Appropriating women's agendas*w

What is it about?

Discusses how states appropriate women's issues for strategic & political purposes. Examples of US appropriation include Laura Bush's crypto-feminist plea for Afghan women as a justification for the 2001 US invasion targeting al-Qaeda & the Taliban & WWII government policies. The case of Afghanistan demonstrates how specific conditions govern the particular historical trajectory of the population's relationship to this kind of exploitation of women, which is also bound up with contentions for state power. Three kinds of advocacy for & about women are evident in recent Afghan history. Various cases across Afghan history, from the 1880s emergence of the contemporary state through the reign of the Taliban demonstrate a discourse of women's empowerment that has been undermined by disempowerment & abuse of women. Political claims for the cause of women have not had much success for consolidating state power; women must have a voice in setting the agenda, & the development of a human security discourse centered on universal human rights is deemed a positive step.

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