Last week, amid the many historic firsts and important victories in the midterm elections, Afghan American Aisha Wahab won her first full term representing California’s 14th District.
Wahab’s victory is a powerful reminder of what women can accomplish when given the opportunity to lead. Her commitment to public service reflects the talent, determination, and leadership Afghan women bring to their communities and to the world.
At a time when women and girls in Afghanistan are systematically excluded from public life, her achievement is also a reminder of what Afghanistan is losing by denying its women the opportunity to serve, lead, and shape their country’s future.
The contrast could not be more striking.
Wahab’s achievement should not be exceptional. Women’s leadership should be the norm, not the exception. Yet women’s opportunities to lead are still too often denied, obstructed, or dismissed.
Afghan women are just as capable of serving their communities, shaping policy, and holding public office as women anywhere in the world. They have the knowledge, ambition, and commitment. What they need is the opportunity.
The Taliban has made that opportunity impossible for women and girls in Afghanistan. Since returning to power in August 2021, it has barred girls from education beyond the sixth grade, excluded women from universities and most employment, and systematically erased women from public life by issuing over 160 decrees. These restrictions are not simply a collection of discriminatory policies. They are part of a system designed to deny women autonomy, human rights, and participation in society. In other words, it’s a system of gender apartheid.
And Afghanistan is paying the price.
When women are excluded from public service, the country loses leaders who could work for its people. When women are denied education, the country loses future teachers, doctors, scientists, advocates, and policymakers. When women are forced out of the workforce, families, communities, and the national economy suffer. The Taliban’s oppression of women is not only a violation of their rights; it is an assault on Afghanistan’s future.
Aisha Wahab’s victory makes visible what the Taliban seeks to suppress: Afghan women’s capacity to lead, contribute, and shape the world around them.
Her story is a reminder that women’s rights have never been a question of capability or merit. They are a matter of policy, equality and opportunity. The barriers are not a reflection of what women can achieve, but of the systems designed to deny them the chance.
The world must not forget the women and girls of Afghanistan. Their exclusion must not become normalized, and their struggle must not fade from the global agenda. Leaders, governments and institutions must continue to demand an end to the Taliban’s system of gender apartheid and stand for Afghan women’s fundamental rights to education, employment, and full participation in society.
An Afghanistan that excludes its women cannot fulfill its potential. And a world that celebrates women’s achievements while forgetting those denied the chance to achieve is failing them too.