Well, who would have thought I’d be writing again so soon? I just couldn’t help myself this morning, just thinking about the women and girls in Afghanistan. I mean, it’s terrible! Humanity is stepping back, uprooting any possible wholeness between men and women, at least in that region of the world.
I read an article yesterday about the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Malala Yousafzai, the young 15-year-old girl who was shot in the face by a masked Taliban man in 2012. It just struck me so deeply that men would erase all advancements for women and keep them tucked away as objects.
It’s true, American women have come a long way.
Being an American woman, I have had a sense of freedom that other women in other countries have not experienced. We have fought for our rights and have made great strides, leaps and bounds in fact, and yet still, we struggle with equality. But it is nothing in comparison to what is happening in Afghanistan right now. At least, as a country, we do not exclude women from being educated. Thank God!
What makes men think they have power over women, anyway? We are ALL human beings. Without women, we would have no children. We would cease to have new generations. Of course, men contribute to these generations, but everyone has a mother. Why in the world would we ever treat our mothers with such disrespect? Why in the world do some cultures believe that men are superior, and women have no rights at all? It’s all steeped in belief systems, and since everything in life is based on a belief, how we behave is based on what we believe, and who we become is based on how we behave.
So, look at the behavior in Afghanistan. Look at the beliefs that are at the root of the Taliban (and other extremists everywhere). A belief is a thought that we make true in our own minds. Making women inferior gives men power and I believe that kind of power comes from an insecure place. Are these men so insecure they need to push women/girls into the ground?
Who are they to determine the rights of their mothers, daughters, sisters, nieces, wives, aunts, grandmothers? Do they have no regard for the other half of humanity? Apparently not.
What is happening in Afghanistan is atrocious. It takes any advancement in intellectual thinking and human evolution and spins it back into archaic times. Yes, we were all Neanderthals at one point in our evolution, where men did the hunting and women did the gathering, however, it was equal distribution of responsibilities to survive. Each human was valued to keep society going.
Believing that women are subservient to men is not new.
How many stories were written about women in the Bible? Who wrote the Bible and who wrote the Koran? Men. How many women were ever put into positions of priesthood or leadership? Hardly any.
From a human being point of view, putting women in a subservient position just doesn’t make sense to me at all, and excluding women from being educated is just abhorrent, and tears down the rights of women and girls to not only contribute to society, to offer their invaluable talents and gifts, but excludes half of our population!
I just don’t understand why any religion would believe in a “God” that would say women are less than men in any situation. It just doesn’t make sense to me that women are used as cattle, as bearers of children, as “objects,” that need to be covered up from head to toe, so that none of their individual personality gets to be shown.
I’m not sure what we can do to help Afghani women and girls, but please hold them in your prayers and hold the light around them. These Taliban are ruthless and do not care about human beings. They care about power, and when someone believes that power is more important than love, there is nowhere to go. Let the loving God that I believe in hold these women in light and protect them with love.
