A Woman’s Courage

This is a tribute to Shukria Barkzai and a rebuke to the women of America.

Shukria Barkzai is a heroic, courageous woman who puts passive, apathetic, complacent Western women to shame. Every time I discuss feminism with a woman who says, “I don’t care if I’m discriminated against,” I think of Shukria Barkzai right before I excuse myself from the conversation, for fear of going radioactive.

Shukria Barkzai is an Afghan woman. During the years of Taliban control of Afghanistan, she ran a number of clandestine schools for girls in Kabul. She did this at great risk to her own life. If she’d been discovered, there was a good chance she would have been killed. Most certainly, she would have been imprisoned and tortured. She acted with mind-boggling courage to educate Afghani girls; she stood up to the most savage persecution of girls and women imaginable, in a place where women were—and still are—entombed alive.

In 2003 I had the honor of meeting Shukria Barkzai.  The occasion was my alma mater honoring her as the 2003 Journalist of the Year.  The award was in recognition of her founding a women’s magazine in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, and managing to get it distributed not only in Kabul, but also in remote areas of Afghanistan.

When Ms. Barakzai accepted her award, she thanked us in broken English.  She struggled to answer our questions, and became visibly angry when commenting on the press conference Laura Bush had held in Kabul shortly before Ms. Barkzai was honored.  At her press conference, Mrs. Bush had boasted that her husband’s administration had liberated the women of Afghanistan, who no longer were oppressed thanks to her husband; they now enjoyed freedom and equality thanks to his policies.  Ms. Barakzai begged to differ, and she said so.

Much as I shared Ms. Barkzai’s ire about Mrs. Bush’s comments, another issue was bothering me.  I felt honored to be in the presence of this heroic, brave woman who risked her life to give young girls an education under the constant threat of being discovered by the Taliban.  And she didn’t stop there.  Once women had gained enough liberty, she also founded a magazine devoted to their concerns and issues.

Much as Ms. Barakzai’s courage inspired me, the contrasting, shameful apathy and complacency of American women brought disgust and ire.  I find little excuse for it.  I do remind myself that many women remain silent out of fear.  As to fear: can we think for one nanosecond that Shukria Barkzai did not fear the wrath of the Taliban as she secreted little girls into her schools for the basic right to learn to read, to write, to add, to count?  In the face of her courage, how can any American woman justify silence by claiming fear?

Here’s a guess.  Silent, compliant American women will argue that we do not suffer abuses as savage as those Afghan women and girls suffer, so we bear no need or responsibility for taking risks.  We need act only if the American Taliban’s persecution of women reaches the savagery of Taliban extremists in Afghanistan.

I don’t have an answer so much as a question.  What if the status of American women were to descend to the plight of Afghan women?  Would now-silent, complacent women act?  Would they risk their lives to educate American girls?  Should we expect valor or heroism from them?  If women don’t stand up to sexism and discrimination American-style when they’d face no danger in doing so, why should we think they’d stand up to persecution if it did carry great danger?

Shukria Barkzai puts us to shame.

Progressing, Regressing, or Static?

I’m thankful for the advancements women have made in past decades. But though a lot has changed, not enough has changed. And we still face stony-faced resistance against the progress we still need to make.

The resistance shows itself when “Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day” rolls around. Remember the good old days, when we first greeted it as “Take Your Daughters to Work Day”? When it was an answer to the resistance to women in the public sphere, when it’s purpose was to instill in our daughters the awareness that they have every right to enter professions, any profession? Remember when it was meant to overcome the toxic message that they were rightly confined to the domestic sphere, with no say in public policy?

I don’t begrudge boys the opportunity to learn about the livelihoods of their fathers, and to be able to explore what path they want to take as adults. But the point of “Take Your Daughters to Work Day” was that boys already had all of that, and too many girls were denied that. The day’s purpose was to help girls to break free of oppressive, confining, unjust demands; it was to give them a self-image as people worthy of the same opportunities as the boys. It was to show them their mothers, and other women, as role models with successful careers in the public sphere.

The reaction to “Take Your Daughters to Work Day”—to change it from a proudly feminist tradition to a generic one—reveals how deeply ingrained resistance to women’s equality still works to create drag on our pursuit of equality.

I suggest a more apt answer to “Take Your Daughters to Work Day”: on that same day, let’s establish “Keep Your Sons at Home Day.” Let’s work at chipping away oppressive roles, and let’s teach our sons to participate in, and respect, the unpaid work done in the home. On “Keep Your Sons at Home Day,” fathers would stay at home with their sons. They would teach them about competently doing laundry, scrubbing bathrooms, cooking, and managing a home. They would teach them that juggling the responsibilities of child rearing and maintaining the home is a high-skilled, demanding job. They would teach them how to prioritize, how to manage their time, how to defuse a cranky, defiant child, and how to rearrange priorities in the case of an emergency. They would teach them that once they marry and have children of their own, they should honor their obligation to do their fair share of the household work.

The reaction we have had to “Take Our Daughters to Work Day” reveals a lingering lack of respect in society for work in the home. Boys are still taught to avoid any activity or appearance associated with girls and women; they’re taught that a likeness to anything thought feminine is something to be ashamed of. They’re taught to avoid it as you would avoid the ebola virus.

I’m glad that when boys participate in this day, they’re seeing their mothers in non-traditional roles. And I don’t want them denied opportunities. I just remember my glimmer of hope when I saw girls provided a hand-up in overcoming the resistance to equality that still besets us. Now, this day looks like another day that enables more of the same disrespect for the feminine in America. Now it’s a once-hopeful breaking of chains co-opted by foes of women’s equality.

A lot has changed, then, but not enough has changed.