Time to Debunk the Narrative That the West Will 'Save' Women in Afghanistan And Pakistan

The Daily Beast’s "Women in the World" summit took place last weekend in New York City to promote women’s empowerment. Presenters included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Meryl Streep, and Queen Rania of Jordan, as well as indigenous activists like Marietou Diarra and Kiran Bedi. Using the Daily Beast’s platform and star power to share their compelling personal narratives and achievements was impressive. Yet a discussion titled "On the Brink: Women in Afghanistan and Pakistan," embodied longstanding critiques of how gender and women’s oppression in areas of strategic U.S. interest are problematically framed within western contexts. In addition to conflating the experiences of Afghan and Pakistani women, themes salient to the stories of women living in highly militarized regions, such as how conflict shapes their experiences, or the contexts from which existing challenges for women emerged, were conspicuously absent.

"Saving" Afghan Women

Though one would be hard pressed to find her record in human rights advocacy, Frances Townsend, the former Assistant to President Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, moderated the discussion. She began by interviewing Ching Eikenberry, a USAID consultant and the wife of current U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. Townsend asked Eikenberry about the lives of rural Afghan women, the practice of forced marriage, and the prevalence of shame in Afghan culture. While these are all issues worth exploring, they require social, cultural, and political context, as well as the voices of the women in question. Neither Townsend nor Eikenberry broached the efforts of Afghan women activists in challenging their own oppressions. Despite the marriage of both women to U.S. policy in Afghanistan, neither raised how U.S. involvement in the region has contributed to the rise of anti-women, armed groups, or how a bloody war has shaped the lives of Afghan women. Instead, a cursory account of Afghan culture ensued, with Eikenberry at one point declaring her "wish" for Afghanistan that her "Afghan brothers" take a moment to "please lift the scarf and look at your wife one more time. Not at her beauty, but really look at her." Her prescription was followed by brief video documenting horrific cases of violence against Afghan and Pakistani women.

Their conversation was uncomfortably reminiscent of critiques made by Afghan activists after 2001. Back then, they argued that despite the fact that years of American policy in Afghanistan had helped empower some of the most brutal rights abusers in the nation’s history, suddenly, "saving" Afghan women from Afghan men became the cause célèbre among political leaders and some mainstream feminists, coincidentally while the Bush administration sought to justify military intervention. In Saving Afghan Women, Afghan activist Sonali Kolhatkar described it as a Western obsession "more interested exploring the fascinating desire of Afghan men to treat women like dirt, than examining those forces (most often Western male-dominated governments) that have fostered misogynist extremism at the expense of women's rights." Almost a decade later, this still appears to be the case.

Erasing Context

Townsend then moderated an exchange between three activists native to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Townsend's questions focused on the myriad of obstacles for women, often stressing that they stem from a culture in which shame is ubiquitous, at one point asking Afghan entrepreneur Andeisha Farid, "It sounds like from what you're saying there is a great deal of shame in Afghan culture. Can you talk more about that?" Despite Townsend’s narrow questioning, panelists pointed to some of the realities in both countries.