Women in Afghanistan: Blog 8

Don’t Abandon The Women of Afghanistan

            Over the last several year the country of Afghanistan has improved its gender gap exponentially.  Now that the country is no longer under the Taliban the country has flourished and women are continually receiving new freedoms in. The number of females being educated has gone from 5,000 to 2.4 million, women are becoming police officers and achieving higher places of leadership like the country has never seen before. This example of positive growth is reflected in the country’s economic success. Amidst all this positivity and success there is a worry looming in the back of some minds. Because of women’s new freedoms this has also made them the target for terrorists groups and organized crime. Women have been shot and killed for no apparent reason besides their occupation. BBC reports that the numbers of women and children killed in the first 6 months of the new year of 2013, were the same and higher as previous years. We want to make sure that Afghanistan does not sink back again.

            So we see that just because freedoms are made available to women does not mean that the problem is alleviated completely. Cultural norms and activists groups are still organizing crime against these progressive women and fear is being provoked in women. Still we see the evidences of women being educated, less infant mortality, more children in school and overall a better international standing and economy. In order for Afghanistan to continue to progress in its area of equality it must make steps in that direction. This will be brought about through tireless pursuit of educating these Afghanistan women and girls. With the U.S. now moving out of Afghanistan, Afghanistan government and policy will have to remain very intentional in order for the gender gap to continue to decrease and violence done to these women punished.

Anna Jacobsen

November 1, 2013

2:09pm

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/23/opinion/dobriansky-verveer-afghanistan-women/

Blog #5 Malala Impacting Her World

How Malala Yousafzai is Impacting Her World:

Malala’s popularity is rising in the Middle East as her speeches air on the news and young girls speak passionately about her in conversation. Many young girls were praying with zeal that Malala would win the Nobel Peace Prize. Devastated when she did not, the girls tell of how she is changing their hopes for education. The Taliban who still continuously threats Malala for wanting to now be a political leader was happy she did not win the Nobel Prize. They praised the committee for not choosing her, as false stories circulate the Internet about her not really being shot.

            Meanwhile Pakistani schoolgirls are now studying to be engineers, psychologists and doctors, they speak of Malala’s bravery, they have a Hero, and someone who has gone before them so that they know it is possible. One of the young ambitious woman states that there is nothing in the Quran that forbids women from being from being educated. In Pakistan 61% of the children that do not receive education are women, and Malala’s national presence is changing this for them.

It seems that Malala’s popularity is pushing education into the foreword in Pakistan agenda because although women are lucky to be educated in Pakistan, education in general suffers very much. This is very much a social issue in education policy as well as gender inequality. Instead of young women receiving an education, they are sold by their parents. But why is it the daughter that is sold? We see the Gender gap displayed in the differences in opportunity structures. We see that the woman has less mobility then the man. In Pakistan young girls are studying to go into specified disciplined professions such as doctors and lawyers. Even in America there is a very large gap when it comes to women being involved in these professions as much as men.  

Women are still threatened by terrorists in Pakistan because the society has for so long has been patriarchal. The strict religious groups have a hard time excepting positive change. Even if the Quran does not explicitly say women are not to be educated, the religion has manipulated to imply it because of this societal trend. The reason change is so hard is because tradition rules in the country of Pakistan. Tradition is beautiful and should be preserved, but also sincerely evaluated. It is important to look at where the power lies and how that is being distributed to others, or abused. 

Anna Jacobsen

10-11-2013

4:53pm

 http://world.time.com/2013/10/11/there-are-thousands-of-malalas-what-pakistans-teenage-activist-has-already-won/

 

Blog 7: Taliban attack wounds teen activist blogger

 Rachel Griffin

Oct. 10, 2012

On Tuesday,  a 14 year old girl, Malala Yousufzai in Pakistan was shot by the Taliban on her way home from school. She was a target because she spoke out against the Taliban not agreeing with women’s education rights. The gunmen searched for her and shot her on the school van. Doctors have removed the bullet that was lodged in her neck and she will survive. The attack started when the Taliban stopped the van that was taking Malala and two other girl’s home from school. The attackers asked which girl was Malala and the other girls pointed at her and the men began to fire. The other girls had injuries but they were not life threatening.

Malala grew frustrated with the Taliban’s restrictions on female education in her town and decided to use the internet by writing about her daily battle to express herself. She wrote about how these militants used fear and intimidation to force girls to stay home. Malala has a real passion for education. She talked about how she used to hide books under her bed because of fear that the Taliban would search her house. During the rule of the Taliban, they would come into the homes of people and check whether the girls were studying or watching television.

This article relates to what we have been talking about these past two weeks. The Taliban committed a crime against this young girl because she was speaking her opinion. In Pakistan men feel that women should not be allowed an education and that they should just be wives that stay home and take care of their families. The girls in Pakistan are realizing how important education is and they want to be able to learn and go to school so that they can support their family in a different way. This shows sexism which is a form of racism towards women. The fact that men don’t think that education is important for women and that they won’t allow them to pursue an education is wrong. This girl, Malala is paving a way for other girls in Pakistan and other places just like that who are dealing with the same type of discrimination and victimization. 

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/09/world/asia/pakistan-teen-activist-attack/index.html

Blog 4: girls and education

''Currently 75 million children, of whom 41 million are girls, do not go to primary school. Education International reports that women and girls face particular obstacles that keep them out of education, including:violence on the way to school, in and around schools; early pregnancy and early marriage; vulnerability to the HIV epidemic, discrimination based on gender stereotypes in the wider community and at schools; school fees, which may mean that parents send their boys and not their girls to school; and lack of gender sensitive quality education especially in rural areas.''

This blog relates to the group discussion that was most recently due. Not enough girls and women are allowed to go to school to get an education in some countries because the men want them to do other things. Some girls are getting pregnant or are forced to marry someone that they don not even know. This is a problem for some women in counties such as Asia and Africa because their population is so high but the women are not allowed to get an education because they have to stay home and take care of the younger children and babies, as well as cleaning, cooking, and finding food.

Most girls and women cannot get an education because they are not wealthy enough to be sent to school. The girls who are able to get an education are most likely to have a healthier family and be able to get married later on in life. The article states that ''Education helps girls and women to know their rights and to gain confidence to claim them. However, women's literacy rates are significantly lower than men's in most developing countries.'' This shows that some women who can get an education should be able to be confident in their rights and possibly do what some of the men have rights to do based off of how educated they are.

http://www.economist.com/node/17155748