The Weapon of Education- is there hope for Afghanistan’s women?

By Roya Aboosaidi

Access to education used as a weapon to obtain power seems to be something innate in the governing of states throughout the developing world. While the developed world started to overcome the basic structurally imposed barriers of sexism in the late 1800s, less economically developed countries, some of which are still under authoritarian governing styles, have failed to recognize women as independent variables in a society, rather seeing them as a sub-values with the mere capacity to do basic housework and care for their families. This mindset has been coerced into the so-called culture of the Middle East where Islam has been manipulated to deem women as lesser humans.

Since the latest Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, the human rights achievements made with regards to women and media freedom after the 2001 reconstruction effort, have been reversed. They put a ban on freedom where in order for a woman to leave her home, she needs to be accompanied by a male whilst wearing a burka, in addition to revoking their right to education. This criminalization of independence has taken a similar diffusion pattern as the Arab Spring, but this time, for the repressive conditions imposed on women specifically. Peaceful protests in Afghanistan have flooded across to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates in addition to statements that oppose the Taliban’s ban on women’s rights from the European Union and other developed countries which have also used their resources to evacuate Afghans from Kabul. Protests in Afghanistan have turned violent where women and supporters of the movement were sprayed with chemical substances.

However, the Taliban has recently released a statement that as of Nowruz on March 21, 2022, which is Persian New Year, girls will go back to school. This has been received in two drastically different ways, with most being pessimistic about the Taliban upholding its promise due to its history of instilling false hope in their population. A prominent example is when the leader of the Taliban advocated for equality on an international scale at the beginning of 2021, followed by revoking all women’s rights shortly after. In addition, since the Taliban has criminalized working for women, there have been questions of the purpose of education if it cannot be applied. Lastly, the excuse which has been internationally used as to why women have lost their right to education has been due to a lack of infrastructure, which is improbable as education for men have received more institutions and have been increasingly more popular where about 55% of men are literate in Afghanistan whereas the literacy rate for women is 29%.

Education as a tool to further marginalize women in society has been debatably the most calculated institutionalization of sexism. Where one’s power to use their voice is restricted by what they have been conditioned to think, through bans on their knowledge, potentials, and sense of their individual purposes.