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Professor Jennifer Fluri, a feminist political geographer, notes that the growing restrictions on women and girls are echoing strictness not seen since the 1990s

Speaking at U.N. Headquarters in New York City Monday, Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep observed that household pets and rodents in Afghanistan have more rights than women under draconian new Taliban laws rolled out at the end of August.

“Today in Kabul, a female cat has more freedoms than a woman,” Streep said. “A cat may go sit on her front stoop and feel the sun on her face. She may chase a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today, because the public parks have been closed to women and girls.”

Among other restrictions, the new laws ban women from reciting the Quran in public, raising their voices or looking at men other than their husbands or relatives, and they require all women to cover the lower halves of their faces in addition to covering their heads.

Jennifer Fluri, a professor and chair of the Department of Geography, notes that the newest Taliban restrictions are a huge blow to Afghan women, especially those in urban areas.

For Jennifer Fluri, a University of Colorado Boulder professor of geography and chair of the Department of Geography, these newest laws—the latest in a steadily growing number of restrictions on women enacted since the Taliban regained power in 2021—are further evidence that for the Taliban, women are easy targets.

Fluri’s doctoral research focused on the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), a clandestine feminist-nationalist organization. From that, her research interests evolved to studying the differentiated methods used by Afghans and internationals in Afghanistan to provide for their own security in spaces increasingly beset by political violence and a general state of insecurity.

From 2012 to 2021, she worked on two projects focusing on women's social and political activism, influence and power in Afghanistan: One examined women's roles in the peace process in Afghanistan, and the second focused on women's leadership and influence at different scales, from home and family to national political participation and governance—a project funded by the National Science Foundation.

However, despite her deep experience in the country, she hasn’t been able to travel there since 2019—first because of COVID restrictions and then because of those enacted by the Taliban—and has pivoted her research focus to Afghan refugees and asylum seekers in the United States and Canada, along with the status of women's rights and their social, political and economic participation in Afghanistan.

Fluri recently spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine about the newest laws further restricting Afghan girls and women in education, movement and presence in public spaces.

Question: Since 2021, restrictions on women and girls in Afghanistan have gotten steadily stricter. How much worse are these new laws going to make their lives?

Fluri: It’s a huge blow to women, particularly women in urban areas, who had become more used to traveling with just a head scarf, not having to wear a burqa, not having a male escort. As we get further and further from August 2021, the leaders are being more and more emboldened to go back to the ‘90s version of the Taliban. At first it seemed like they were going to be more moderate, a sort of Taliban 2.0—I even thought that was the case, and so did a lot of women’s organizations and feminist activists—but now it’s looking pretty clear they’re going to keep cracking down more and more.

I’m also very critical of what the U.S.  has done. I don’t think U.S. officials really took the full time and energy they should have to really do right by Afghan women and girls. It’s such a diverse population—educated urban women have a totally different experience than women in rural areas or women who are more conservative. Some women see Islamic feminism as a path, but even Islamic feminists can’t work with the Taliban. (The Taliban’s) reading of Islam is so narrow, even though the Quran says women and men are equal before God.

Question: These new laws seem really petty, for lack of a better word; why are the Taliban doing this?

Women in Kabul, Afghanistan, wait to receive food rations distributed by an international aid group in April 2023. (Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

Fluri: To me, it’s such a silly law. It’s culturally expected that men and women don’t make eye contact—it's a sign of respect—that putting it into law seems unnecessary. It’s just another way of controlling women. I think this is the Taliban wanting all women to follow their very strict interpretations of the Quran and to gather control and power, because this law undercuts family-based or community-based ways of thinking about how people want to express religious beliefs or cultural beliefs, and how to dress or be in public. I hate to say it, but for the Taliban, women are easy targets.

Question: Do you worry that this will further stoke anti-Muslim rhetoric that seems to be getting louder around the world?

Fluri: My biggest frustration with the international aid and development community has been this tendency to blame Islam. Islam isn’t the problem. Women have more rights in Islam than they do in Afghan cultural practice. If the Taliban were following Islam, women would have many more rights, especially around education. Muhammad’s first wife, Khadijah, who he had his only surviving children with, worked outside the home. She was his (Muhammad’s) employer. There are so many examples of women, if you go back to the early days of Islam, who were involved in shaping the faith. Khadijah was the first convert to Islam, and Muhammad’s wife Aisha led men in battle and was the author of many hadiths (words and deeds attributed to the prophet Muhammad written by his closest interlocutors). Women were involved in the early formations of Islam.

Question: Do the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and other feminist groups like it still exist, or have they had to flee the country?

Fluri: They’re still in operation, but it’s always been a mostly underground movement—they believe in secularism and women’s rights—and now it’s even deeper underground. They’re doing work similar to work they were doing in the ‘90s: documenting, trying to get more international attention to the plight of women and running secret schools. In Afghanistan, their names have been dragged through the mud 100 times over, so they really do have to be incredibly careful. I would argue that’s why they have started other organizations in other names, because it allows them to continue to do the work without having such intense surveillance and them constantly being in danger of arrest.

Girls attend school in an outdoor classroom in Bamozai, Paktya Province, Afghanistan, in 2007. The Taliban now bans girls 12 and older from attending state-run schools and has banned young women from receiving higher education. (Photo: Capt. John Severns/U.S. Air Force)

I never published on this, because it’s not something they would be happy with, but I would argue RAWA has lot more influence in society than we even know about. Women have been educated in RAWA schools; they’ve started their own NGOs and different activist groups with RAWA support. The feminist philosophies of RAWA have kind of grown legs and created additional organizations. A lot of women who were very high-profile activists in Afghanistan have fled or sought asylum, but some have gone back. They’re working with colleagues or family members to continue to do that work, even though it’s incredibly difficult now.

A man I worked with for years, who worked as a driver for me and research assistant, I’m still trying to help his family and him seek asylum. He’s saying, ‘My daughters have no future here.’ It’s interesting how a number of men are also starting to be like, ‘This isn’t a good place for my daughters.’

Question: Is there anything people in, say, Colorado can do to help Afghan women and girls?

Fluri: Honestly, what I would say is reach out in your community to find out where Afghans who are refugees, who are trying to figure out how to make America work for them, are living. Help them make their way, which is incredibly difficult. It’s such a different culture from the U.S. and people sometimes have an idealistic vision of the U.S. The reality of trying to make ends meet can be so hard for them. So, I would say reach out to your nearest refugee center. I know does a lot of work with refugees, and so does  and . Even just the local housing and human services does a lot of work to help resettle refugees.

Reaching out to volunteer, such as taking people to appointments, little things like that make such a huge difference. A lot of women who came don’t speak English, don’t drive, so their lives are more isolated here than they were in Afghanistan. When you don’t speak the language or know how to ride a bus in a new place, it can be really daunting just to figure out how to make it work for you and your family. The important thing is to look for organizations that are working with Afghans on their own terms and are not trying to tell people what’s best for them. Afghans know what’s best for them.

Top image: Women in traditional burqas walk past Hazrat Ali Mazar Mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. (Photo: )

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