Afghan women at university must study in female-only classrooms, Taliban say

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: The Guardian

The Taliban have announced that women in Afghanistan will only be allowed to study at university in gender-segregated classrooms and Islamic dress will be compulsory, stoking fears that a gender apartheid will be imposed on the country under the new regime.

On Saturday, the Taliban raised their flag over the presidential palace on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, signalling that their work governing the newly formed Islamic emirate had begun. The white banner bearing a Qur’anic verse was hoisted by Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, the prime minister of the interim Taliban government.

That same day, Rohullah Azizi, the brother of the former vice-president and anti-Taliban resistance leader Amrullah Saleh, was shot dead at a Taliban checkpoint. Saleh has declared himself the legitimate acting president of Afghanistan, and has been leading the embattled forces resisting the Taliban in Panjshir.
...
Speaking at a press conference, Haqqani said women would be allowed to continue their university education, but it would be compulsory to wear a hijab. It was unclear if this meant a headscarf or that women’s faces would have to be covered completely.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/12/afghan-women-university-female-only-classrooms-taliban-say

[Walleye]

1. I'm afraid it is up to the Afghan people to change this nonsense

If they want to be a backward country they are certainly going about it right. They won’t belong to the rest of the world. Plus they are morons for not utilizing the talents of half their population

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

2. As long as they're separate but equal.

[samnsara]

3. as long as they get their education!

[HUAJIAO]

4. I wouldn't bet on it.

[LiberalLovinLug]

6. I'm surprised they even have internationally accredited universities.

And even more surprised they allow women at all there.

As long as they get the same level of education, and quality of instruction, this is about the best possible outcome for that area of the world.

I mean, hell, even western countries, like England etc.. still have "boys schools" and "girls schools" don't they?



IF the Taliban are smart, and can contain their more radical factions, and at least were able to show a good face. That they won't start beheading women in stadiums again, and at least pretend to respect international standards for a while, it will greatly help Biden. If at least some of the MSM would then decide to pivot to a "I guess its' not as bad as we thought it was going to be" narrative.

[former9thward]

22. Kabul University is the main institution.

This a photo I took in 2002. We were attempting to rebuild the university after the Taliban had pretty much wrecked it. My job was to try and entice professors to come back from Pakistan where they had fled Taliban rule. Some success , some not.



A picture I took inside one of the classes.

[LiberalLovinLug]

27. Wow. Thanks for the story, and photos.

I really hope that the Taliban can evolve a little and see how education for more Afghanis, including women, can also help their country. Even if they just look at it selfishly, how it would open doors for them with the rest of the world.

[riversedge]

25. hope is eternal.

[PoliticAverse]

8. I'm sure the classes in sharia and home economics will be quite useful. n/t

[PhylliPretzel]

13. Don't knock home economics

which is now called Family and Consumer Science. Too many of the young people starting out on their own these days have no practical skills in the management of their time, energy, money, and other resources. Think of the news stories . . . bankruptcies, nutrition related diseases, divorces, child and elder abuse. These are topics taught in FCS classes. And don't get me started on sex ed; when it shifted from home economics to physical education, sex became an indoor sport!

[yaesu]

5. doesn't surprise me but I hope the younger generation taliban is smart enough to realize

that higher education is necessary to keep Afghanistan in the economic loop as China and other countries move in to benefit off their vast mineral recourses and there's the dope too.

[Steelrolled]

7. Female-only classrooms don't trigger the outrage meter in me.

Especially given there are plenty of female-only colleges in the US.

[jcmaine72]

10. False equivalency

Woman attending female-only colleges in the U.S. do so by choice. What choice are women given in Afghanistan?

[Steelrolled]

15. Well Afghan women already have a lot more choice than American women did at Harvard for its

first 300 years of existence. Something tells me that the Afghan universities will progress faster than Harvard and others of that ilk.

[jcmaine72]

18. If you honestly believe that....

especially in the same week in which a pregnant woman was brutally executed in cold blood by that regime for the unspeakable crime of being a female ex-police officer, then I have a lovely bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

One doesn't need a crystal ball or Doc Brown's Delorean to see that any nation, province, city or shit-smeared outhouse ruled by the Taliban will never, ever be anything other than a bastion of early-medieval barbarism, homicidal religious fanaticism, and savage misogyny.

Please, and I say this with the utmost sincerity and sensitivity to your feelings, save your protective instincts and compassion for people who genuinely deserve it, not the Taliban.

[Dopers_Greed]

23. Stop with the whataboutism

[McKim]

20. Yes, at Least They Could Get in a Word!

Yes, at least women could get in a word now and then!

[iluvtennis]

9. This is goodness in my opinion. They could have said NO to university education for women. One

step of progress at a time. Grateful for that.

[jcmaine72]

11. Yeah...

The Taliban are all heart.

We might want to see first what if any limitations the Taliban will be placing specifically on what women are allowed to study at university before heaping any kind of praise on them.

Will women, for example, be permitted to study law? Education? Political Science? etc. Or will their education be limited to things like Home Ec and Islamic teachings, reminding them (as per the Quran) that they are subservient to men?

If it's the latter, the Taliban aren't doing the women of Afghanistan any favors and are, therefore, unworthy of any expressions of gratitude from the outside world.

[iluvtennis]

12. Valid point. I was simply saying YES to the small step of [potential] progress. Gotta wait and see

[Hugh_Lebowski]

24. We might want to see what limitations there are on women's studies

Before heaping scorn on the Taliban on this particular subject as well.

They're worthy of all manner of scorn, to be clear, but as you said ... we might want to wait and see in this particular matter.

And also, nobody on this thread was doing any 'heaping of praise' on this subject in the first place. Bit of a straw-man, really.

The assholes are apparently saying per the article 'continue their university studies' which implies ... at least for those women currently studying ... whatever they were allowed to before, they'll still be able to study.

And I don't necessarily agree with your thesis that the US government should entirely refuse to engage with them (or the Saudi's). That kind of isolation typically leads to worse outcomes for minorities, women, and the disadvantaged, IMHO.

Lastly, there are parts of the world that are, simply put, way behind the times, and it's not always appropriate for us in more developed countries to demand a 'way of life' that comports with OUR conception of 'how shit is supposed to be'.

In fact, over 20 years we spent trillions trying to make it happen in this particular backwater.

And the second we leave, our liberal ideas about how people are supposed to live according to US ... fell apart.

Not saying there's anything wrong with empathy for women there, but women are living in oppression like this all over the world. In all manner of backwards places.

And the West can't fix it. Wish we could, but we can't.

[Joe Nation]

14. Saudi Arabia does the same thing.

And they are a supposed ally.

[Steelrolled]

16. You are right, but right now anything "Taliban" gets all the clicks.

No-one will click on stories about Saudi women.

[jcmaine72]

19. And we shouldn't be allies with them either

The fact that we have anything at all to do with that regime is a stain on our foreign policy and moral standing as a nation.

President Biden could really secure a great legacy for himself as the person who restored some semblance of decency to American foreign policy if he opted to disengage us from the Saudi Kingdom as well. However, we all know that will never happen. Corporate greed and geopolitical leverage over decency and rectitude.

[keithbvadu2]

21. Ask Lindsey?

[The Jungle 1]

26. We wasted way to many American lives and two trillion dollars

The Afghan army stood down in 11 days. I offer no hope or sympathy for the Afghan people.
I am sorry if this opinion offends people. Joe did the right thing!

I also want to state that posting this kind of information on this site is not helping our Democratic cause. This is a criticism of Democratic leadership.

[Farmer-Rick]

28. Coming to a Texas University near you.

I bet this sounds perfectly fine with many GOP Christians. I bet even a Supreme Court Justice by the name of Amy would agree with her master/husband that this separate but equal(?) treatment for women is perfectly A OK.

Religion, abusing women and children for fun, power and profit.

[jmowreader]

29. They've improved from the last time they ran Afghanistan

The last time they were Trump-level evil: women couldn’t study or work at any job including medicine, and women were not allowed to visit male doctors - which meant women had no health care at all. Now they’ve scaled back to Reagan-level evil, which for them is a quantum leap.