Women's Rights Abused in Afghanistan

Ancient Prejudice Against Females Is Hard to Defeat

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Burqa-Clad Woman in Afghanistan. - Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Burqa-Clad Woman in Afghanistan. - Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Women in Afghanistan endure a level of suppression that most Westerners find offensive.

During April 2009 the following incidents took place:

  • Women’s rights campaigner, Sitara Achakzai, was shot and killed in Kandahar;
  • 19-year-old Gul Pecha and her boyfriend, 21-year-old Abdul Aziz, ran away from their village to get married. They were captured, condemned to death by Islamic leaders, and executed in public;
  • Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a new law governing Shiite Muslim women that explicitly permitted husbands to rape their wives, and forbade women from working or attending school without the permission of their husbands; and,
  • More than 200 women protesting against discrimination were confronted by men who cursed them and threw stones at them.

These events are symptoms of a deep prejudice against women in Afghanistan. For centuries the male-dominated society has subjected women to what Westerners view as extreme cruelty.

Women Join to Fight for Rights

In 1977, some brave women set up the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). They seek to improve the human rights of their sisters and some of them have been killed for their efforts.

RAWA issued a statement on International Women’s Day (8 March 2008) outlining the daily reality for women in Afghanistan.

“Women are exchanged with dogs, girls are gang-raped, men…kill their wives viciously and violently, burn them by throwing hot water, cut off their nose and toes, innocent women are stoned to death, and other heinous crimes are being committed.”

Malalai Joya is a women’s rights activist and member of Afghanistan’s national parliament. According to an April 15, 2009 report in The Age (Australia) She “has lived in hiding for five years and never spends more than 24 hours at the same house… She sleeps, eats, and breathes in the shadow of six heavily armed bodyguards and wears a burqa to conceal her identity.”

Grim Statistics on Afghan Women's Rights

IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, gives some grim statistics on the lives of women in Afghanistan:

  • Every 30 minutes, an Afghan woman dies during childbirth;
  • 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate;
  • 30 percent of girls have access to education in Afghanistan;
  • 1 in every 3 Afghan women experience physical, psychological, or sexual violence;
  • 44 years is the average life expectancy rate for women in Afghanistan; and,
  • 70 to 80 percent of women face forced marriages in Afghanistan

Troops Are Fighting for What?

As of February 2009, according to BBC News there were more than 56,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, among them more than 2,000 Canadians. One justification for this massive international effort is to improve human rights in the country, but, according to Judy Rebick that effort is not going well. Ms. Rebick is the former head of Canada’s National Action Committee on the Status of Women. In an interview with The Globe and Mail (April 18, 2009) she said: “How has the war helped women in Afghanistan? It hasn’t…We can’t bomb our way to equality.” She says it would be better for Canada to bring its soldiers home and support groups such as RAWA to bring about change from within.

However, historian Margaret MacMillan says pulling out of Afghanistan is not an option. In the same Globe and Mail article she says Canadian and other soldiers must stay and our politicians must be firmer with Afghanistan's government in pressing for human rights improvements.

Certainly the country has a long way to go before women enjoy even basic human rights.

Rupert Taylor, Jean Campbell

Rupert Taylor - Rupert Taylor is the editor of a magazine that provides background to current events.

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Sep 18, 2011 1:30 AM
Guest :
Maybe the males there are afraid of educated women because when women have an equal chance as the males, they surpass the males in almost every area thus showing that the thought that males are the superior sex has been a con game since the start of history and in fact, women are by far superior to us males.
Sep 18, 2011 7:39 AM
Guest :
"women are by far superior to us males. "

Interesting, I thought I was one of a few males who knew this.

I had my wife read a book called The Natural Superiority of Women" before we got married 25 years ago. It is a good book that shows solid evidence that women are the superior gender. It starts by showing that every human starts out female but it goes on to say that at one certain stage of development something "goes horribly wrong" and some of us (myself included) end up to be male. In short, we males are a mutation of a female. (Seldom is a mutation good) Now both our son and our daughters are strong supporters of the fact that women are superior and my son does not even mind knowing that his sisters are superior to him. He readily accepts his role regarding women. In saying this, he does not have a low self esteem as a male, but he is glad that he is a human male and not a male spider as a male spider often has a very short life span compared to the female.

One problem is that this book was last updated 1999 and since than a lot more evidence that women are superior to us males has been learned.

Recently there have been several news items regarding this. Some say males will disappear totally. Others say we will still be around but not really needed. Before machines were invented, males were needed for their muscles for physical work. Now that machines can do all of that, males are not needed as much as we once were.

Now there is a book that can fill in that 21 year gap.

"Man Down" by Dan Abrams

Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else

Someone said that now that women are getting an equal chance, women are surpassing males in almost every area. This is what Abrams said is the reason for this book.

"There’s a lot more evidence now. A lot of the studies from the book are from the last three years. It’s only been in the last twenty or so years, that women have been on a relatively even playing field in terms of work to do many of these studies. We weren’t able to make fair comparisons before, because women were a fraction of the working world. Now we’re see women taking over the majority in many professions. But only recently has there been enough time to look back to compare men versus women and only recently has there been real interest."

Abrams said a vast majority of lead researchers are male, but the broad trend trackers are women. so it may be that males are beginning to wake up and smell the roses that male superiority is history. Actually, males never were superior as women have always been superior to males.

Women have a better sense of smell, taste, and new research is suggesting the fact that women tend to endure pain more makes them more immune to it. It’s the old aphorism, “That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Women survive injury better than males do and 77% of those who die in traffic accidents are male. Women have 34 more nerve fibers per square centimeter of facial skin, while men have an average of 17.

Women live an average of five years longer than men. The reasons for this are both genetic and behavior-based. First of all, women have stronger immune systems, again due to estrogen which aids the fight against disease-inducing enzymes. But women are also less likely to engage in risky behavior. Almost all of the Darwin Award winners are male. Usually 9 or more males kill themselves for each woman who does to get this award.

Women make better doctors. While forty percent of doctors are women, 80 percent of those under investigation for medical misconduct or incompetence are male. In the U.S., there were similar findings. Male physicians were twice as likely to be sued as women


He does list things males are better at: Males are better at parking, they’re better dieters, they have better distance vision, and they read maps better. Males do have larger muscles, so they tend to be better at some sports but women far excel males in endurance sports.

A woman's body can more efficiently process oxygen. When it comes to ultra-marathons—say, a 135 mile race without sleep—women can beat men. Remember the first male that ran a marathon died and when we read about someone dying while playing sports or running a race, it is far more likely it will be a male.

When looking at sex change operations, we will notice that a few hundred males want to become women for every woman who wants to become a male. Still these males would not become members of the superior gender as their DNA would still be male thus keeping them inferior to women.

Even in combat, women are better sharp shooters and if the battle of the sexes every turned into a real war, we males would not have a chance. All the males would all be dead while 3/4 or more women remained alive and unharmed.

It is a given that males need women far more than women need males but lets count our lucky stars that most women still want us around.

With Montagu's book, I use to think women had a 80 out of 100 advantage over us males. With his last update in 1999 I raised that to 85 to 100. Now with this new book, it looks like women have a 95 to 100 advantage over males and if it keeps up since women have grown so much in the last 20 to 30 years, soon they will have total advantage over anyone that has the misfortune of being born with testicles. From what I see around me, I too am glad women are the SUPERIOR gender and MALES are the inferior one mainly because to be blunt, most of the males we see are just plain pricks who let their cocks do the thinking, It is too bad women could not give these pricks a dose of reality with a good swift kick in their balls and if these males were abusive to a woman, she should do it hard enough so that he would be spitting his nuts out for a week.

Oh, my wife loves that statement: "stars of life and we males are just supporting actors. for those who might say of course she does, she is a woman and thus would be a star, but my son and I are both males (My 2 brothers would also agree with us) and we all agree that that is a great statment and we are the ones who would be the supporting actors. Remember, the play could not go on without the supporting actors so we males are important too, at least for the time being before women learn to survive without any of us males
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