In the 1960s and '70s, Afghanistan was making broad strides toward becoming a modern and progressive nation, and in major cities such as Kabul, women were beginning to achieve a level of political and economic status that had been denied them in the past. However, when the Taliban took control of the country in the 1990s and the fundamentalist Islamic denomination known as Wahabism became a dominant influence on the nation's leadership, women's rights fell by the wayside and in 2006 few Afghan women can depend on even the most basic protection under the law. The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is an organization that has taken on the fight to bring gender parity to the country, but despite claims made by many Western nations that a gentler form of democracy is making itself known in the Middle East, what RAWA's leaders find each day is an uphill struggle in a land where females barely qualify as second class citizens. Filmmaker Meena Nanji examines the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the struggle for women's rights in Afghanistan in the documentary View from a Grain of Sand (aka Meena Nanji), as well as profiling the women behind RAWA and their efforts to bring feminism to their homeland.
by Mark Deming
synopsis
