When Religion is Interpreted Through Toxic Masculinity, Women Pay the Price

By Tuba Taban
There is a question that has stayed with me for a long time: what happens when an entire religion gets seen only through the eyes of one gender? In Afghanistan we are watching the answer happen in real time.

I am half Pashtun and I had a conversation with my mother just last night about something that sits heavy in my chest. There is a pattern in how Pashtun boys are often raised. When a boy is aggressive, when he picks a fight, there is pride attached to it. “Look how strong he is. He’s a true Pashtun.” That anger gets celebrated and rewarded until the boy understands that his aggression is not something to control. It is something that makes him who he is. Above everyone. Above everything. That is how the cycle of toxic masculinity keeps going quietly, one celebrated tantrum at a time. And when that freedom to do wrong stops being a family habit and becomes the actual law of a country, we end up somewhere that should horrify the entire world.

And yet the world is not angry enough.

Since August 2021 the Taliban have issued over 100 decrees directly taking away the rights of women and girls. Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where girls are banned from secondary and university education. As of 2025 1.5 million girls and women remain locked out of school. More than 80% of women in media have lost their jobs since 2021. In December 2024 the Taliban banned women from studying healthcare and delivering babies, closing one of the last career paths available to them. Afghan women are being removed not just from classrooms but from sound, image and public memory.

Then there is the law that made me stop writing and walk away for a moment.

In January 2026 Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada signed a new 119-article set of laws and sent it to courts across Afghanistan. Under Article 32 a husband can physically hurt his wife and children freely. It only becomes a crime if the beating results in broken bones or open wounds. Even then the maximum sentence is only 15 days in prison and only if the wife can prove her case. To do that she must show her wounds in person to a male judge fully covered with a male family member beside her. In most cases that family member is the husband who hurt her.

Under Article 34 if she tries to go to her parents’ home without his permission even to escape the violence she faces up to three months in prison. The family members who take her in face the same sentence. Under Article 58 if a woman is accused of leaving Islam she faces life in prison with ten lashes every three days until she “accepts Islam.” This rule applies only to women. The same laws also divide Afghan society into social classes with different punishments. Harsher for those at the bottom. Almost no punishment for religious leaders. And it legally accepts slavery.

For comparison: under this same set of laws forcing animals to fight carries a five month sentence. An Afghan woman’s body is worth less legally than a cockfight.

In 2025 the Taliban publicly flogged at least 1,110 people including 170 women, more than all previous years combined since 2021. In December 2025 a court in The Hague ruled that the Taliban’s actions count as crimes against humanity. The UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan has described what is happening as a system built to push women out of every part of life. Some human rights scholars are now calling it femicide.

This is not Islam. When we raise this in debate, when we say show us where in the Quran it says a woman must bleed before the law will notice her, the answer is always anger or silence. Because it is not there. Hazrat Khadija was a businesswoman. Hazrat Aysha was a scholar whose knowledge shaped Islamic history. Hazrat Fatima was a leader. The religion being used to justify this violence is not the one that gave those women their names and their power. What is happening in Afghanistan is men using religion as a cover for toxic masculinity, men who placed themselves above the law, above the state and above God himself.

Rights activist Mahbouba Seraj speaking from Kabul said it clearly: “The men have the right to rule completely the women. His word is the word of law, that’s it.”

And yet Afghan women resist. They teach in secret homes, run underground schools, build radio stations and create WhatsApp classrooms. UNESCO reports that across more than 2,600 villages over 1,000 teachers have been trained to give lessons to 57,000 young people, the vast majority of them girls. Despite every door closing 40% of Afghan women still believe in a future where things can change. That is not weakness. That is one of the most powerful acts of resistance I have ever read about.

A country that silences half its people cannot build anything real. Peace built on the silence of women is not peace. It is control with a different name.

Afghan women are not waiting to be saved. They are waiting for the world to be angry enough and to stay angry long enough to actually do something.

When religion is interpreted through toxic masculinity it becomes a weapon. Our job is to make sure the world does not mistake that weapon for faith.