I think that at least in the case of the taliban, the ‘urge’ is on pretty solid empirical grounds.

But you said:

The idea that the Taliban would be against women fighting because they are women is stupid. They probably would want them fighting… on their side of course.

You are most definitely comparing these women taking up a sport to women as soldiers for the Taliban. It was not at all “stupid” for anyone, looking at what empirical evidence (not what the Taliban could/would do sometime in the future) shows what the Taliban were like toward women, that the Taliban would deplore the fact that these women were taking up boxing as a sport.

I was just pointing out the urge to dichotomise between religious extremists and female empowerment through this method. When you’re talking about the religious extremism of the Taliban than to me, it makes sense to dichotomize. I’m pretty sure that any religious fundamentalism only will end up oppressing women anyways.

So I read the articles — it doesn’t say anything about the background of these women except they come from all parts of Afghanistan and are not just Pashtuns (despite my stupidity, I think that’s another reason the Taliban would more than likely hate what these women boxers)— but I wish I knew something about their socioeconomic background, their education levels. If these women didn’t have a background that was uppermiddleclass urban Afghanistan, than it’s unlikely that they would have met any women pursuing sports, at least from my understanding of what afghanistani culture was like, even pre-Taliban. This would be a pretty “progressive” thing for girls in my small town in Kerala to do. I’m always trying to encourage my aunts, who are gaining weight in India, to go to the gym and so far I’m hearing from them that it’s still pretty uncommon for women to go to the gym in Kerala – and my aunts are generally upper middle class.

I was not comparing them. I was just pointing out the urge to dichotomise between religious extremists and female empowerment through this method. That it should not be seen as being on oppisite ends.

Sure, I realize that. But nothing that the Taliban did showed that they would encourage women to be anything other than beggers. And when you say, “winning or losing”, the Taliban were fighting for their existence when the US attacked and that didn’t mean they encouraged women fighters.

Anyways you cannot compare these women boxers, who are pursuing something for their own self-fulfillment, to a role that they would play in the Taliban as soldiers – they would not I’m sure have any autonomy over their own life…it would just be oppression and exploitation.

]

thats the key to that sentence. the best of a pretty $hitty lot.

Suggesting reading:

East of New York, West of Kabul by Tamim Ansari

the idea of Afghanistan as a shining example of a tolerant and liberal society (as oppposed to an ultra repressive h3llh0le)

PS-Just because somebody didn’t do something in a given period of time, doesnt mean they wouldnt do it if it came down to winning or losing.

Puliogre-Why is that funny?

I don’t think the Taliban during their 5 or so years controlling Afghanistan, tried to train women into any fighting role. They did give them training to be beggers though.