Free The Favored Daughter by Fawzia Koofi Page A

insignificant and helpless as if the simple act of donning the burqa had shut all the doors in my life I had worked so hard to open. My school, the pretty clothes, the makeup, the party—all meant nothing now.
    I’d grown up seeing my mother wear the burqa, but I felt as though it was merely something of her generation and that it was a cultural tradition that was slowly dying out. I had never felt any need nor had been asked by my family to conform to it. I saw myself as part of a new generation of Afghan women, and the burqa’s traditions didn’t represent my ambitions, for myself or my country. Unlike my mother, I had an education, one that I was eager to expand upon. I had opportunities and freedoms. One of them was the freedom to choose whether or not to wear a burqa—and I chose not to.
    It wasn’t that I had, or have, a particular problem with burqas. They are traditional and can offer women some degree of protection in our society. Women all over the world must occasionally deal with unwanted attention from men and for some women, wearing a burqa can be a way of avoiding that. But what I object to is that someone can impose a decision about what to wear. How would women in the West react to a government-enforced policy that made them wear miniskirts from the onset of puberty? Islamic and cultural ideals of modesty are strong in Afghan society, but they are not so strong that a woman must, by virtue of her gender, be hidden beneath a blue sack. Covering the hair with a head-scarf is enough to satisfy the Islamic rule of being modest before God.
    When we got to my aunt’s house, I was relieved to get the burqa off. The experience had left me feeling shocked and scared about what my life and my country was turning into. I couldn’t enjoy the party and instead kept to myself, reliving the horrible experience of the walk, suffocating beneath the tiny walls of my portable cell. All the while I plotted how to best get home—how I would dash back, hoping to avoid anybody I knew. I wasn’t ready to admit to myself, let alone anybody else, that a burqa had become part of my life.
    The following day Kabul airport was closed by the mujahideen. The flights between Faizabad and Kabul stopped running. Our sense of isolation from the capital became very real. I was very worried about what was happening there. I was particularly concerned that my school, if it hadn’t already been destroyed in the fighting, might be closed and I would never be able to return to my studies.
    We listened closely to the radio for any scrap of news. It was hard to know what to believe. The warlords were smart enough to seize the radio and television stations, and even in Faizabad rumors abounded about what was happening in the capital. The radio announcer told us the schools were open and girls were to attend. But the reality was parents were reluctant to send their daughters to class because they didn’t think it was safe.
    We could see the changes on the television. At that time, Afghanistan had some highly respected women presenting the evening news. They were smart and glamorous and executed their jobs with utter professionalism. As a girl they were important role models for me. I loved following their changing hairstyles as much as I loved listening to them report the international news. They were living proof Afghan women could be attractive, educated, and successful. But suddenly, the beautiful, intelligent female news presenters with their perfect hair and makeup that I had so admired disappeared from the screens. In their place dowdy women in scarves stumbled their way through the news. This change made me very worried.
    I went to my mother in tears one day, upset and scared and frustrated by the situation. She just listened to me as I poured my heart out, and when I had finished, she announced that we would find a temporary admission at a school in Faizabad.
    I missed Kabul and the heady glamour of