What happened to Afghanistan's female academics?

By The Conversation

Picture this: you have spent decades building a career. You have a master's degree. You have taught hundreds of students. You walk into work every morning with a sense of purpose. Then, almost overnight, the gates close. You are told you cannot come back. Not because of anything you did, but simply because of you are a woman.

This is what happened to female academics across Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

We conducted interviews with 12 Afghan female academics via Telegram and WhatsApp, eight of whom were in Afghanistan and four of whom had recently left the country.

Of those who were in Afghanistan, only one has since managed to leave – the rest remain there. What they told us was devastating.

When the Taliban first ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, women were barred from education and most forms of employment.

After the US-led intervention, things slowly improved. Female participation in higher education in Afghanistan increased dramatically, expanding from 5,000 students in 2001 to over 100,000 in 2021. Women made up 28% of university students and 14% of academic staff. Progress was real, even if fragile. Then it was reversed almost entirely.

By December 2022, all universities had closed their doors to women. Girls’ education was banned beyond the age of 12. Women were banned from most jobs, required to have a male guardian to travel and forced to wear a black hijab in public.

Afghanistan now ranks at 181 out of 193 countries on the Human Development Index.

The women we interviewed did not describe their situation in abstract political terms. They described it in deeply personal ones.

One participant, a lecturer with more than 20 years of experience, told us: “Living under the power of the Taliban as a woman is a gradual death. I feel like I’m dying every day. I’ve lost everything – neither my knowledge nor my education is valuable anymore.” Another, who had taught for three decades, said the happiest moments of her life were spent in the classroom: “I like to go out of the house, teach, and see my students. This situation is like a gradual death for me.” These are not just expressions of sadness. Ten of our 12 participants described significant psychological distress. All 12 reported feelings of disappointment and despair. One of the women described losing her entire sense of self: “I lost my job, position, honour, credibility, and societal personality.” Losing work is hard anywhere, often cutting a family’s income in half. But in Afghanistan, the consequences go much further than a lost income.

One participant put it plainly: “Women’s presence in society decreased, and their social interactions and connections with society became almost non-existent.” The Taliban also banned online education: private universities that had offered remote classes were told to stop. For academics who had hoped to keep teaching digitally, even that door was shut.

The Islamic feminist perspective In our research, we analysed the experiences of female academics in Afghanistan through the lens of Islamic feminism.

Since the 1990s, researchers have studied Muslim societies to understand why gender inequality exists, which led to the development of “Islamic feminism”, a movement that supports women’s rights and gender equality within an Islamic framework.

As Afghanistan is a Muslim country, this movement offers a powerful framework for gender justice there, challenging both patriarchal religious interpretations and western feminist views that are often seen as culturally alien.

It might seem strange to discuss feminism within an Islamic framework when the Taliban claim to be enforcing Islamic law — but this is precisely the point.

Based on the arguments of feminist scholars on Islamic feminism, we can argue that the Taliban’s restrictions on women have noting to do with genuine Islamic teachings and are instead linked to political control.

These scholars argue that the Quran supports women’s rights to education, economic participation and engagement in public life. Therefore, the restrictions can be understood as a distortion and misuse of religious texts to justify patriarchal power.

This is the position of Islamic feminism: that the problem is not Islam, but the way certain men have interpreted it to serve their own interests. For Afghan women, this matters enormously. A framework that is rooted in their own faith, rather than imported from the west, gives them a way to resist that feels authentic and grounded.

The women we spoke to have not given up. Some are finding quiet ways to keep teaching. Some are using social media to stay connected. Some are hoping that international pressure will eventually force change.

“It’s like we’re at a crossroads; all the paths are dark,” one participant said. “One path is concrete, another is muddy, and one has pitfalls. We can’t discern the paths; all of them are dark and uncertain. So, I can’t make a specific plan because it’s unpredictable.” The international community could help by funding alternative education programmes, supporting Afghan women in exile who are keeping academic networks alive, and by maintaining sustained pressure on the Taliban.

Shahira Shahir is a Senior Research Assistant, Cardiff School of Management, Cardiff Metropolitan University

Shaista Noor is a Senior Lecturer in Business, Teesside University

Xiaoni Ren is a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management, Cardiff Metropolitan University