Dear John,
Two years ago this week, the lives of the women of Afghanistan changed overnight when the Taliban returned to power. In the years since, the Taliban has issued over 100 edicts restricting Afghan women and girls’ participation in public life—from prohibiting participation in education and jobs to banning contraception—and effectively stripping them of their most basic human rights. (You can explore a detailed timeline of the edicts at msmagazine.com).
“It has been two years and the future looks dark. It’s not being alive, and not being dead. We have permission for neither,” 18-year-old Farzana, who lives in Kabul, told Ms. Prior to the Taliban’s takeover, Farzana attended high school, where she ran track for her school team, and participated in a local NGO focused on leadership development for Afghan youth. Now, her ability to do those things has been taken away.
But as we know from history, as well as reports from the ground, the women and girls of Afghanistan are strong. And they haven’t stopped fighting back—taking to the streets to protest the restrictions at the risk of their own lives, with many arrested, tortured and killed. “I had the hope to be a great athlete and leader in the world—a leader for Afghan women. These are still my hopes and my goals, and even in this hard situation, I am doing my best to get an opportunity to find a university outside of Afghanistan,” Farzana said.
The Taliban’s treatment of Afghan women like Farzana is a violation of human rights: it’s gender apartheid, and it should be recognized as an international crime. Afghan and Iranian women are campaigning for the U.N. to officially recognize and sanction the restrictions imposed by the two countries’ regimes as gender apartheid. Head here to support their efforts, and urge the U.S., the U.N. and the global community to take action, and not condone the continued violent oppression of Afghan women.
On a different front in the global war on women, the legal fight to preserve access to the abortion pill mifepristone continues in the U.S. This week the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (a court that is stacked with right-wing judges, many appointed by Trump) issued a ruling that dismisses a challenge to the FDA’s original approval of mifepristone—but that would also sharply restrict access to medication abortion nationwide and eliminate telemedicine abortion. Mifepristone has been safely used by millions of women in the U.S. in the decades since it was initially approved, and is used today in more than half of all abortions in the U.S. The case will now head to the Supreme Court.
“It is absolutely infuriating that we have judges overruling medical experts and patient and doctor experience to impose outdated restrictions on mifepristone that fly in the face of medical science,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “This has nothing to do with facts or science—it’s about ideology and controlling women’s bodies, plain and simple.”
Whether in the U.S. or globally, the fundamental goal of patriarchs remains the same: controlling women’s bodies. With so much at stake, feminists will not give up—and Ms. will be a source of ideas and strategies for fighting back.
Onward,
