The rights of Afghan women are suffering under Taliban rule, she writes: “Female friends tell me that with no school and no future to look forward to, life has been reduced to waiting for death”
a burqa. It made me itch, it made me sweat. And it made me invisible. Mine was blue with a small lace opening for the eyes, though underneath I wore a short-sleeved dress and tights. Walking in a burqa, I lost my usual confident gait: I hung my head lower, both hands clutching the edge of the fabric so I wouldn’t stumble. The very fact of wearing it made me feel inferior. To leave the house, when I became a teenager about a decade ago, I had to transform myself into a thing.
On some nights, when the neighbourhood was sleeping and only stray dogs occupied the roads, my father would walk with me outside the house to give me a taste of the world without a burqa. In the shadow of moonlight, we would stroll, hearing the sounds of crickets and dogs rummaging through rubbish. With each step I took, I felt free. Once my father disguised me as a boy to swim in the river that I used to go to when I was a child.
And philosophy. And maths. And science. And history. I wanted to understand the world in every way possible, and my place in it. Solving maths problems gave structure to the uncertain world I was living in, even if just in my head. I felt liberated when I first learned to make a graph of a linear equation. On the page, drawing a two-dimensional co-ordinate planeten years ago was safer than going to school.
Through these stories, I realised that Afghan women have the capacity to achieve something great in their lives. My mother believed that no matter how difficult the situation, you should always focus on what you can change. “Of course, you can’t change everything, but you can always change something,” she often reminded me when I got frustrated with the challenges that I had to face as a young Afghan woman.
scholarship to study maths and science in America, leaving my parents in Afghanistan, with their blessing and encouragement. Today I am a university researcher in America and have published in my scientific field.
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