Paper #2 The Kabul Beauty School Film

A main issue that Deborah Rodriguez addresses in the film The Kabul Beauty School is that women are inferior to men. No man seemed to really want to support the beauty school. As american women went around Kabul telling people what they were doing, men just laughed in their faces. Women do not drive in Kabul. Only men do. When the American woman drove around in her car everyone just stared at her. Men would look back at her and put their hands up at her and point and laugh. Men walking in the streets would not move out of her way , they just would stand their and shake their heads. The women are not allowed to show too much skin. When the Tailiban was there, they were only allowed to show their eyes. If they were too revealing they would get beat up. For years Kabul was under attacks from the war. It was bombed daily. Many of the women in Kabul felt depressed and hopeless. Doing their hair and makeup was the only way to keep their spirits up and feel good about themselves. That is why the Kabul Beauty School was opened.
Women would have salons secretly during the war. Most of the time their husbands did not want anything to do with it for fear of being exposed and harmed by the Tailban. Nafisa, which ran a salon in her home said that women would come all the time to her house to get their hair and makeup done. Even the Taliban’s wives would come. But after they got their hair done, they would just cover up their faces anyway with a veil. They were not allowed to feel good about themselves and show off what they had. Only men could show some skin and their faces.
In Kabul, being born a male made you very powerful. Women were just expected to take care of the house and the children. They are not allowed to make their own decisions. Men do not look at them as being attracted or anything like that, it seems they only wanted women to bear their children and take care of them. Some men even live double lives with more than one wife and several children with each wife. Women could barely even run a salon. There is not was that it would even be possible for a woman to live a double life. They have absolutely no freedom .
The Kabul Beauty School was just a place where the women could gather around and give them more self esteem and be able to be themselves and not just be a person to take care of the house and their husband. Being at that school gave them a sense worth. It also helped to give understanding of the similarities that us as women, regarless of our religious backgrounds or where we are from, have. Gender inequality needs to end. It should not matter what gender you are. We are all people and should be treated equally.