Reflecting on the popularity of the Afghan women’s cause in the period following September 11, Lila Abu-Lughod notes the deeply troubling parallels between the American rhetoric of the time and the colonial era discourse of “saving Muslim women.”35 The American government, media, and seemingly much of the population understood the plight of women under Taliban rule in terms that were both culturally reductive and historically myopic. Generalizations about Muslim and Afghan women abounded, while reflections on the role of the West in shaping Afghan history were all but absent.36 The American-led war effort was praised for freeing Afghan women from the Taliban but rarely critiqued for assuming that all people ought to pursue Western, neoliberal visions of individual agency and free expression.
It is both easy and entirely appropriate to set American media assistance efforts in Afghanistan within this context. Although efforts were made to incorporate local voices in the new Afghan media system, this system was nonetheless built upon presumptions of the superiority and universality of Westernized media systems. Whenever possible, wealthy entrepreneurs were afforded benefits. When for-profit media was not suitable, America and its allies employed an NGO model that David Harvey found to be deeply intertwined with the neoliberal state system, often emphasizing individual rights over community needs.37 Both of these approaches appealed to the notion of “saving” women critiqued by Abu-Lughod, in the former case through the magic of the profit motive, in the latter via the largesse of Western cosmopolitanism.
In this chapter I have strived to move beyond the simple neoliberal critique, attempting to consider more closely the specific, concrete impact of American policies on the work of female Afghan media workers. It would be foolish and dishonest to deny that the American-imposed system of media that currently dominates Afghanistan has brought hundreds of women into the public sphere in ways previously impossible. In the nonprofit realm, rare, privileged, and remarkably determined individuals like Farida Nekzad have succeeded in using small openings imposed by the West to create new opportunities for female voices. Furthermore, in considering the words and experiences of women working in the field, it is apparent that, given the circumstances, the profit-oriented media systems decried by Barker do, in fact, offer a greater range of expression to women. Although the Afghan government attempts to exert control over all media, the economic might and global cachet of Tolo TV have allowed the station to push boundaries, thus providing greater autonomy for producers like Rokhsar Azamee.
And yet it is necessary to note that, despite the rhetoric of security and nation building surrounding American media efforts in Afghanistan, increased female expression has by no means removed the precariousness of Afghan labor. In some cases, it has actively encouraged new elements of uncertainty, particularly for women. Most obviously, violence, death threats, and terror still plague the lives of female producers, although this situation predates the immediate post-2001 American involvement in the region.38 More subtly, both NGO media initiatives and for-profit businesses place women in disproportionately precarious circumstances. Although NGOs train and hire women at admirably high rates, their funding is fickle, with donors often falling away over time. As seen in the case of Nekzad’s Wakht News, women are often the first to lose their jobs.
In the realm of commercial outlets, such as Tolo TV, female producers are valued as a short-term means to attract women viewers and positive global press. Perhaps, over time, economics will encourage the outlet to offer long-term stability to the most successful female producers. However, given Afghan economy’s remarkable instability and foreign dependence, this seems unlikely. Women will likely continue to leave for more lucrative, stable, and culturally acceptable positions, leaving most of the prestigious yet highly taxing production jobs to the men. Yes, Afghan women now have access to jobs that did not exist fifteen years ago and would never have been open to females even if they had. However, these new opportunities have combined the precariousness of war and reconstruction with the sorts of precariousness described throughout this volume in even the calmest mediaspheres.
