Afghanistan has been majorly structured on the tribal codes that provide order and security within the tribal community. Honour is considered paramount in the tribal Afghan society, majorly comprised of Pashtuns. The responsibility of upholding the respectability of women to preserve their family honour is considered the duty of men. Afghanistan has remained a patriarchal society, much through the vestiges of time. Instances of modernization of the society, time and again have failed and met with heavy resistance from the traditionalists. 

In the 1920s, King Amanulluh Shah, with the dream of having his country join in ranks with the Western nation-states, brought in major reforms, including measures for women's emancipation. By the end of the decade, he was forced out of power. The condition of women in Afghan society under the Taliban is interwoven in its recent war periods, spanning from the Soviet-Afghan war and the rebellion against the Soviet-installed regimes (1978-92); the Afghan Civil War (1992-96) following the Soviet withdrawal; from the Taliban era (1996-2001); the US-led “war on terror” and the return of the Taliban in 2021.

Foreign intervention into the country – be it by the Soviets or the US - has been coupled with an attempt to improve the condition of women. Under the Soviet-installed regime, for example, girls were allowed to study, work, and move around without the need to be accompanied by a mahram (a male family member). While it was quite successful in urban areas, the situation in rural areas, comprising of 85% of Afghanistan's population, was different.  It was during this time that wartime rape became a prevalent military strategy to suppress insurgency. The phenomenon resulting in humiliation, stigma, social alienation and ostracization of women created widespread social disintegration.

Power Bases and Patriarchy

Afghan society, unlike other modern societies, has always been in a state of minimal acceptance and maximal rejection. The acceptance rate of external ideas in terms of lifestyle, political reforms and gender equality is nearly low compared to the rejection of it with a strong reference to the hardcore Afghan social structure. Moreover, the structural complexity of Afghan society denotes an internal negotiation between the bases of power. 

Historically, the triangular power order has evolved in Afghanistan: Firstly, the community ethics; secondly, religious principles; and thirdly, feudalistic politics. With the surge of external interference and great power struggle, those three bases of power were separated as independent sources of legitimacy. The commonality in all three power bases was the indestructible tendency towards patriarchy; further, the patriarchal bases were controlled and recruited to legitimise the structure and extract allegiance from the society at large. 

Given the patriarchal structure, Afghan women were left with no space in any power bases to exercise their role. With some exceptions during the presence of the USSR and USA, the patriarchal structure of the power base has sidelined the women by making them socially and politically incapable of conducting their responsibility as a judicious stakeholder of Afghan society. 

Rise of Taliban 

The Taliban emerged as a major power proprietor during the Afghan civil war following the withdrawal of Russian forces. Technically, the Taliban were trained in various camps operated in both Afghanistan and Pakistan territory; further, their recruitment in the system was based upon the principle of strict adherence to Shariah laws and debunking the external military presence. After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, the global ambition of terrorism came under the radar of American forces and, subsequently, entire Afghanistan got trapped in the vicious terrorism–anti-terrorism cycle for almost twenty years. 

In the long-drawn Doha negotiations, the Americans found it politically expedient to transact power to the Taliban, who were largely non-state actors, linked with Pashtun blood and trained to destroy what they consider anti-Islamic elements. Now, the Taliban has become the regulatory force in Afghanistan to regulate the bases of power. Interestingly, all the bases of power are now on the path of integration. Moreover, community ethics has been largely based on the Pashtun identity of which the Taliban are the members; the imposition of strict Shariah law has made the Taliban religiously superior; and the political setup of feudalism has been merged with the Taliban’s new political rules. In particular, the integration of power bases has been alarming for women who want to prove their bona fide identity in Afghan society. Unfortunately, the integration of power bases in the hands of the Taliban has not only blocked the three-dimensional sources of legitimacy; rather, it has also created an unbreakable boundary of patriarchy that the women of Afghanistan would not be able to cross.     

Inside the Trap of Exploitation

With the coming of the Taliban to power, all legal and political rights formerly given to Afghan women were taken away. They have been stripped off from even the basic rights of education and healthcare. The Taliban policies seem less to correspond with Afghan tradition or culture, and more to do with a fanatical and reactionary type of Islamic revolution. The Taliban's legal restrictions on education, access to health care, and personal mobility were particularly disturbing to urban women, as most rural Afghan women had limited access to these rights even before they were revoked. However, it has been observed that the militia rape campaigns and ethnically motivated violence have been largely arrested under their leadership. Rural women have said that the physical and sexual security of women was strongly protected under the Taliban regime. The women in Afghanistan are caught in a conundrum. While they resent the systemic social repression and denial of gender rights under the Taliban regime, the return of political instability in the country they fear can increase their physical and sexual insecurity.

In Search of Equality 

The Taliban government has been an object of social and diplomatic mistrust with widespread erosion of its governing abilities among common Afghans. In particular, the central point of concern of Afghans would probably be the agony of women perpetuated by the Taliban in a bid to socially legitimise their rule with the false premise of cultural protection. At the global level, Afghanistan has yet to be recognised as a legitimate state by the major powers due to the lack of an inclusive government with the representation of all Afghan stakeholders. Afghan women need to be included in the governing process by relaxing the triangular power order and the patriarchal structure. Restoration of a degree of gender equity could speed up the Taliban's legitimacy process, both inside and outside Afghanistan.

(Subrat Kumar Ratha is a Doctoral Student at the Department of International Relations and Politics, Central University of Kerala. Avani Abha is a writer who did her Masters at the Department of Politics and International Studies, Pondicherry University. Views are personal)