Solidarity, Strength and Substance: Women’s Political Participation in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, men make decisions; women are typically absent from decision-making processes. This commonly heard and felt  public-sphere narrative is reflected in stories that women tell of being excluded from policy meetings, overlooked for promotion, harassed at work, told whom to vote for, and sidelined from the gatherings at home where critical family issues are discussed. And yet this is only part of the picture. Afghan women encounter and navigate around these barriers daily, both at home and in the workplace, developing and relying on sophisticated sets of strategies—levers to prise open space for influence. This paper seeks to understand further how they do this, and what tools are most effective in promoting their participation and substantive influence, particularly over policy and service provision.