When the Taliban moved into the blank space left by Joe Biden's incompetent, confused, and bloody withdrawal from Afghanistan, it knew that the entire world was watching to see what it would do about maintaining the status of women in the country.
In August of 2021, leaders were making all the right noises about including women in the nation's life. They promised that women would be welcome in the workplace. They promised that little girls could go to school.
The rest of the anti-woman regimen was in place, including arranging marriages for very young girls and the obscene double standards that allowed husbands to beat their wives. But at least some freedoms for women would be kept.
That lasted less than a year. Just days after retaking power, the Taliban reinstated the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. This is the ministry charged with keeping women subservient and ignorant. Then came the restrictions on girls in school and more draconian restrictions on women in the workplace, and any notion that the Taliban had changed its tune on women went out the window.
While Western feminists toy with the idea that the hijab is somehow "liberating," Afghan women are beaten in the streets for talking to a man, not of her family.
The Taliban have now taken the step of attempting to not only remove women from public life but to make them invisible as well.
In an effort to "combat vice and promoter virtue," the Taliban Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has signed off on a series of edicts that prevent women from showing their faces in public and making it illegal to hear a woman's voice because a "woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading aloud in public."
Article 13 relates to women. It says it is mandatory for a woman to veil her body at all times in public and that a face covering is essential to avoid temptation and tempting others. Clothing should not be thin, tight or short.
Women are obliged to cover themselves in front of non-Muslim males and females to avoid being corrupted. A woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading aloud in public. It is forbidden for women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.
Incredibly, the Taliban also forbid the publication of images of living people. Evidently, these people think the camera steals your soul or something.
Last month, the U.N. issued a little-noticed or discussed report on the Taliban's reign of terror against women, specifically the creeping authoritarianism of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
“Given the multiple issues outlined in the report, the position expressed by the de facto authorities that this oversight will be increasing and expanding gives cause for significant concern for all Afghans, especially women and girls,” said Fiona Frazer, the head of the human rights service at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan.
I guess you can't drag anyone into the 21st century unless they want to come. Sanctions don't work. The Taliban laughs at international condemnation. And since they think women are barely human, the opinions of Western feminists — as conflicted as they are — are received with a condescending smile and a pat on the head.
The women of Afghanistan are going to have to liberate themselves. No one else is going to war so that little girls can go to school and big girls can run businesses. The Afghan men — if you can call them that — stand mutely as their mothers, sisters, and daughters are dehumanized and made invisible by a heartless regime.
