In Khost province, a woman in men’s clothing is the pride of her community. Hakmeena, an elected member of the provincial council, is well-respected for mediating in local disputes, a domain usually exclusive to men.
Hakmeena never leaves the house without her pistol. As a member of the provincial council, she is in danger of becoming a target of the insurgents. (Photos: Khoshnood)
When Bibi Hakmeena attends a wedding party, women will often cover their faces bashfully when they see her coming. At other times, men in the street pay her more attention than they would usually do to a woman.
This is because, from afar, the 42-year-old provincial council member, with her black turban and light shalwar kameez, looks like a man. Almost as long as she can remember, Hakmeena has worn men’s clothing and carried a pistol. Nevertheless, the women in Khost province consider her as one of their own. As do the elders of the area, who are by definition all men.
It all started at the time of the Soviet invasion in 1979, when many ordinary men took up arms to defend their country. “There was a shortage of men in my family,” says the female politician, who was about 10 years old when the jihad started. Her elder brother was studying in Kabul at the time and her younger brother was still too young to protect the family. So her father decided to masquerade his eldest daughter as his son. “I was very dominant in our family, and I wanted to behave like a man,” recounts Hakmeena, who is called “big brother” by her nephews, but “sister” by her brothers.
Having an extra boy in the family was a matter of survival and honour. Attacks from Afghan or Soviet forces were not the only dangers at the time. There were also internal conflicts, such as a land dispute with her father’s uncle, which could have easily turned violent if Hakmeena’s family had been considered weak.
In rural Pashtun society in eastern Afghanistan, it is still common for powerful families to try to extend their influence and access to resources by means of the gun. The more male members a family has, the more likely it is to fend off such enemies.
At the age of 11, Hakmeena spent hour after hour at night keeping watch in a tower that oversaw the family’s estate. Such towers and high walls are common in this part of the country – a reminder of the constant threat from rivals or robbers. The middle-aged politician can still hear in her head the sound of dogs barking at night that made her shiver.
"I like practicing my shooting skills." Hakmeena
Later, she supported the Mujahideen as an informant. While other girls raised their hands in prayer and shed tears of sorrow for the jihadists, she posed as a shepherd moving with her herd in the mountains. Whenever she saw troops or helicopters approaching Mujahideen positions, she would contact them by walkie-talkie. “At that time, the fighters were hiding in caves. This was my way of supporting them.”
For her, shooting a gun is as normal as baking bread, and she is equally adept at using an AK47, a shotgun and a pistol. “I have used all these guns to fight. Even now, I like practising my shooting skills,” she says and recalls how they fought Soviet soldiers in their villages at night.
Hakmeena has never gone to school. She grew up working on her family’s agricultural land, and as there was no son in the house, she did what boys usually do: plow the field with a herd of cows.
After the Soviet troops withdrew and the communist regime collapsed in 1992, Hakmeena decided to continue wearing men’s clothes. “I was used to it,” she says, but also admits that she was afraid of losing her privileges as a man. Moreover, she says, she feels like a man. Her family has often urged her to marry, but she has declined.
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As she grew older, she was accepted as an elder in her community and started mediating in conflicts between families, as elders in Afghanistan often do. Thanks to her charisma and perseverance, people from different tribes in the area value her judgment and advice.
Some even consider her a hero. “Hakmeena is respected by the community, because she has sacrificed her life for her family and the people of Khost,” says Janat Ali Jan, an elder from the Matoon clan. “When she delivers a judgment in a shura (an elder’s meeting), she never rules in favour of the rich and powerful, but always in favour of those who have suffered injustice.”
Rasoul Padshah, an elder from the Ghurbez tribe, says, “I cannot recall an incident, in which either of the conflicting parties did not accept Hakmeena’s proposal to resolve a dispute.”
Her popularity was proven once more in 2009, when she was elected to the provincial council with the highest number of votes of all female candidates.
The only time that she has faced serious problems due to her ambivalent role, was during the Taliban reign in the 90s. The radical Muslim rulers, who had established a gender apartheid in Afghanistan, opposed her dress code and regularly harassed her.
In one incident, the Taliban banned her from participating in a shura. “They told me ‘you are a woman and there is no need for you to come and solve this conflict. There are enough men here who know how to resolve the issue.’”
Hakmeena is not the only woman to wear men’s clothing in Afghan society. During the Taliban era, in particular, when women were not allowed to work, many families opted to dress their daughters like sons, so that they could earn a living. But the phenomenon exists to this day, because not having a son creates serious problems for families. And even people from Tanayoo district of Khost, where Hakmeena lives, remember other women like her in the past.
Some even compare Hakmeena to national heroines like Nazoo Anaa and Malalai, who famously proved their leadership qualities in what is usually the preserve of men, such as fighting and politics. Nazoo Anaa, the mother of the 18th Century king, Mir Wais, is remembered as a woman warrior against the Safavid Persians and a unifier of different Pashtun tribes. Malalai fought against British troops at the 1880 Battle of Maiwand.
“I was embarrassed about my sister wearing men’s clothes.” Hakmeena's brother
Gender switching is a tricky issue in Pashtun society. On the one hand, it is a disgrace for a woman to act as a man, but on the other hand, for a family not to have a son in the house is just as shameful. “I was embarrassed about my sister wearing men’s clothes”, says Hakmeena’s brother Awal Zeman. ”But now I am used to it.”
Only once in her life, Hakmeena has changed her clothes: when she went on pilgrimage to Mecca a couple of years ago. Her family urged her to step in front of God as he created her, and she agreed. But later, she says, she regretted it, as she did not feel herself during the rituals of the Hajj. “When I returned from the Hajj, a lot of women came to congratulate me and suggested that I should now wear women’s clothes,” says Hakmeena.
In such situations, the politician likes to remember a woman called Katja, whom she met more than 30 years ago. Katja was a foreign aid worker who, like many Germans, worked in a huge agricultural development programme in Khost before the Soviet invasion. She was a colleague of Hakmeena’s German-speaking brother. What makes Katja special to Hakmeena is that she sometimes wore trousers. “Dressed in men’s clothes,” says Hakmeena, “she was exactly like me.”
