women

By Heather Barr | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – There is no better symbol for the disappearance of women’s rights in Afghanistan than the end of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the return of the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. When the Taliban on September 7 announced […]

Feminism

A Chill Wind: Texas Unleashes Bounty Hunters on Women

OtherWords

( Otherwords.org) – For now, the Supreme Court has allowed Texas to sic bounty hunters on women seeking constitutionally protected abortions. By Martha Burk | September 8, 2021 Back in the 19th century, Texas was awash in vigilante groups. In those dark years, various self-appointed “law enforcers” modeled after the Texas Rangers embarked on a […]

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s first batch of women military graduates encourages more debate on gender roles

Global Voices

By Rahma Alattar | – ( Global Voices.org) – Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia celebrated the graduation of its first-ever cohort of women military recruits, opening the door to a debate on the kingdom’s latest move to narrow the once-gigantic gender gap. In loose and long military fatigues, with their heads and sometimes faces covered […]

Afghanistan

Forty-Two Years in Afghanistan: Can a New US Foreign Policy avoid Hyper-Masculinist Ego?

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – Every member of Congress attended the September 14, 2001 memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral for the nearly 3,000 victims of September 11 attacks in New York City, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. In that service Dean of the Cathedral Reverend Nathan Baxter invoked “Let us also pray […]

African-Americans

Southern White Male GOP Voter Suppression, anti-Abortion Laws are ways of reviving Jim Crow and expanding it to White Women

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – African-Americans have complained about the tendency of commentators to compare political suppression and regressive policies of white Republicans to slavery. Nothing, they rightly maintain, is like slavery. But some GOP laws passed by elite white males are very much like Jim Crow-style discrimination. Voter i.d. laws, for instance, are completely […]

Afghanistan

Taliban Imposes New Dress Code, Segregation Of Women At Afghan Universities

Frud Bezhan

By Frud Bezhan | – ( RFE/RL/Radio Azadi) – KABUL — The Taliban has imposed a new dress code and gender segregation for women at private universities and colleges in Afghanistan, in line with a decree issued to educational institutions and obtained by RFE/RL. All female students, teachers, and staff must wear an Islamic abaya […]

Arab World

Don’t Compare Texas Abortion law to Islamic Law: Most Muslims are and have been More Liberal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Texas “heartbeat law” banning abortion after six weeks has prompted comparisons of Texas evangelicals to Afghanistan’s Taliban. There is a resemblance globally of religious-Right movements on women’s issues, since religious conservatism is usually patriarchal and aims at controlling women. If, however, the comparison is between Christianity and Islam in […]

Afghanistan

Afghan women’s lives are now in danger from the Taliban – but they have always faced male violence

The Conversation

By Jenevieve Mannell | – The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban has undoubtedly put women’s lives in danger and threatened their human rights in new ways. But if we want to help, we need to first understand that Afghan women’s lives were challenging long before the takeover. The threat of violence has long been […]

Afghanistan

Former Leaders, Women, Plead with Taliban for Inclusive Afghanistan Government

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The privately owned Afghanistan news service Tolo reports that Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid affirmed that the movement intends to form a new government quickly. On Monday, the Taliban Politburo met with former co-president Abdullah Abdullah, former president Hamid Karzai, and former prime minister Gulbadin Hikmatyar. Abdullah Abdullah described the meeting […]