The 19th and Early 20th-Century U.S. Women's Rights Struggle:

Abstract

Although there may be strikingly different cultural explanations, in nearly every society women have had to struggle for equal rights. This study juxtaposes the position of U.S women in the 1910s and contemporary Pashtun women in Afghanistan and Pakistan to present an authentic picture of Pashtun women in an international context. Avoiding generalizations, the author focuses on select issues important to Pashtun women living in Swat, KP, Pakistan, the homeland of Malala Yousafzai. In addition to American scholarship, for the Pashtun part, the study relies on authentic sources: personal interviews with Malala, her father as well as a few notable indigenous professors and authors; literary/social surveys (of Swat); indigenous books. The study also includes a cross-section of native Pashtun men/women living in Swat, and the author's firsthand experiences as a native of Swat. The study reviews the struggle for women's rights in the U.S to ask what from that experience can aid Pashtun women one hundred years later.