Adventures in Afghanistan: Sailor chips away at gender barrier
Lt(N) Hayley Mooney
Contributor
March 25, 2008
Lt(N) Mooney mingles with Afghani men from a remote village. The sailor experienced a lot of stares while journeying around the country side, as women in uniform are a rare sight.
Lt(N) Hayley Mooney was deployed to an American military base in Kabul called “Camp Eggers” for seven months, from April to November 2007. While there, she worked with ID Cards, ID Tags and the HR Database for the Afghan National Army (ANA), and travelled to the various ANA bases around the country working on getting them a safe ID system.
I stumbled through the traditional Afghan greeting: “Salam Alaikum, Chetour Esti?” at the beginning of another meeting with General Eqbal Ali, a Human Resources leader in the Afghan National Army (ANA).
I followed the greeting by reaching for a handshake. He took my hand lightly, smiling and gesturing me towards a seat in his large well-furnished office. In my months in Afghanistan, I quickly learned who I could shake hands with, and who I should simply hold my hand to my chest in greeting, not getting offended when a man rebuffed my efforts of congeniality.
As part of my job, I had to meet with members of the ANA, as well as civilian citizens of Afghanistan.
However, I was hoping to help open the eyes of men in Afghanistan to the possibility of an equal female gender.
When I came to Kabul in the spring of 2007 military women had been in Kabul for a while. The men of the ANA were used to seeing foreign service women coming to and from the Ministry of Defence in the variety of camouflage uniforms from the many NATO countries. Women before me had paved the way so that I could enter an office, run through a meeting, lay down business plans and deadlines, while Afghan men listened attentively through their interpreters and argued points.
But, this isn’t Canada.
General Eqbal Ali was known to stop an important meeting to ask me if I was eating enough, and let me know that my husband would appreciate it if I tried to fatten up some more. And there were still people in the hallways that stared over their shoulder as I walked by. And I had been the star of at least a dozen pictures with ANA soldiers from the rank of private up to Colonels and Generals, who wanted to show off to their friends the strange foreign female soldier who did not wear a veil and seemed to have no shame in bossing men around.
Outside Kabul was a different story.
As part of my work, I travelled to several provinces in Afghanistan, stopping along the way at recruiting stations in some of the towns. There my presence had more of an impact. Where in Kabul, men would watch me out of the corner of their eyes, here it was open gawking. In one training base in the north, I watched in amusement as a platoon of new recruits went from organized, in-step marching to falling over themselves trying to get a glimpse of the women in uniform (I was travelling with a few other women from my office).
These were men plucked from villages that are accessible even today only by donkeys. To my amazement, out of their shabby robes and headscarves they somehow pulled camera cell phones to capture proof to bring home of these strange, confident, uniformed women.
My female friends and I joked that we would go back to our hometowns and feel neglected, having gotten used to basking in the super-model-type attention we received in some of the more remote locations of the country.
Beyond the joking though, I feel the stir we caused is having a positive affect. Here were capable women in uniform, working alongside the men. Our countries have deemed us worthy of the tasks we were taking on, and let us work independently, showing confidence that we could do our jobs well.
In Kabul we were already well entrenched. The local men were used to working and talking to us, and in the provinces we created an awareness of our presence.
Opening minds to new possibilities for women in the future perhaps? To me, this is an incredible bonus to my mission. Not only did I do a job I felt was important to the development of the country, but I pioneered a little bit of female equality in a country where there has been so little in previous years.
