Unveiling imperialism: Media, gender and the war on Afghanistan

Fighting brutality against women and children is not the expression of a specific culture; it is the acceptance of our common humanity – a commitment shared by people of good will on every continent. Because of our recent military gains in much of Afghanistan, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. They can listen to music and teach their daughters without fear of punishment. Yet the terrorists who helped rule that country now plot and plan in many countries. And they must be stopped. The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women. (Bush, 2001) In the weeks that followed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, US media suddenly discovered what left-leaning media, women’s rights organizations, and sections of the European press had been saying for over five years: that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was, quite literally, killing women. Subsequently, a host of what President George Bush delicately referred to as ‘women of cover ’ paraded across the pages of the corporate media. Burqa-clad women were featured on the cover of the New York Times magazine (in a feature story that, interestingly enough, had absolutely nothing to say about women), as well as Business Week, Newsweek, Time and other general interest magazines. This level of attention to women’s oppression in Afghanistan was certainly a welcome shift, given that the issue had been barely covered by the mainstream media or even publicly discussed by policy makers in the past. Yet this focus on women’s liberation in Afghanistan, we argue, was little more than a cynical ploy – it served as a one of the pillars on whic