In an issue of the Kabul Times from December 1968, Afghan fashion designer Safia Tarzi - known for combining traditional elements and local embroideries with Western styles - was portrayed wearing a miniskirt in a picture celebrating the opening of her boutique in the Intercontinental Hotel. Tarzi's signature piece remained the turban that she often used to accessorise her functional and modern mini-dresses.
Miniskirts reached Kabul in the summer of 1968 and, pretty soon, they turned into a garment of dissent: symbols of liberation for young Afghan women, they were instead seen as signs of the West's corruption of Afghan society by traditionalists. To try and sedate the debate, in 1968 the university introduced a uniform to be worn by all female students. Yet the latter, rather than merely complying, first complained saying the uniform was more expensive than ordinary clothes, and then proceeded to modify it, wearing it above the knee. At the time, the university didn't really enforce the dress code, after all it seemed a futile act considering that even the daughters of senior officials and ministers, were opting to wear miniskirts.
Afghan women often opted to accompany the look with bouffant hairstyles from Kabul's salons: on 23rd December 1968 the Kabul Times titled: "Kabul women pack beauty salons as hairdressing becomes a lady's business."
Now, as much as miniskirts and hairstyles, may sound ephemeral, they should actually make us think: soon after American troops withdrew from the country in August 2021, the Taliban quickly regained control of Afghanistan.
Since then there were many attacks to the freedom of women: in February this year universities in Kandahar and Helmand reopened after they were closed for nearly nine months, but with gender-segregated classrooms and entrances (while there are pictures showing women and men sitting next to each other in classrooms at Kabul University in 1962...). Women were therefore required to attend separate classes and were only permitted to be taught by female professors or old men. Besides, they also had to follow Islamic dress code.
Then, in May, the Taliban's Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice stated that all women on news channels had to use masks and cover their faces. This order followed the December 2021 media regulations that banned the broadcast of women's voices and faces on radio and television in the north-eastern province of Takhar, an extreme measure considering that the Kabul Times on 16th December 1968 featured a piece about girls from Radio Afghanistan learning programming at a BBC course in London. "In some of the advanced nations, a woman voice is still not heard over the radio as an announcer, but Radio Afghanistan has made strides in this field and in a number of different programmes women voices are now a common feature," the article stated.
But things have gone even worse in the last few weeks: in November the Taliban prohibited women from going to public parks, funfairs, gyms and public baths.
Secondary schools for girls have also been shut for over a year now across most of the country (at first the Taliban claimed the restrictions were temporary and depended from a lack of funds or time needed to remodel the syllabus along Islamic lines, but girls’ schools across Kabul remain closed). Then yesterday it was announced that the Taliban also ordered an indefinite ban on university education for the country's women.
A letter signed by the minister for higher education Neda Mohammad Nadeem, stated "You all are informed to implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice."
Now, while they are robbing girls and women of their life and their future, the Taliban indirectly rob them of their health as well.
Being denied schooling and career prospects are having an impact on the mental health of women, but this ban will have repercussions also on their physical health. If in the highly conservative Islamic society the Taliban hopes to create women should be treated and examined by female doctors, they will have to guarantee women access to education. In a way you feel this is the sort of ban that only men may have thought of - cruel and with a very dumb twist - how would you indeed create your supposedly gloriously conservative male-dominated society if you don't take care of women's health and train the female doctors that should treat them?
In this scenario it may be silly to think about miniskirts, but you wish that the miniskirt could become again a symbol of rebellion for Afghan women.
In 1971, American volunteers with the Peace Corps celebrated Christmas with a play taken from Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" that featured the ghost of Christmas past dressed in a chadari and that of the Christmases future in a miniskirt. There is also a famous photograph by Laurence Brun showing three young women walking in Kabul in the early Autumn of 1972 all wearing skirts above their knees. The description on the Getty Images archive states: "Women in Afghanistan, 1972: young students wearing mini-skirts walking down the street in city of Kabul. In the Shar-e-Naü area (the new town), a few emancipated girls wear the mini-skirt, despite the violent critics of the majority of the Afghan people, still attached to Muslim traditions. The Mullah, Muslim religious, do not hesitate to throw acid on the nude legs of the emancipated girl [sic]."
So maybe this item could be used once again maybe as a symbol by fashion designers in the West to support in some way women in Afghanistan? Let's get our thinking caps on and ponder about this possibility.
In the meantime, as restrictions are getting tighter for women in Afghanistan, there is something we can still do for them. Education is a fundamental human right and not a luxury and there are charities, such as Emergency, that offer donation packages to train women to become nurses, doctors and obstetricians (70,00€). The training programme is offered by a medical centre in Anabah, in the Panshir valley. Will the Taliban try and stop that as well? We don't know yet, but, at the moment, it may be a great option for some women in Afghanistan. The donation package can also be bought as a present and it may be a great option for a friend this Christmas. Let's avoid buying unwanted Christmas gifts that then end up cluttering someone's house in favour of expanding the possibilities of women in Afghanistan whose public spaces are perilously shrinking.
Comments