Short paper

Veronica Cantu
Short Paper: Kabul Beauty School
November 19, 2009
While I was sitting in class watching the “Kabul Beauty School” film, I was immediately taken back by Deborah Rodriguez’s courage to go into such a dangerous country like Kabul, Afghanistan, and start a beauty school that would help women gain freedom and independence. With Afghanistan in shambles from the Taliban war, Deborah came with her curling irons blazing and her styling gel locked and loaded. She was a woman with a mission ready to give the women of Kabul a total makeover inside and out.
The women were so eager to get started that Deborah had to guard the door and fight the flock of women wanting to enroll into the school. Classes got started and the women were ready to learn the proper way to cut and style hair. I was so amazed that the woman kept coming to the school despite the negative views and reticule from their husbands and families. Equal rights and independence is something that does not come cheap in Kabul, especially for women. The film made it very clear that the women and men of Kabul have very different roles in and out of the household as opposed to American culture.
“The family is the single most important unit in the Afghan culture. Men and women's roles are much more defined along traditional lines. Women are generally responsible for household duties, where as men will be the bread winners.” (Afghanistan-Language) Taking the traditional views and costumes and throwing them out the window was a major culture shock for everyone and especially for the men. The women of Kabul pushed on and continued with the class, this showed me how strong and determined they were to learn how to style hair. They wanted this and despite what the whole city thought about them, they preceded in moving forward in fulfilling their dreams.
At first I thought Deborah’s “Kabul Beauty School” was strange but I quickly saw what she was trying to establish. Her mission gave women skilled salon training that would give them confidence in themselves and ultimately put cash into their pockets. Changing the “social norms” one by one Deborah was faced with negativity from others (mostly men) around the city. She might have been portrayed as this “wild American” trying to persuade the woman of Kabul to conform to American ways of living, but I saw drive and passion in Deborah’s mission. She was sharing her gift of hair styling and makeup with others to empower woman and give them something they can contribute to their community.
On the other hand I can also see how outlandish the city of Kabul thought her mission was. The beauty school was going against all of their beliefs and social and traditional customs they strongly believe in. Her mission came off as trying to take over and change the way the country has been ran for several years, and that automatically made the men become definitive.
I know that the school in the end had to shut down, but we cannot forget the lives Deborah Rodriguez touched when she was in Kabul. Her drive and passion touch so many women and changed so many lives. I do not see her closing the beauty school as a failure, because you cannot expect to change a society that is predominately ran by men and is mastered by traditional and religious cultural beliefs; it is out of your hands. If there is one thing I have learned about this film and in this Woman and Gender class, is to speak your mind and stand up for what you believe in. As Susan B Anthony says in chapter two of “The F word” text when giving her speech about women and the right to vote “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union… Men, their rights and nothing more; women and their rights and nothing less” (The F Word). These wonderful works these women have done will stay close to my heart and will motivate me to stand up for what I believe in.

Works Cited
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/afghanistan.html/Afghanistan - Language, Culture, Customs and Business Etiquette
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner. The F-Word Feminism in Jeopardy Women, Politics, and the Future.