Knowledge is Power: Secret Schooling as Feminist Resistance in Afghanistan

Abstract

This piece examines the role of secret schools in Afghanistan in feminist resistance against gender apartheid, concluding that their functions are not just educational, but political too. In it, I argue that their use in the first and second Taliban occupations has had three major impacts - establishing mutual aid and community, providing an alternative to masculinised conceptions of resistance, and challenging narratives that cast Muslim women as victims. First, I outline extreme legal and institutional efforts to repress Afghan women’s voices, control their movements and remove their agency, culminating in a state of ‘gender apartheid’. Next, I investigate the characteristics and core functions of secret schools, situating them as coalitions vital to both education and political mobilisation. Finally, I analyse secret schooling through three lenses. The first evaluates secret schools as sites of community and mutual aid, given they build networks, deliver education, and foster political action. The second positions secret schooling as a direct challenge to masculinised conceptions of resistance involving violence and militarisation, given its community and care-based nature. The third, and final, lens presents secret schooling as an antidote to the pervasive narrative that Muslim women are victims in need of saving, as they showcase the agency and activism of Afghan women. This piece concludes that secret schools play a vital role in counteracting the Taliban’s gender apartheid by ensuring they are not silenced, and preventing the government from achieving full control over their lives. Their effects extend beyond Afghanistan’s borders, though, in helping us to reimagine ‘resistance’ beyond violent, masculinised images, and reframing Muslim women as actors with agency and strength.