PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY AND THE OPPRESSION OF WOMEN IN AFGHAN CULTURE
Keywords:
Patriarchy, Gender Apartheid, Women's Rights, Afghan Society, Taliban, Feminist TheoryAbstract
This article explores the structure and persistence of patriarchal control over women in Afghan society, with particular attention to the institutionalization of gender-based restrictions since the Taliban's return to power in 2021. It surveys the historical roots of patriarchal norms, the cascade of legal decrees restricting women's education, employment, mobility, and legal standing, and the international debate over classifying these measures as "gender apartheid." The article also considers organized resistance among Afghan women, including underground education networks and documentation efforts aimed at future accountability. By situating recent developments within feminist and postcolonial scholarship, this study argues that Afghanistan represents a case in which formal state power has been used to entrench patriarchal control at an institutional scale, while also showing that such control remains contested from within Afghan society itself.
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