Why do Afghan men hate Afghan women?
Khadija Ibrahimi
April 15, 2009
Recently, there has been a lot more bad news for Afghan women. Not only was a
prominent women's rights activist shot dead in Kandahar by the Taliban, but
reports of a new law limiting the personal rights of women, and forcing them
have sex with their husbands have hit the Western media. Supposedly, President
Karzai signed the bill into law to get certain influential Shiite leaders on his
side for the August elections. After an uproar and worldwide condemnation, the
Ministry of Justice said they will review it to see if it violates Islamic law.
Hopefully, the law gets scrapped, or Afghan women will not be able to use an
excuse millions of women all over the world use: "Sorry, honey, not tonight, I
have a headache".
All joking aside, this law is cruel and wrong as it strips women of their God
given right to prevent the violation of their bodies. One has to really wonder,
how in the world laws like these get even brought up. Why do Afghans have such a
hatred of their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters? Is it Islam? Of course
not, Afghan men have done a great job of perverting a beautiful religion and
twisting sacred verses to fit their own personal agendas. It's actually the
backward tribal culture that exists in Afghanistan, and while many other
societies have gotten rid of their hatred for women, Afghans simply cannot shake
it off. Today in Afghanistan, women are treated like objects, many are forced to
marry men they do not want, and young girls are even sometimes sold off to
settle gambling debts. Prophet Muhammad did not stop the burying of girls so
that 1400 plus years later, they can be sold off like cattle.
Don't the father's of these girls who are forced into marriage see that they are
participating in the rape of their daughters? Since the girl was forced, the
marriage is not valid, and the child, their grandchild is now born out of
wedlock. Don’t they realize that their actions are producing in the end an
illegitimate grandchild? Do these Afghan men not see the shame in that? Many
Islamic scholars will also agree that a forced marriage is not a valid marriage
and any child born out of that marriage is born out of wedlock.
What can Afghan women do? Burn their bras like the American women did? Well, in
some parts of Afghanistan, women have been burning themselves. Extreme? Yes, but
apparently, the message is still not getting through. The blame has to fall on
the mothers of these men as well. The first teacher a baby boy has is his
mother. Why aren't these mothers teaching their sons to respect women and treat
them as equals? Perhaps they are too ignorant themselves to be able to teach
them. Perhaps they too suffered the same fate and don’t know any other way. It’s
a horrible cycle. Either way, something has to be done; Afghan women can no
longer tolerate this from our own men. No foreign invading army has brought upon more misery
and suffering to the Afghan woman than the Afghan man. This has to change.
Khadija Ibrahimi is a graduate student studying political science. She
can be reached at
khadija_ibrahimi@yahoo.com
Back to Top
