are either ‘hot’ or ‘cold.’ The logic by which these divisions are made are by no means clear, and sometimes people disagree on whether a particular unusual food is ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ but there is widespread agreement about the major parameters of the system.”
5 a primer for how boys and girls Chapter 16 of the Avesta, “The Bundahishn (‘Creation’), or Knowledge from the Zand,” can be found in English translation at avesta.org.
6 The Persian epic See Djalal Khaleghi Motlagh, Women in the Shāhnāmeh: Their History and Social Status Within the Framework of Ancient and Medieval Sources, ed. by Nahid Pirnazar, trans. from German by Brigitte Neuenschwander (Santa Ana, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2012), p. 42.
7 the same rainbow myth of gender-changing See Raymond L. Lee and Alistair B. Fraser, The Rainbow Bridge: Rainbows in Art, Myth and Science (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001).
8 Norse mythology from the Middle Ages See Helga Kress, “Taming the Shrew: The Rise of Patriarchy and the Subordination of the Feminine in Old Norse Literature,” in Cold Counsel: Women in Old Norse Literature and Mythology: A Collection of Essays, ed. by Sarah M. Anderson with Karen Swenson (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 90.
9 a common Indo-European origin Viktor Rydberg wrote about this in “Fädernas Gudasaga” of 1923.
10 the earliest recorded prayers of Zoroaster’s Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (Routledge, 1979), p 17.
1 embroiled in a heated national conflict Rod Nordland, “Candidates for Parliament Protest Afghan Elections,” New York Times, November 7, 2010, nytimes.com, tells the story of the fraught election procedure: “Nationwide, the election commission invalidated 1.33 million or nearly a fourth of the 5.74 million votes recorded, according to an official fact sheet.”
2 bloodiest year yet of the war Comparative numbers are found in Susan G. Chesser, “Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians,” Congressional Research Service, December 6, 2012, www.fas.org. American casualties in 2002: 49, wounded: 74, American casualties in 2011: 404, wounded: 5,204. The report also mentions that “up to 11,864 civilians were killed in Afghanistan from 2007, when the United Nations began reporting statistics, to the end of 2011.” In 2011, the civilian casualty toll was 3,021 killed and 4,507 injured—the highest numbers since UN reporting began in 2007.
3 President Obama’s two-year “surge” Peter Baker, “How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan,” New York Times, December 5, 2009, describes the thinking behind Obama’s decision to temporarily send more troops into Afghanistan.
4 $700 billion and counting to American taxpayers Anthony H. Cordesman, “The US Cost of the Afghan War: FY2002–FY2013, Cost in Military Operating Expenditures and Aid, and Prospects for ‘Transition,’ ” May 15, 2012, csis.org.
5 “This time it was the United States” The quote comparing the U.S. involvement to the Soviet Union’s is on page 290 of Sherard Cowper-Coles, Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign (Harper Press, 2011).
6 ignored by all but human rights organizations Several groups have warned about the dangers for women of any negotiated political deal with the extremists, including the Afghan-led Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization, in its 2012 report “Afghan Women After the Taliban: Will History Repeat Itself?,” ahrdo.org. They write: “The current US and Afghan government-backed process of negotiating with extremist groups, and especially the Taliban, promises to increase the vulnerability of women in Afghanistan in the medium- to long-term. Any political deal with these forces means the selling out of women’s hard-gained achievements in the last ten years while most likely incurring unbearable cost for Afghan women.”
1 If an Afghan woman wants to divorce See “I Had to Run Away, The Imprisonment of Women and Girls for ‘Moral Crimes’ in Afghanistan,” A Human Rights Watch Report, 2012, hrw.org, which explains: “Laws governing divorce in Afghanistan are discriminatory against women. The Afghan Civil Code of 1977, the key source of statutory family law in Afghanistan, allows men to divorce women very easily. Article 139 of the Afghan Civil Code states that: (1) A husband can divorce his wife orally or in writing. When a husband lacks these two means, divorce can happen by usual gestures which clearly implies divorce. (2) Divorce happens with clear wordings which, in customs, convey the meaning of divorce without intention. Women, however, face far greater obstacles in obtaining a divorce. Absent consent from their husband, women can only obtain a divorce through a court and must show cause on the grounds of (1) defect, for example because of illness; (2) harm; (3) non-payment of alimony; or (4) absence. Obtaining a ‘for cause’ divorce for women in Afghanistan is not easy, legally or practically.… Compounding these problems, many judges do not even apply the provisions of the Civil Code, but instead invoke their own interpretation of Islamic law, with some judges not even admitting that women are entitled to seek divorce.”
1 close to the bottom of the Human Development Index A yearly report by the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, measures “development by combining indicators of life expectancy, educational attainment and income into a composite human development index, the HDI” and can be found at undp.org. See also The Forgotten Front: Water Security and the Crisis in Sanitation, Afghanistan Human Development Report 2011, Centre for Policy and Human Development, Kabul University, cphd.af. The report analyzes Afghanistan after almost a decade of foreign aid: “[T]here has been progress in recent years, but the progress has been uneven and far too slow. According to the Human Development Index for 2010, Afghanistan is ranked 155th among 169 United Nations member states … 84 percent of Afghan households are multi dimensionally poor.”
2 more than $30 billion The figures regarding Afghanistan’s aid are according to “Investments to End Poverty: Real Money, Real Choices, Real Lives,” a report by British research group Development Initiatives, London 2013, which collects global data on development aid from both donor and recipient countries; see devinit.org.
3 a scathing review Astri Suhrke, When More Is Less: The International Project in Afghanistan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). Dr. Astri Suhrke is a senior researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway. Her work focuses on “the social, political and humanitarian consequences of violent conflict, and strategies of response.” She is a member of a committee of experts serving the Norwegian Nobel Committee; see http://www.cmi.no/staff/?astri-suhrke. What Dr. Suhkre in her book calls “the liberal project” in Afghanistan began already in 2002, with sixty government donors in the country. She describes in detail the aid community’s planning and implementation stages, and the mismanagement that ensued. For instance, she writes: “There were parallel structures of administration on virtually all levels of government. International advisers, contractors and NGOs were ubiquitous. About two-thirds of all aid was channelled through an ‘external budget’ administered directly by foreign donors.”
Suhrke’s book is just one of several evaluations of how the foreign aid to Afghanistan has not only been questionably effective but may also have brought long-term negative consequences for the country and its economy. See also: “Evaluating U.S. Foreign Assistance to Afghanistan: A majority staff report prepared for the use of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee” of June 8, 2011, U.S. Government Printing Office. The report cautions that Afghanistan may suffer a severe economic depression when foreign troops leave in 2014 due to the almost complete foreign aid dependency: “Foreign aid, when misspent, can fuel corruption, distort labor and goods markets, undermine the host government’s ability to exert control over resources, and contribute to insecurity. According to the World Bank, an estimated 97 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) is derived from spending related to the international military and donor community presence.”
4 an auditor at the Office of the Special Inspector General James R. Petersen served as senior auditor for the special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction. In his Politico story “Was $73B of Afghan Aid Wasted?” January 11, 2012, politico.com, he offers an idea of how much of the foreign aid funds actually go to helping anyone at all due to high overheads and corruption: “But a mere 30 cents out of every dollar for Afghanistan goes to aid. It gets worse. Of that 30 cents, frequently only half reaches the intended recipient. The remainder is lost, stolen or misappropriated by Afghan workers and officials. Many projects don’t even attain their own internal goals, according to reports from inspectors general and the Commission on War-Time Contracting. The June 2011, Senate Foreign Relations Committee report concluded that few, if any, of these aid programs are sustainable in the long term. Add in the cost of the USAID’s bureaucratic superstructure—including $500,000 annually for each U.S. employee in Kabul, and the supporting staffs in Washington—and sometimes less than 10 cents of every dollar actually goes to aiding Afghans.” For more details, see sigar.mil for quarterly reports on Afghanistan reconstruction.
5 close to ten million students registered Rod Nordland, “Despite Education Advances, a Host of Afghan School Woes,” New York Times, July 20, 2013, nytimes.com, goes behind the numbers to reveal that only about 10 percent of students make it through to graduation and that graduation rates are even worse for girls.
6 more than seven hundred “projects” Again, information on 2011 foreign aid projects and numbers relating to “gender” were provided for this book by the British research group Development Initiatives; see devinit.org.
7 “gains are on the whole modest and reversible” Torunn Wimpelmann’s 2012 report for NOREF, Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, is called “Promoting Women’s Rights in Afghanistan: A Call for Less Aid and More Politics,” cmi.no. Norway is a large donor of foreign aid globally, and one of the largest to Afghanistan. Wimpelmann’s research, based on extensive fieldwork in the country, explains the discrepancy between the foreign aid bubble of Kabul and the actual needs of Afghan women: “The polarised and politicised situation regarding women’s issues in Afghanistan clearly demonstrates that women’s rights can never be secured, at least not in a sustainable manner, in isolation from broader political developments. Yet this is exactly what Western governments often have attempted. High-profile-declarations of commitments to and funding for women’s rights have been occurring in parallel with other policies that have undermined the very institutions and conditions on which such gains depend, such as a formal justice system, a functioning parliament and a non-militarised political landscape.”
1 the relationship between gender and violence Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, and Chad F. Emmett, Sex and World Peace (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). These authors’ research clearly shows what Afghanistan has seen many times over—that the treatment of women and girls is at the center of war and conflict, and never a side “issue.” In fact, they are the very best measure of the level of conflict both internally and externally, as “the treatment of women—what is happening in intimate interpersonal relationships between men and women—creates a context in which violence and exploitation seem natural” (p. 15).
Their book also proposes the involvement of men to a greater degree, in redefining honor and advocating for women, maintaining that “societies that are more gender-equal are less likely to go to war” (p. 3). We would do well to remember this important conclusion: “We have found in conventional aggregate empirical testing that the best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is not its level of wealth, or its level of democracy, or whether it is Islamic or not. The very best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is its level of violence against women.… And the less willing a country is to enforce laws protecting women within its own borders, the less likely it is to comply with international treaty obligations. These empirical findings, we believe, are only the tip of the iceberg” (p. 205).