When I say Afghanistan’s beauty secrets, I don’t mean tips and tricks to perfect that winged eyeliner look. Although that is what is happening in Afghanistan, it’s just happening in secret nowadays.
Recently, I read an article from The Guardian dated August 1, 2024—the same day I am writing this blog post—in which women talk about not giving up their beauty regimens no matter what. And for them, the women of Afghanistan, that could mean imprisonment or worse for wanting to paint their fingernails or apply some lipgloss.
It is 9am in a suburb of Kabul when two women in powder-pink burqas ring the doorbell of a drab building. The exterior is a silent reminder of the gloomy atmosphere that prevails in the capital. “Can you let us in?” they whisper.
A woman called Sonia* opens the door. Before the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, this 56-year-old hairstylist and beauty salon owner never imagined that one day she would have to work in secret.
After letting her clients in, Sonia mechanically unpacks her beauty paraphernalia on the table: makeup palettes, hairdryers, flat irons, waxes, mascara, nail polish, false nails, kohl and brushes. It’s all there.
Running the secret salon could cost her a fine, several months in prison or worse. – The Guardian
Man, the simple things we women in America take for granted. Can you imagine taking a chance to get your hair blown out, and if caught, what type of punishment awaits you?
Inside the secret beauty salons of Afghanistanhttps://t.co/3lBvTg7N0g pic.twitter.com/MmjdVtE9KE
— Nation Africa (@NationAfrica) March 20, 2024
I am sure some folks don’t give one iota about this topic. They may even be so crass as to say something like, “Well, they are an Islamic state, so who cares? They’ve chosen their life; they’ll have to deal with it.”
And some of you may say we had no right to attempt to westernize their world.
No Freedoms
But the fact of the matter is this – the women of Afghanistan did have freedoms at one time, even if they were somewhat limited. They were making progress, minus the Taliban.
Since our withdrawal, the women of Afghanistan have been put back into the stone ages again, thanks to the Taliban gaining control once again—all that for naught.
And yes, for the record, I believe we should have gotten out of there, but perhaps with a different plan. But in all honesty, I don’t think that region will ever be saved.
The Taliban deprives women of their education and jobs. One industry where women were able to work was the beauty salons. These places were not just employment where women worked and relied on these places for income. They also served as safe places for women to meet and are gone forever.
And so now women are pretty much prisoners in their own homes – well, their husbands’ homes. They have become slaves.
How does a country survive with only half the population working? And just what do the men of Afghanistan do for a living post-2021 when the last military plane left the country? How does the country survive? Pretty piss-poorly, I imagine.
No Rights
As a woman in Afghanistan, you have no say whatsoever. So if your husband wants to sell your daughter, to get married off for cash, you can’t say a single word about it.
For women without husbands, running secret beauty salons is how they make money and provide for themselves and their families.
The Taliban announced the closure of beauty salons throughout Afghanistan in July 2023, claiming a number of the services they offered – including eyebrow shaping and the application of makeup – were violating Islamic law.
In a country with more than 12,000 salons, the ban had a devastating impact on the estimated 60,000 women who worked in the sector. The salons had also served an important social function for Afghan women – providing a safe, female-only space where they could meet outside their homes and without a male chaperone.
Since being banned when the Taliban were in power between 1996 and 2001, beauty parlours had proliferated with thousands opening across Kabul and other Afghan cities during the western military occupation.
Many remained open after the Taliban returned to power almost three years ago. But since the 2023 ruling, what little freedom women had left has now been curtailed. – The Guardian
Again, I can’t imagine being under the thumb of such offensive and oppressive militants. And then being “liberated” from it, only to return to it again.
What sort of risk is The Guardian taking by even writing about these women of Afghanistan who are defying Taliban rule? But the story needs to be told.
I have a question: when the clients go home with waxed eyebrows and coifed hair? What do their husbands think they’ve been?
What had become a habit is now a dangerous luxury. “We listened to music and dressed like westerners. It was our moment of freedom,” says a university teacher of the time before the Taliban, when she would visit her local beauty salon every two weeks.
Now, she treats herself to a clandestine makeover every two months and wears gloves to hide her colourful varnished nails when she goes out.
Behind the thick blue velvet burqa, many women in Afghanistan are well groomed, especially those who can afford it. – The Guardian
They risk the danger of neighbors turning them in, and now the Taliban has turned up the surveillance. Women can’t walk alone. Women’s fundamental rights are gone in Afghanistan. Yet, some women still are defiant and refuse to give up the one thing that makes them feel like a woman – beauty.
Risks
One woman running one of these secret salons was turned in or found out and arrested. No one has heard from her since. I am sure it has happened to more than just one woman.
Suicide rates for women have skyrocketed. The article also goes on to say that sexual crimes are at an all-time high as well. And now, like before, the Taliban has ordered flogging as a sentence for certain crimes. But apparently, not even facing death will stop some of the women who are running these secret salons.
I can’t even imagine.
Read more about how it is much more sinister than it appears.
Many Afghan women have been resisting the order, with protests held in the capital of Kabul by beauty salon workers. But the demonstrations seeing women chant “work, food, freedom” and “don’t take my bread and water” were broken up by security forces, using tasers and fire hoses. And now with the resistance winding down and little international support, the order – the latest restriction of many to push women out of public life, is being abided. – MSN.com
As we keep seeing men playing in women’s sports here in America, essentially erasing women here too, remember the plight of the women in Afghanistan who are for real being erased.
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