Mothers of Afghanistan: Everyday Forms of Resistance to the Taliban

• In Event: Gender and Democratic Backsliding in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

Abstract

To legitimize its invasion, US forces characterized the war in Afghanistan as part of a larger campaign to promote democracy and free Afghan women. While the intervention did lead to large-scale improvements in both democracy and women's rights, these gains were rapidly lost as the nation reverted to autocracy in 2001, resulting in severe limitations on women’s employment, education, and freedom of movement. This research centers on the challenges and resistance of Afghan women amidst these evolving political conditions, probing everyday women in Afghanistan including those who directly benefited from empowerment programs during the democratization era and their current overt and covert strategies for coping under the Taliban regime. Employing Scott’s “weapons of the weak” framework, the research uncovers the various forms of resistance Afghan women employ against a regime that severely limits their freedoms. Through qualitative interviews and ethnographic studies, it unveils a landscape of unspoken, private resistance among women from diverse backgrounds, including college-educated former government bureaucrats and less-educated homemakers. These acts of resistance manifest in daily life, from subverting state authority in their neighborhoods to the ways women raise their children and interact within their communities. By highlighting how these women engage in both individual and collective forms of private resistance, illegible to the state, the paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of subtle but powerful forms of women's resistance in the context of democratic backsliding and autocracy.

Author

• Zinab Attai, Cornell University