Independently of Time’s cover story on Afghan women, the New York Times ran a feature article on Afghan women, the Taliban, and the war. Like Time, it included a photo gallery of Afghan women, including this one.
In Mahmud-e Raqi, 12 teenage girls sat around a small trunk filled with beauticians’ tools — combs, boxes of hair dye, scissors, nail polish, hair spray — and watched closely as the instructor sat one of the girls in a desk chair and demonstrated how to cut off split ends evenly.
In most places in the world this scene would hardly be a sign of women’s liberation, but in this corner of Afghanistan, it meant a great deal. The girls, ages 15 to 17, had been allowed to come from their villages to the provincial capital; they will take home a trunk of beauty goods and can earn their own money in their homes by offering beauty services to women in their village.
The girls are attending a government supported course, one that empowers them to become the Avon ladies of Afghanistan.
Beauty and self-esteem
Contemplating Afghan teenagers doing their hair under conditions of war and Taliban rule gives one a different perspective on Western feminist crtitism of the objectification of beauty — as in this passage from the excellent book The Beauty Bias
The preoccupation with female appearance encourages evaluation of women in terms of sexual attractiveness rather than character, competence, hard-work, or achievement. Although some women benefit from their beauty, it is not a stable form of self-esteem.
In Afghanistan, these girls need all the self-esteem they can get. Let them worry about the down side of objectification later.
Relate links:
Bibi Aisha: Fixing what can be fixed
Mutilated Afghan woman on the cover of Time
The problem in Afghanistan is hunger
Resources:
Image source: The New York Times
Alissa J. Rubin, Afghan Women Fear Loss of Modest Gains, The New York Times, July 30, 2010
Deborah L. Rhode, The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law
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