Do women in Afghanistan spend a lot of money on books, but never bother to read them?

[Boojatta]

I'm trying to understand why the Taleban opposes formal education for girls. Are they concerned about the possibility of being poor theocratic managers of the money collected from taxpayers? Are they concerned that females in Afghanistan would put in a lot of time attending school and keeping teachers occupied without making effort to learn, and that the formal education would never be a catalyst for females of Afghanistan to make an economic contribution for themselves, for their families, or for their country?

[midnight]

1. I think the opposite is what is feared.....

[LynzM]

2. Because a mother has to approve her son's joining the Taliban.

At least, that's what I've read. Educate women about why the Taliban is bad, how the rest of the world functions, the level of injustice they are suffering, and I'm betting a lot of moms start making other choices...

[Democracyinkind]

3. Afghanistan is a tribal society. The role of women in Afghanistan is determined by this tribal

...structure and not (primarily) by religious zealots (native and imported). Many islamic scholars have noted that the maltreatment of women in Afghanistan can not be attributed to any one faction currently competing for power (f.e. the Taliban)... Systematic exploitation of women was a feature of the region we now call Afghanistan long before Zbigs boys brought in the fundamentalists. That's why the fight for women's rights in Afghanistan is hopeless if it is not an integrated part of a broader agenda of socio-economic engineering, something that is not going to happen soon. No one has enough interest to spend the kind of resources that would allow Afghanistan to modernize to the point that they could break free from the tribal structures that are the foundation of the suppression of Afghan women.
I'm not saying tribal structures are inherently evil or anti-women or anything like that, I just wouldn't have any clue how to change such a tribal set of mind without changing the tribal structure itself.

[Boojatta]

4. Kick

[Boojatta]

5. Kick

[AllentownJake]

6. They are a B.C. society

Here is an idea for you, read your old testament and read the laws regarding women and extrapolate what is going on.

[blondeatlast]

7. ...

:thumbsup:

[Boojatta]

8. What's the connection between the Old Testament and the Koran?

The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said that he received a message from God, and there is some controversy in the Muslim world about whether God created the message or whether the message and God are both eternal, neither having been created.

Also, please note that the New Testament is hundred of years older than the Koran.

Why should I look at the Old Testament and try to extrapolate?

[AllentownJake]

10. Simple answer

Primitive societies behave primitively. When the chief economic activity in your economy is agriculture and you have no industry, you have a society where women are primarily subjugated.

[TexasObserver]

9. How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they can conjugate a verb?

[LostInAnomie]

11. They can try to dress it up with any religious or political rationalization they want...

... but the truth is they want women to be stupid, easy to dominate, pseudo slaves. Not much else to it really.

[Fumesucker]

12. You do know I hope that the fundamentalist schoolbooks used by the Taliban in the Madrassas..

Were in large measure paid for and written by the US government during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan?

Yet another example of the law of unintended consequences, aka blowback..

[XemaSab]

13. Let me give you a more tangible example:

Some fundies today believe that unmarried girls shouldn't get drivers' licenses.

The thinking is that if they go down and register at the DMV then they can be called up for jury duty. If they can be called up for jury duty they might get on a trial for a sex-related crime. If they hear about a sex-related crime they may become corrupted. Therefore, unmarried women should not be allowed to drive.

It's the same logic with the Taleban. One them wimmins starts thinking, there's no telling what they'll be exposed to.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. This is the reason

for every tribal society you show me where women receive education...

I will show you a society where women start resisting traditional roles.

That is why.

[Boojatta]

15. Kick