But What About the Women and Children?
There is something problematic about western concerns for ‘particularly women and children’ in Afghanistan.
With the visually documented fall of the Afghan government unfolding in real-time, many Americans are feeling guilt and horror (perhaps at the implications of what our tax dollars have contributed to ) and are understandably expressing concern for the safety of the Afghan people. But most consistently and notably, the women (oh, and children).
The reporting has emphasized this, in part because Taliban policy is expressly anti-woman where education and access are concerned — so it’s easy and tangible to report on. Additionally, Islamic practices, which, in part, originated for geographical reasons, are easy targets of the inherent misogyny that sits at the root of all monotheistic religions. The coverings that once serving as an shield from the climate, now act as an exoskeleton of their faith, which has been repeatedly used by the west as a visual symbol of their oppression — often peddled and exaggerated to justify our own country’s historically aggressive actions toward these oil-rich countries we have wanted to exploit.
Even as someone raised as a secular Muslim, who as a child, hated having to cover herself when in the presence of religious people or rituals, I struggle with the tonal implications I feel from Americans, mainly White and Christian ones, when they stress that this will be particularly egregious for the women and children. Even if not directly intended, it reeks of time-old narratives of some underlying savagery (read: inferiority) that non-western cultures partake in. It rides the line of humanitarianism that simultaneously perpetuates racial/cultural propaganda without necessarily resolving any of the world’s problems with the misogynistic views we all share. Sometimes I think it even serves as a form of self-assurance that we colonial European-centric cultures are “at least not that bad” because, “Sure, most of the violence perpetrated against women in our societies are committed by men but, at least we aren’t wrapping women up into mummies and keeping them illiterate.”
It begs the question, is this concern for gender disparity in a radicalized state rooting from a place of true concern, or is it just a innate reaction to generations of anti-Arab sentiment and negative connotations with how “Muslims treat women.” There is something about this “but what about the women and children” that reeks of the incredibly loaded and deeply troubling “absent Black father” rhetoric White America loves to fall back on when evading the damaging effects of White Supremacy on the health and wealth of Black families.
“In those countries it’s harder to be a woman.”
“In that culture they are more violent.”
“Being those people is worse than being like us.”
As Muslims in France have been asking their government for years; what is the difference between a Burqa and a Nun’s habit? Or perhaps a Hasidic woman’s wig, thick stockings, and fall coat required even in the peak of summer? What about a British princess being required to wear a long sleeved wedding dress as a show of modesty and respect? What about airbrushing shoulders and chests off of yearbook photos of girls? What is the emotional consequence of aggressively and publicly policing inane school dress codes on girls? What about telling girls their outfits will get them raped?
And, more importantly, why don’t we ever discuss the root origins of this demonizing of women and sexuality — which began with the re-writing (and man-washing) of the Old Testament in the books of Isaiah and Nehemiah, and was further exaggerated and institutionalized into religious practice in the second and third century by Greek and Roman leaders at ever-growingly violent and intolerant levels, as they worked to erase and eradicate other, more goddess centric observers of Jesus’s teachings from the Canonical church texts. Can Judeo-Christian cultures sit in judgment of a religious sect that is the direct offspring of their own rhetoric?
This is to say, ‘liberated’ western countries serve a sizable amount of danger toward women and children, too. The scope and scale are just diluted by the rouse of the commodification of female bodies (through undress rather than overdress) and buried under the overbearing din of our country’s addiction to racism.
I want to be clear, yes, women and children in Afghanistan are in greater danger than much of the men (many of whom are also in danger), but this can be said to be true in the presence of all militant regimes rooted in patriarchal radicalism. The aggression-driven acrobatics of hyper-masculinity is stacked precariously on a very narrow range of human emotion, leaving anything perceived even remotely as representing weakness inherently vulnerable. And the only hyper-masculine way to respond to forms of or causes for weakness or vulnerability is to crush them. I mean, isn’t that what our own military went there to do? Crush the problem?
Much of the success and reach behind colonial white supremacy’s platform is rooted in the dissection and distribution of conditional power to create inherent structures of oppression enforced and policed by the oppressed themselves (thus using complicity to shield cishet white men from the burden of ever having to face full accountability for any act alone). But, if you reduce the options for conditional power (in this case, the removal of racial hierarchy), you condense the focus into one area (in this case, gender), creating a more significant rift of power between groups, which, in this case, makes the misogyny more blatant. But I would argue that is does only that; makes it more blatant, not necessarily more present. I am sure we can agree it would be wrong to say that people with visible disabilities are more disabled than those without. So we have to at least consider that a society that does not wear it’s misogyny so loudly does not necessarily represent a society that is inherently less misogynistic.
Granted, seeing the problem certainly brings more attention to it. I myself have been guilty of falling for the trap of viewing the veil (even though only wearing it temporarily) as a symbol of my oppression. I have always been at odds with my inherited faith’s covering of female bodies — though let’s be honest, I have also been at odds with the concept of inheriting faith to begin with, but I digress. I wouldn’t declare myself a practicing Muslim, but I am still culturally deeply linked to Islamic traditions; I still, at times, habitually mutter prayers in Arabic when reacting to a mental image that frightens me; and I am still ethnically linked to a rich history of Islamic tradition. Thus, the pain I feel toward anti-Islamist acts or discrimination is familial. And, because of that, I haven’t felt entirely comfortable with covered Muslim women being used by the west as some default poster child of Islam’s special brand of cruelty.
I am very opposed to religious fundamentalism across the board and have yet to see a form of religious conservativism that doesn’t treat women like shit, so I am not here to deny the loathing I feel for the hypocrisy of the awful man-children that mostly make up the Taliban — and similar radical organizations. I won’t downplay the devastation I feel for the women and girls who may lose their dreams for some form of vocation or even just enjoyment of education because of a regime that sees women as auxiliary objects to control. I won’t deny the real dangers of rape, subjugation, and domestic abuse I imagine will become more rampant in such hostile militant environments.
But in my discomfort in hearing the same concerns voiced by other Americans, when we explain to our kids how ‘bad’ or ‘hard’ or ‘different’ it is ‘over there’ for girls, I have to question what we really are saying, exactly? Have we revisited the vile rally cries in #Gamergate? Are we aware that one of the most common threads across mass shooters is their loathing for women? Are we saying religious extremism is bad? Are we condemning militant regimes and radical conservatism? Or are we just using the guise of those arguments to say that their religion is bad and our way of life is superior?
Please, do hurt for the people of a country abused, exploited and abandoned by our own. Discuss the global repercussions of colonial conquest and capitalist interference. Address the dangers of religious radicalism and militant nationalism. And, yes, please do discuss the inherent violence of patriarchal systems and how they are playing out before our eyes in the case of Afghanistan. But please, tread carefully on how you frame it. Let’s not commingle and conflate a distinctly visual manifestations of age-old oppressive ideologies with the socio-political misgivings that are identical to, if not byproducts of our own.
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