Disappearing Women (and Frightened Men)

The women of Afghanistan are being systematically erased from the public sphere in the country. Women cannot show their faces, raise their voices, or recite the Quran outside of their homes. In the name of religious adherence, the Taliban has imposed these increasingly draconian restrictions on the very presence of women. 

Women and girls have long been prohibited from schooling above 6th grade and from attending university and the regime has been limiting the rights of women to participate in society for years. Now, however, the Taliban is coming ever closer to eliminating female presence in society entirely. 

Men, though, are now too facing the consequences of supporting this authoritarianism and they are realizing that they are not the benefactors of this system either. As women are banned from riding alone in taxis, the revenue that these drivers' livelihood depends on plummets. Men whose beards are deemed too short have been barred from entering work. Some government officials have even had their salaries withheld over facial hair. Those who supported the Taliban early on with the thought that only the lives of women would change, are coming to grips with the fact that they were wrong.

Many who willingly follow oppressive regimes believe that their support will save them. The logic often goes, “if I put down others, I will be lifted up.” This is not the case. Unless you are at the very highest point of the social structure, your loyalty only gains you safety for as long as it is productive to that top group. Authoritarianism, ironically, doesn’t discriminate. It infects every aspect of everyone’s life underneath it at one point or another, and your compliance does not guarantee your future status in something so turbulent and seeping. Especially if you are in any way a member of a marginalized group, your willingness to sell out a different one is the same as the regime’s willingness to sell out you. Men who supported the Taliban have learned this the hard way. In the end, you are only guaranteed dignity if we are all guaranteed dignity. Dissent and resistance for the well-being of all people will keep you safe, not selfishness.