Gender Roles in Afghanistan

Since Gossip Girl isn't on tonight I can catch up on a little of my weekend Sunday Times reading. This article about Afganistan women is really interesting. The article points to one province, Bamian, which is unique to the women there. It is governed by a woman, women drive, and there are at least two women on the local police force. It's very unusual to have women taking such prominent positions in a conservative Muslim country like Afghanistan.

Because Afghanistan has been at war for much of the last several decades and it is such a poor country, much of the development has been restrained. Often with development comes modernization of gender roles, so it's encouraging to see that while much of Afghanistan shows the open wounds of a country at war, there is a microism of modernity, where some women are taking on more egalitarian roles.