Abstract

Establishing women's rights became part of the moral justification given for waging `war on terror' by ensuring regime change in Afghanistan. Yet by December 2002, Human Rights Watch was reporting ongoing violations of women's rights. Western presumptions that women's lives would be transformed simply by removing the Taliban were false. This `interchange' explains this gap between expectation and reality by examining the contentious history of Afghan gender politics and the current political and economic situation. Acknowledging such factors reveals that Western intervention will not easily subvert the existing gender order. Rather, any real change will result, not from prescribing Western models, but by enabling Afghan women to be autonomous agents with the right to determine their own life plans.