Taliban U-turn: Women scribes flag hidden prejudices

Senior women journalists in Bengaluru have condemned the exclusion of women reporters from a press conference organised by the Afghanistan Embassy in India. They also criticised male journalists for failing to stand up for their female counterparts.

Following the backlash, Afghanistan’s Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said the incident was not intentional and held another press conference, where women journalists were seated in the front row.

C G Manjula recalled being excluded from a political party’s press tour in the mid-1980s when she worked as a district reporter for Prajavani in
Chikkamagaluru. “When a local male reporter asked why I wasn’t invited, they said, ‘She is a lady. Will she travel with us to such a remote location?’ After a brief discussion, they called and invited me, but only because a male journalist questioned them,” she said. A politician later remarked on how the newspaper had sent a woman on a press tour. “It was 40 years ago. I’m baffled that nothing has changed since. It’s also sad that no male journalist questioned the Taliban,” she added.

C K Meena, who is also a novelist, said she found it “amusing” how quickly the Taliban corrected the “technical error” that led to the exclusion of women journalists. Commenting on the second press conference, she said, “They must have realised their hidebound attitude does not play well on the world stage.”

Author and journalist Ammu Joseph said she was glad the outrage prompted a course correction but added, “The exclusion of women from a press conference is only the tip of the iceberg of Taliban misogyny.”

She also pointed out that no civil society representatives were allowed at meetings with Taliban officials during the UN-led conference in Doha last year. “That meant no Afghan woman could participate in discussions about their own country,” she emphasised.

Ammu added that even if the Indian government wishes to engage with Afghanistan for strategic reasons, “they need to make it clear — in both countries — that discrimination against women is not acceptable”. 

Sports journalist Sharda Ugra said that while the incident showed “the Taliban is medieval in their mindset”,
it also proved they could be embarrassed into changing their behaviour. “It also said a lot about our male colleagues,” she noted.

Sharda recalled how a well-known cricketer once made a snide remark to her female colleague, asking why the newspaper hired only women sports reporters and photographers — and whether it was because of ‘easy access’.