Hillary Clinton says Taliban have turned Afghanistan into global symbol of misogyny

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a Foreign Affairs article titled "Women's Rights Are Democratic Rights" that the most extreme example of misogyny in the world today is found in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

Clinton stated that when the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, one of their first actions was to remove women from all visible roles in society. She noted that girls were quickly deprived of secondary education and women were banned from universities, public positions, and professional activities outside the home.

The Taliban regime claims these measures protect Islamic values and national identity, Clinton wrote, but many countries have seen Islam and democracy flourish together. She argued the real aim is to deprive women of access to information, income, and political influence, thereby consolidating power by excluding half the population from public life.

Clinton warned that other authoritarian leaders are closely observing and learning how to gain more control through women's suppression. She cited examples from Iran, where young women face attacks, imprisonment, or violence for removing headscarves; and from China, Poland, and Russia, where governments encourage women to withdraw from public life to boost population growth.

Authoritarian regimes, regardless of being secular or religious, Western or Eastern, developed or developing, share hostility toward women's rights, Clinton emphasized. She linked attacks on women's rights to the erosion of democracy, noting that such measures hollow out institutions, criminalize opposition, and concentrate unaccountable power.

Clinton identified Russian President Vladimir Putin as the leading promoter of this patriarchal authoritarianism, heading a global non-liberal, misogynistic, and xenophobic movement aiming to restrict women's rights, expel immigrants, disrupt democratic alliances, and undermine the rules-based international order. She added that authoritarian systems now outnumber democracies, with nearly three-quarters of the world's population under such rule, and women's rights status is the first indicator of a democracy's health.