The latest Gallup poll shows that women’s satisfaction with life in Afghanistan under Taliban rule has decreased from 29% in 2022 to 11% in 2023. As per this survey, the lives of 96% of women and 93% of men in 2023 were characterized in a way that the lowest level is considered “suffering.” What Gallup found exhibits the undeniable reality of Afghanistan under Taliban rule. This group, characterized by misogyny, does not grant women the minor opportunity to break free from the severe restrictions imposed by them. Some women who described their lives in Taliban territory as satisfactory are those who have aligned with the Taliban due to extensive poisonous and wide-ranging propaganda of Islamic extremism, making them accept what they endure as complete Sharia and Islamic principles and rules. These women are more oppressed than other women who at least protest against their conditions and therefore suffer.
The suffering of the protesters is a rebellious and revolutionary agony; a suffering that is spreading throughout Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban and is not limited to women alone; men also endure suffering and are unhappy with what they are going through. They bear the torment and anguish. Knowing their disastrous situation, these men and women are at least against living in the Taliban style, and therefore, they have taken a step forward in the silent struggle against the Taliban. However, the women who accept life under the rule of the Taliban regime and are satisfied with it, are more oppressed because they lack the basic critical awareness against the poisonous propaganda of the Taliban Islamists, thus being more victims of Islamism than protesting women. More than others, they have been broken and helpless under the violent and inhuman patriarchy of the Taliban.
The Gallup survey exhibits a portion of the miserable life of women in Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban, not the whole reality of the suffering and exploitation of women. In other words, this survey depicts only one side of the suffering of being a woman in Afghanistan. Before August 15, 2021, women also agonized on a large scale and were victims of patriarchy that frequently dominated the usual and accepted lives of Afghan citizens. What makes the society under the Taliban’s captivity different from the past is the intensification of the suffering that women have always had to endure. In the country under the dominion of the Taliban, even the meager rights that were given to women in the previous government have been taken away from them, and the hope of their survival has completely vanished.
In the initial days of the Taliban resurgence, the women who thought that the restrictions would not last longer and might be rescinded in the future, have now concluded that there is no change. Women have realized that the Taliban’s “further notice” was a deception to keep them hopeful and convinced that the restrictions will end soon and “things will not remain the same.” This is indeed the worst indoctrination that helpless and miserable people resort to for false mitigation of their agony. Such indoctrination’s stupidity becomes more obvious over time and becomes a source of helplessness for those who insinuate more and more.
The Taliban deluded everyone, both women and foreigners with the trick of “further notice”, making everyone hope that the restrictions would end in the immediate future. Through this trick, they could both subside the anger of the women and keep the foreigners hopeful about the improvement of the situation. However, what resulted from this false hope was extremely agonizing as the Taliban are deceiving everyone, and what the Taliban Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is doing to impose a completely primitive and tribal life on them is not temporary, but permanent, perhaps getting even more severe.
Although a small number of Afghan women still hope for the “change of the Taliban” and are still optimistic about the “further notice”, most women no longer have the illusion that one day the Taliban will give up obstinacy and accept their demands in connection with the provision of rights. Women support the observance of human rights and the creation of an inclusive government. Even the one who has the least knowledge of the ideological composition of this group, cannot resort to the illusion of “Taliban change”. It is never possible to change a group like the Taliban, and if anyone has such an expectation, either they do not know anything about the ideology of Islam, or they are a deceiver and a liar who is consciously trying to fool the people.
The tragedy afflicted on the women of Afghanistan by the Taliban remains the only visible and vivid aspect of the bad reality of oppression against women. Regarding the fears and dangers of this catastrophe, as it manifests itself and challenges everyone, enough warning has been given and few can ignore it. The tragedy of women is deeper and more serious than the tragedy that the Taliban brought upon them. In every Taliban or non-Taliban family, not necessarily officially and in the shape and image of the Taliban, but in practice, there are even cases where men imprison women and torture them even worse than the Taliban. The dominant order of family in Afghanistan is Taliban-style, or at best quasi-Taliban, depriving women of the opportunity to breathe freely and placing men as the eternal masters of families at the top of the management pyramid.
Women have to refer to their male masters who appear in the form of father, brother, son, husband, and other figures even in doing the smallest chores such as cooking. This reactionary tradition has been institutionalized and normalized in the anti-feminist society of Afghanistan to such an extent that, despite the men of the family repeatedly asking them not to consult with them about what to cook, they frequently prefer to be ordered by the men of the family about what to cook for lunch or dinner. This is a straightforward example of underestimating women in the dominant family order.
With the Taliban coming to power in Afghanistan, the suffering of women has intensified because the dominant patriarchal culture has further flourished to multiply and perpetuate itself. This culture now has supporters in the form of the Taliban, thus imprisoning and victimizing women more fearlessly than before. The devastating and deadly depth of the tragedy of the Taliban’s return to power is revealing itself more and more.
