Barbara Walters, of 20/20, did a story on gender roles in Kabul ,
Afghanistan, several years before the Afghan conflict.
She noted that women customarily walked five paces behind their husbands.
She recently returned to Kabul and observed that women still walk behind
their husbands. Despite the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime, the women now seem happy to maintain the old custom.
Ms Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, 'Why do you now
seem happy with an old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?'
The woman looked Ms Walters straight in the eyes, and without hesitation
said, “Land mines.”
Moral of the story is (no matter what language you speak or where you go):
BEHIND EVERY MAN, THERE'S A SMART WOMAN
I passed the Kabul Golf Club once and noticed that adjacent to it was a UN Mine Clearing team. They used flags to mark the areas where mines were present with flags, flags not dissimilar to the ines you'd find on a gold course. I often wondered if any golfers went astray and found themselves playing Russian Roulette!
And the first time I heard a version of that was in 1965 ... but it was about Arab women walking in front of their husbands in the desert, though the reason was the same