Afghan Women’s Political Struggles over Four Decades: A Feminist Perspective

Shukria Barakzai –

Abstract

The past four decades in Afghanistan have been compressed histories of war, state-building, abandonment, collapse, occupation, and the return of religious authoritarianism. Within these cycles, Afghan women have not been mere bystanders, but central actors, moving from hidden strategies of survival to open street protests and international advocacy. This article, through a narrative-analytic lens, examines Afghan women’s political struggles from a feminist perspective—one that centers women’s self-awareness, reveals the layers of oppression, and understands the body–politic as the primary site of conflict.

I. Roots: War and Migration (1980s–1990s)

The story begins with a generation that experienced war firsthand. Girls who studied in war-torn schools or grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran inhabited the “geographic margins” yet became the “center of survival politics.” For them, politics was not just about state, government, or jihad; it was about standing in bread lines, water queues, literacy workshops, and women’s self-help networks. During this period, the first organized women’s collectives appeared—study circles, women’s charities, underground leftist and rightist publications. Though seemingly modest, these efforts built three vital forms of capital:

Social capital (trust and networks),
Knowledge capital (skills, literacy, collective memory),
Symbolic capital (the resilient image of women).

From a feminist standpoint, these invisible infrastructures later became the pillars of visible resistance.

II. Mujahideen Rule and Taliban I: Civil War and the Politics of Erasure (1990s–2001)

This era was among the darkest and most complex in women’s recent history. The collapse of governance and absence of legal protection left women doubly vulnerable. In Kabul and other cities, they faced systematic threats of sexual violence, forced marriage, abduction, and displacement. Many fled again to Pakistan and Iran. Feminist analysis identifies this as a “fragmented politics”—women were compelled to make short-term tactical accommodations with local commanders to survive and sustain their communities. Despite severe constraints, women exercised limited yet undeniable agency as social and political actors. With the Taliban’s rise, the female body became the national border of politics. Orders regulating dress, mobility, voice, literacy, and work were all aimed at controlling women’s bodies and the public sphere. Legally, women—especially in urban areas—were rendered invisible, as every aspect of life became tied to male guardianship. Women’s resistance took the form of everyday defiance: secret schools, clandestine health networks, home-based teaching, rug weaving, and the careful recording of abuses into collective memory. Local feminism during this time was not a loud outcry but a rooted whisper declaring: “We exist, even when you want us erased.”

III. The Republic: Half-Open Windows and Glass Ceilings (2001–2021)

After the fall of the first Taliban regime, Afghan women gained unprecedented—though fragile—opportunities. Hundreds of civil society organizations emerged; women secured parliamentary and governmental seats; a new generation of female lawyers, journalists, doctors, activists, artists, and athletes rose to prominence. Yet feminist critique reminds us that access does not equal power. Glass ceilings remained intact, major decisions were still male-dominated, rural women’s representation was precarious, and structural violence—honor killings, domestic abuse, impunity—continued to block justice. Nevertheless, this two-decade period created institutional knowledge and a legal-political language of rights that became crucial resources once freedom again narrowed.

IV. Taliban’s Return: Gender Apartheid and Street Feminism (2021–Present)

The Taliban’s return brought a rapid cascade of restrictions: bans on education, employment, and public presence; restrictions on travel without a male guardian; the closure of cultural and recreational spaces; and deeper control over dress and voice. Feminism names this system “gender apartheid”—a structural regime that enforces women’s subordination through law and violence. Women responded with slogans like “Bread, Work, Freedom”, organizing small, agile protests using flash-mob tactics, while social media became a living archive of oppression and resistance. Online education networks forged solidarity inside and outside the country. The costs were immense—detentions, beatings, forced disappearances, sexual assault, assassination—but activists adapted with new strategies: legal documentation of abuses, international advocacy, and micro-support economies for political prisoners and their families.

V. The “Three Eves”: Generational Agency

To illustrate generational shifts, three archetypal “Eves” are presented:

Eve I (1990s): A secret schoolteacher, for whom politics meant survival. Each literate girl was a candle lit against darkness.
Eve II (Republic): A journalist, for whom politics meant the public question—holding a microphone to power and bringing women’s narratives to the fore.
Eve III (Present): A digital organizer, for whom politics means risk design and resilience—using VPNs, encryption, and safe mapping.

Together, these Eves embody three forms of agency: survival, voice, and network.

VI. Feminism as Politics of Memory and Justice

Afghan women’s movements are not merely stories of victimhood, but of transformative agency. Postcolonial feminism reminds us that women under patriarchal-religious regimes are not passive subjects—they craft micro-strategies, situational alliances, and creative ruptures in oppressive systems. The body remains the battlefield: from dress to mobility, from sports to art, from symbolic marches to rejecting forced marriage. Reclaiming the body is reclaiming politics. Small gatherings, cultural symbols (poetry, song, film), home-based and online schooling, documentation of gender-based violence, women’s storytelling, evidence collection, and advocacy for the recognition of gender apartheid are not only historical records but tools for future justice. Women’s archives may be the only surviving testimony of justice. What begins in vulnerability transforms into conscious activism, declaring loudly: “My body is not the battlefield of your politics.” True political development, feminism insists, is impossible without care-centered policymaking. The shift from the narrative of victimhood to empowerment—toward individual and collective justice, human security, and citizen-centered peace—is the only conclusion worthy of this struggle.