Author: Alex Shams

Alex Shams is an Iranian-American writer and a PhD student of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. He was previously based in Bethlehem, Palestine, where he worked for Ma'an News Agency, the largest independent Palestinian news agency.

April 3, 2018 /

Were women “freer” back in the 1970s in these countries? It depends how you measure it, of course. But the point is that miniskirts or lack thereof do not prove the existence of women’s freedom or civilization in a country. Their use to convince Trump to continue the occupation of Afghanistan reveals the continuing dangers of these facile equation of women’s dress with freedom as well as the weaponization of nostalgia.