This is an account of the Afghan War and its tragic aftermath as told by the women who were caught up in it and became its innocent victims. The voices in this oral history will provide personal snapshots to the news reports of the Taliban activities now coming out of Afghanistan. These accounts provide an historical background to the growth of the Taliban, and reveal circumstances of the daily life of the women who must survive in this very closed society. Through the medium of oral history, this book brings to light the stories of the women who have suffered the consequences of the Afghan War and whose lives and whose daughter's lives have been changed forever. Through the voices of the Soviet women who supported their soldiers on Afghan soil, and the voices of the Afghan women scattered by circumstance around the globe, the last Cold War battle between the superpowers takes on a very personal tone. Policy decisions issued from on high became the rockets that destroyed these women physically, mentally, and emotionally. Children were killed or maimed and homes and families destroyed. Ultimately, these women were forced to flee or become invisible within their homeland. The Taliban militia rose from the dust of this war and by government decree reduced even the most educated and influential of the women to non-person status.

A riveting account of three women who fought shoulder-to-shoulder with men and worked with local women to restore their lives and push back the Taliban They marched under the heat with 40-pound rucksacks on their backs. They fired weapons out of the windows of military vehicles, defending their units in deadly battles. And they did things that their male counterparts could never do--gather intelligence on the Taliban from the women of Afghanistan. As females they could circumvent Muslim traditions and cultivate relationships with Afghan women who were bound by tradition not to speak with American military men. And their work in local villages helped empower Afghan women, providing them with the education and financial tools necessary to rebuild their nation--and the courage to push back against the insurgency that wanted to destroy it. For the women warriors of the military's Female Engagement Teams (FET) it was dangerous, courageous, and sometimes heartbreaking work. Beyond the Call follows the groundbreaking journeys of three women as they first fight military brass and culture and then enemy fire and tradition. And like the men with whom they served, their battles were not over when they returned home.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of the New York Times bestseller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, comes the story of a unique team of women who answered the call to get as close to the fight as the Army had ever allowed women to be, including one beloved soldier who was killed serving her country’s cause In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan. The Army reasoned that women could play a unique role on Special Ops teams: accompanying their male colleagues on raids and, while those soldiers were searching for insurgents, questioning the mothers, sisters, daughters and wives living at the compound. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. They could build relationships—woman to woman—in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could. In Ashley's War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses on-the-ground reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from the Army to serve in this highly specialized and challenging role. The pioneers of CST-2 proved for the first time, at least to some grizzled Special Operations soldiers, that women might be physically and mentally tough enough to become one of them. The price of this professional acceptance came in personal loss and social isolation: the only people who really understand the women of CST-2 are each other. At the center of this story is a friendship cemented by "Glee," video games, and the shared perils and seductive powers of up-close combat. At the heart of the team is the tale of a beloved and effective soldier, Ashley White. Much as she did in her bestselling The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Lemmon transports readers to a world they previously had no idea existed: a community of women called to fulfill the military's mission to "win hearts and minds" and bound together by danger, valor, and determination. Ashley's War is a gripping combat narrative and a moving story of friendship—a book that will change the way readers think about war and the meaning of service.

We Are Afghan Women chronicles the lives of young and old, daughters and mothers, educated and those who are still learning. Their stories are a stark reminder that women's progress in society, business, and politics cannot be taken for granted. Many of these women face serious risks for speaking so openly, but they want the world to listen. Their words will change not only how we as Americans see Afghanistan but also how we understand the complex challenges still facing women and girls around the globe.

The authors of oral literature in the Pashtun language create their work at a far remove from any books. Generally deprived of the support of schools and universities, their compositions are inseparable from song. Their poetry is never declaimed; rather, their rhyme and rhythm have melodic value. These popular improvisations do not exalt mystic love. In them there is no aspiration whatsoever to an unfathomable and incommunicable heaven, nor devotion to the lord, nor praise for an absolute master, nor any Adonis. To the contrary, they are songs of the earth. They celebrate nature, mountains, rivers, dawn and night’s magnetic space. They are songs of war and honor, shame and love, beauty and death. The repression of Afghan women has caused untold suffering, particularly through moral subjugation. Infant daughters and their mothers are received with scorn and shame, and lead lives of subordination and humiliation. Their rebellion against these tribal codes comes only through suicide and song. Translated from the Pashtun into French by the eminent Sayd Bahodine Majrouh, the greatest Afghan poet of the twentieth century, his text has been rendered into English in the expert hands of Marjolijn de Jager of the Translation Department at NYU.

Waging Gendered Wars examines, through the analytical lens of feminist international relations theory, how U.S. military women have impacted and been affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although women were barred from serving formally in ground combat positions within the U.S. armed forces during both wars, U.S. female soldiers are being killed in action. By examining how U.S. military women's agency as soldiers, veterans, and casualties of war affect the planning and execution of war, Whaley Eager assesses the ways in which the global world of international politics and warfare has become localized in the life and death narratives of female service personnel impacted by combat experience, homelessness, military sexual trauma, PTSD, and the deaths of fellow soldiers.

Through years of Taliban oppression, during the US-led invasion and the current insurgency, women in Afghanistan have played a hugely symbolic role. This book looks at how women have fought repression and challenged stereotypes, both within Afghanistan and in diasporas in Iran, Pakistan, the US and the UK. Looking at issues from violence under the Taliban and the impact of 9/11 to the role of NGOs and the growth in the opium economy, Rostami-Povey gets behind the media hype and presents a vibrant and diverse picture of these women's lives. The future of women's rights in Afghanistan, she argues, depends not only on overcoming local male domination, but also on challenging imperial domination and blurring the growing divide between the West and the Muslim world. Ultimately, these global dynamics may pose a greater threat to the freedom and autonomy of women in Afghanistan and throughout the world.

In consideration of UN Resolution 1325 (which called for women's equal participation in promoting peace and security and for greater efforts to protect women exposed to violence during and after conflict), this volume takes stock of the current state of knowledge on women, peace and security issues, including efforts to increase women's participation in post-conflict reconstruction strategies and their protection from wartime sexual violence.

Malalai Joya has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." At a constitutional assembly in Kabul in 2003, she stood up and denounced her country's powerful NATO-backed warlords. She was twenty-five years old. Two years later, she became the youngest person elected to Afghanistan's new Parliament. In 2007, she was suspended from Parliament for her persistent criticism of the warlords and drug barons and their cronies. She has survived four assassination attempts to date, is accompanied at all times by armed guards, and sleeps only in safe houses. Often compared to democratic leaders such as Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, this extraordinary young woman was raised in the refugee camps of Iran and Pakistan. Inspired in part by her father's activism, Malalai became a teacher in secret girls' schools, holding classes in a series of basements. She hid her books under her burqa so the Taliban couldn't find them. She also helped establish a free medical clinic and orphanage in her impoverished home province of Farah. The endless wars of Afghanistan have created a generation of children without parents. Like so many others who have lost people they care about, Malalai lost one of her orphans when the girl's family members sold her into marriage. While many have talked about the serious plight of women in Afghanistan, Malalai Joya takes us inside the country and shows us the desperate dayto-day situations these remarkable people face at every turn. She recounts some of the many acts of rebellion that are helping to change the country -- the women who bravely take to the streets in peaceful protest against their oppression; the men who step forward and claim "I am her mahram," so the fundamentalists won't punish a woman for walking alone; and the families that give their basements as classrooms for female students. A controversial political figure in one of the most dangerous places on earth, Malalai Joya is a hero for our times, a young woman who refused to be silent, a young woman committed to making a difference in the world, no matter the cost.

Wise and Baron relate the compelling war experiences of thirty American female soldiers in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, highlighting their extraordinary display of dedication to their mission and to the soldiers and sailors with whom they served. While the book's focus is on today's women in combat, it also reaches back to Korea, Vietnam and World War II to offer stories of inspiring women who served at the "cusp of the spear" as they fought and died for their country.