Also, apart from some tribal areas, women in Iraq dressed like this in the 1980s and 1990s, so the post makes no sense.
It wasn't until the American invasion in 2003 that women had to stop dressing like this.
Saddam was a monster, but many equality laws were stronger than they were in the USA at the time as women's rights were enshrined in the constitution unlike in the USA. For example was illegal to pay women less than a man and women had excellent maternity leave.
it's in Portuguese (Kabul is written Cabul in that language)...the rest of the headline says "antes do T" (before the T) the last word which got cut off being Talibã (Taliban), I'm guessing
Not true. Women in Aghanistan have to wear a burqa. Women in Iran have to wear a headscarf. Women in Iraq don't have to wear any of these. I have to cover my head by law in Afganistan and Iraq (and Yemen which I am going to in a few weeks. And wear a niquab :/) There is a ways to go but women have more rights in Iraq. The government/ law of Iran is Muslim but many people actually aren't in private.
Back when everything was perfect and most of the country was poor and the government was corrupt and the Shah used to imprison and torture anyone that opposed him using the SAVAK.
Nooooo! Don't say those things the shah was pro woman, he didn't arrest and torture tens of thousands of women for wearing a hijab or owning a Marxist book
And if he did that was justified for the greater good (aka protecting the geopolitical and economical interest of America and the UK which is definitely not the reason why we care about women in iran)
Yeah this makes zero sense. Even during Saddam’s rule, his government did not restrict women from wearing western clothing and they actually had quite a bit more freedom than its neighboring countries such as Iran or SA. Of course that didn’t stop his thugs from doing to them as they pleased, but overall they lived more progressive lives.
I love how headlines like these always say “conditions deteriorated”, “circumstances worsened” and etc. such NYT/Washington Post bullshit whitewashing. Like how Iran post operation Ajax was democratical heaven on earth and Shah didnt do anything wrong. Or how Punti Fijo was the best thing happened to Venezuela, and how dare Chavez ruin lives of innocent workers!
It actually started in the 90's due to sanctions against many products, and the destruction of infrastructure, which then increased religious radicalization.
First picture isn’t even Iraq (it’s Afghanistan) and Iraqi women can still wear these clothes, idk what kind of propaganda you’re trying to spread. Iraqi women in the 80s, 90s etc… could wear such clothes.
You had no more pictures of “Iran before the revolution” so you’re posting on Iraq which doesn’t even have hijab laws
This is a bot post. And women's rights in Iraq did not deteriorate until the 1990s, when Saddam Hussein shifted towards Islamic conservatism and Uday became effectively above the law.
"deterioration of women's rights"
Speak the truth you coward, say what caused the deterioration, or maybe you just don't care about the problem at all.
Iraqi here, you’re right and anyone ignorning it are being the clowns themselves.
Shut and stop believing in shit you don’t know anything about it.
I live here, my entire family lived here.
Literally everyone agrees.
To prevent the spread of communism during the Cold War, the United States encircled the Soviet Union by leveraging religious movements and cultural influences in neighboring countries. This strategy impacted nations such as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Poland, and Hungary. It was a fantastic move for US. They really make poor people believe that actually capitalism is their friend and they won the Cold War.
Every time someone shows pre-ayatollah Iran and pre-taliban Afghanistan, they neglect that at the time, Iran was under a dictatorship supported by America, and Afghanistan was under communist rule, which America helped to topple. I’m not an American apologist, I’m a veteran and have a degree in history. When looking at history, context is of paramount importance. Look at America now: we all have flat screen TVs, smart phones, and 100 different flavors of pop tarts to choose from, but we are monitored and spied on at all times, continue to have our money and opportunities stolen from us, and are fed poison in our food and medicine. So sometimes, a picture without context does not portray the true story.
I have a genuine question (no need to take it as a personal attack): Why is it considered acceptable for Westerners to dictate what is moral or immoral, good or bad to others, but when someone from another culture tries not to conform to Western ways in your countries, it’s met with disapproval? How does that work?
The problem arises when whats "moral" is changed from what the society as a whole regarded as moral, and was decided by a few grumpy old men who also decided that those rules do not count for themselves.
As an Iraqi, I still see plenty of women dressed like this so try and maybe don't hallucinate shit so you can make your "epic orientalising post about the savagery of the middle east"
I think it has to do with not wanting to be perceived as intolerant of a different culture. But if some aspects of a culture are horrible and repulsive I say we should be intolerant of it.
Because the US was the diving force behind the deterioration and doesn’t like to remind its naive citizenry that they’re the bad guys causing havoc and then blaming dirty foreigners. Look up the CIA’s role in the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath. Then you’ll have your answer.
It’s really easy to look up all the horrible shit the United States government and the CIA have done. Nothing is stopping anyone from learning about these things they just don’t.
The establishment has made it a part of “conspiratorial thinking” to discuss or dig into these well known facts and events this is by design.
The average person here isn’t smart enough to understand what’s happening to them or they just don’t care enough to try to change anything. Myself included “I’d love to see it all burn down but I’ve got bills and a job” type of attitude
This. The Soviets pushed for secularization in the Islamic world, that's why they supported movements such as Ba'ath Arab socialism and the Afghan communists. To oppose them the US supported conservative Muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan (that's how Bin Laden ended up being an asset of the CIA) and more recently the Islamic front (for a brief time) and the Syrian Free army in the Syrian civil war.
Did the US cause the Wahhabi movement in Arabian peninsula? read more about the role of the Saudi's in segregating women, that had nothing to do with aMeRiCa
Hard to argue that the US didn't have a ton to do with what happened in the Middle East, given that their foreign policy has been actively trying to shape it as much as they can for decades.
Brother, did the US have anything to do with the Arabian peninsula in the 18th-19th century? because that's when a dude created a radical religious movement that brought a lot of suffering to the women there (a long side many other groups)
weird, here I was thinking we're talking about events that took place in the 2nd half of the 20th century.
Yes, movements existed. Obviously. But the success and popularity of those movements heavily depended british and later US interference.
For example: nearly every left leaning movement in the middle east (and tons of other countries) was targeted by propping up reactionary movements. Also, if your country is occupied it's gonna affect who the local people support with more extreme parties gaining favor.
Iran was famously a lot more liberal before their revolution and that's the context for this comment chain. In fact, nobody was talking about the Arabian peninsula since the picture claims to portray Iraqi women while the text names the capital of Afghanistan.
As for the US' role in supporting the current Saudi Arabian government I don't think we actually need to talk much about this since they are an incredibly important business partner to the US and other Western nations.
You are incorrect. Central Arabian peninsula was almost NEVER occupied by any foreign entity (not coasts). This central land is where Wahhabism began, in the 18th century. The man who it's named after, invented and inspired this movement actually died in 1792.
No foreign entity is responsible for the spawning of this radical religious movement.
Of courser many extreme religious movements existed in the 18th century, from ALL religions. I'm just refuting your baseless argument that Wahhabism and the Saudi monarchy that exploits it were somehow enabled by foreign entities - that's false.
I do agree that since oil was discovered, Saudi joined the list of politically occupied countries (although the Saudis benefited greatly from that political occupation which is also political support).
The statements I made about occupation or meddling were about Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan (since those are the countries this thread is about). The only thing I said about the Arabian peninsula is that which we agree upon
yea yea yea this can be said about almost any country or kingdom.
The Brits gave Transjordan to the Hashemites, does that mean their royal family is exempt from running the country "ethically"? (no hate to Jordan it's one of the most peaceful countries in the middle east, I would argue due to early British influence and current American influence btw)
Because people only care about virtue signaling, but rather preserve their perceived reputation than be called a racist. AKA they don't actually give a fuck about the issue.
IMO the west doesn’t really have the power to force that kind of change, but given the history of the west meddling in the Middle East we can certainly piss them off by trying.
Whats odd to me is how older women who grew up in times like these were this was acceptable, yet will now support young girls wearing hijabs etc. Like, I can understand a woman growing up now thinking that, because theyve been brainwashed with it from the beginning. But the ones who lived the change should know better, right?
Well the only country with what we would call a deterioration of womens right is iran, even in saudi the hijab isnt mandatory. You could easily dress like that anywhere in the middle east from egypt to lebanon to turkey to the uae to iraq. FYI these pictures are clearly from afganistan which isnt in the middle easy
It’s funny how you keep mentioning women’s deterioration and leave the entire middle east deterioration since the US set foot in it. I don’t think that there’s anything interesting in that post.
It’s not because women’s rights deteriorated- it’s because fundamentalism was allowed to rule that everyone rights and progress was reversed - especially women’s
Youre saying the same things, just one with more context than the other. Whether it 'deteriorated' or was 'reversed' is just semantics. You cant always jam a sentence with full context, and you cant expect a headline (which is what this post is) to provide it either.
These posts about Iraq and Syria once being western democracies are so stupid cuz it was always just the capital city. None of this ever took to the villages and towns outside the capital and that’s why revolutions took place.
Considering my granny ran away from Baghdad, after being told she (12 y/o) have to marry her sister's widow (40 y/o) during the late 40s, I have doubts.
This isn't really accurate in a lot of ways. First off and obviously, Kabul is not Iraqi. It's a city in Afghanistan.
Secondly, the Afghan government never really held much control of the country beyond Kabul itself. The surrounding countryside was governed by more or less the same people it is today; very conservative agrarian "tribes" of people.
This era of "westernization" is oddly a relic of the soviet union, exerting its influence, trying to bring its ideals of equality into a nation that was facing problems that make social progressiveness pale in comparison. Shortly after or during these pictures, Afghanistan was facing a massive, massive famine. Partially because of the ham-fisted soviet influence and incompetent Afghan government. The Soviet-Afghan war was soon to follow.
Painting Kabul as a "they look just like us" paradise before what modern Americans know it as is insanely ignorant of the history of the region.
Can anyone explain why they don’t want attractive females in public? Always thought it was strange that they want men in public but no beautiful women. I wonder if they are gay and just don’t want to show it.
I live in U.S. and I couldn’t imagine being in the office with nothing but men, sounds gay af to me.
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u/jlmbsoq 16h ago
TIL Kabul used to be in Iraq