‘War feminism’ helped doom USAID

The U.S. Agency for International Development is effectively dead. One of its killers — unmentioned in the requiems for the agency — is the idea of “war feminism.”

War feminism stands for the belief that ideas of women’s liberation espoused by Western feminists can be imposed on other societies via occupation and development aid. The visible and public failure to deliver women’s liberation to Afghanistan delegitimized USAID in the eyes of Americans, who have decided to turn away from the idea of development aid altogether.

In 2001, war feminists from both the Republican and Democratic parties vehemently supported the U.S. going to war with Afghanistan on behalf of Afghan women. This included First Lady Laura Bush, who famously announced in a November 2001 radio address that the U.S. would “liberate” Afghan women.

Feminist leaders from the nonprofit Feminist Majority Foundation supported the war, even though Afghan women’s groups had come out against it. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and future Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all supported the war-feminist agenda in Afghanistan.

In the two decades that followed, USAID programs became the vehicle for this goal. The agency gave out hundreds of millions of dollars for empowerment programs that ranged from running competitions to the airlifting of fabrics and sewing machines. In 2018, the agency launched “PROMOTE,” one of the largest programs geared toward women’s empowerment in the agency’s history, which aimed to help 75,000 Afghan women with internships and job training. The program’s price tag was $280 million, most of which went to U.S. contractors and failed to reach Afghan women altogether.

A 2018 report from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction noted serious flaws in this expensive program. In certain cases, women who had attended a single workshop were noted as having benefited from the program. In other cases, the metrics for deliverables were lowered such that only 20 women out of the 3,000 job training participants would have had to find a job with the Afghan civil service for the program to be considered successful.

The report notes that only 55 women could truly be said to have benefited from the program, a far cry from the 75,000 it was designed to help. For its part, in its formal response, USAID insisted that it had helped 50,000 Afghan women with training and support for skills so that they could do advocacy for women’s rights and start their own businesses. Neither USAID nor the Inspector General report made any mention of the fact that the problem may has lay with the Westerners who believed that a one-size-fits-all model of women’s liberation could be exported to another country and delivered on the back of the military.

The waste of these millions of dollars was obvious to U.S. taxpayers when the Taliban marched back into Kabul in August 2021 at the heels of a hurried U.S. withdrawal and reinstated all the draconian and misogynistic laws that America had promised to eradicate forever. Within months, women whom the U.S. could not liberate in 20 years were forced back to their homes. Girls’ schools beyond fifth grade were shuttered and women were not allowed to be outside their homes without an accompanying male guardian.

Next door in Pakistan, where tribal areas were being bombed by U.S. Predator drones, war feminists again tried to export their ideas of women’s empowerment via USAID. An Office of Management and Budget report from 2013 reviewed the performance of a grant of $40 million dollars made to a small Karachi-based NGO with the goal of “improving the lives of Pakistani women.”

The report stated that the program had “less than maximum impact” and the program’s grants had little lasting effect on the lives of women in Pakistan. Some of the projects undertaken by the grants were just as superfluous as the ones in Afghanistan. One example was a radio program to raise awareness about gender violence — a noble goal in itself, but hardly the most effective allocation of funds in a country that ranks near to last in the global gender gap index. Nor was any consideration given to organizational capacity or the predictable issues that occurred when a small organization with a paltry budget is suddenly granted $40 million.

In many cases, funds disbursed by USAID did provide much needed and essential services. But war feminism — and the “liberation” of Afghan women that it made a goal — delegitimized USAID in the eyes of the public. By the time Kabul fell, it was obvious that ideas of freedom cooked up by feminists in D.C. could not be translated to the Afghan context. The large amounts of unaccounted funds also exposed corruption within the organization and the intransigence of bureaucrats who refused to acknowledge failures or alter the direction of the organization when these failures were repeatedly pointed out.

The end of USAID is inextricably connected to the idea that “women’s liberation” — defined by technocratic bureaucrats as women receiving job training or sewing machines — could not cover up the ignominies of warfare. The eagerness of war feminists to export liberation via bombs has left Afghan women more vulnerable and oppressed than ever before.

The Trump administration and its supporters have lobbed many criticisms at the nearly defunct organization, but few admit that USAID’s failure also shows that moral legitimacy for war cannot be purchased via soft power costumed as women’s liberation.

Rafia Zakaria is a columnist at DAWN Pakistan and the author of the book “Against White Feminism.”

Topics

How a Demographic ‘Doom Loop’ Helped Germany’s Far Right

Understanding the Alternative for Germany’s success in Sunday’s elections.
The New York Times - Feb. 25
Help is coming in the AI copyright wars

Artificial intelligence companies must decide how to pay for the human-generated content they need
Financial Times - 6d
Pause in U.S. intelligence help will hurt but not cripple Kyiv's war effort, ex-officials say

President Trump’s decision to pause intelligence assistance to Ukraine will hamper the country’s war effort but will not cripple Kyiv’s fight against Russia.
NBC News - 6h
‘It’s a scary time’: Sophie Lewis on the ‘enemy feminisms’ that enable the far right

In a new book the scholar traces a line from reactionary tendencies in history to anti-trans feminists today. Is Donald Trump a feminist?. There was a time when anyone asking such a question could ...
The Guardian - Feb. 21
Asteroids are headed this way – oh no! Are we all doomed? | First Dog on the Moon

Definitely maybe but probably not. Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog ...
The Guardian - Feb. 21
The Erinsborough asteroid attack! Now that Neighbours is doomed, it needs to end with a bang

After the Austalian soap’s previous false ending, it’s almost impossible to imagine it getting a second starry finale – or it finding a new home. This time, its farewell needs to stick. It’s always ...
The Guardian - Feb. 21
1 in 5 Americans are 'doom spending' — here's how that can backfire

"Doom spending," or spending money despite economic and geopolitical worries, is an increasingly common way to cope with stress.
CNBC - 6d
Jeff Bezos takes one small step for feminism and social progress, and one giant leap for self-publicity | Sarah Manavis

The first all-female private flight into space funded by the Amazon tycoon’s Blue Origin company has little to do with female empowerment and a lot to do with PR . A pop star, a TV host and a ...
The Guardian - 4d
How do I know young women are not OK? Their devastation over a doomed anglerfish | Emma Beddington

The death of one of the sea’s uglier creatures has led to an outpouring online. What is it about this unfortunate creature that has evoked such big feelings?. Here’s an unexpected addition to our ...
The Guardian - Feb. 24

‘War feminism’ helped doom USAID

Topics

Related

How a Demographic ‘Doom Loop’ Helped Germany’s Far Right

Help is coming in the AI copyright wars

Pause in U.S. intelligence help will hurt but not cripple Kyiv's war effort, ex-officials say

‘It’s a scary time’: Sophie Lewis on the ‘enemy feminisms’ that enable the far right

Asteroids are headed this way – oh no! Are we all doomed? | First Dog on the Moon

The Erinsborough asteroid attack! Now that Neighbours is doomed, it needs to end with a bang

1 in 5 Americans are 'doom spending' — here's how that can backfire

Jeff Bezos takes one small step for feminism and social progress, and one giant leap for self-publicity | Sarah Manavis

How do I know young women are not OK? Their devastation over a doomed anglerfish | Emma Beddington

More from The Hill

House Republicans gush over DOGE in meeting with Musk

Is Social Security money going to 'millions' of people listed as old as 149?

GOP lawmaker holding town hall despite advice to avoid them: 'I trust my constituents'

Major VA job cuts planned under Trump

'Hamilton' cancels Kennedy Center run; Grenell fires back

More in Politics

House Republicans gush over DOGE in meeting with Musk

Is Social Security money going to 'millions' of people listed as old as 149?

GOP lawmaker holding town hall despite advice to avoid them: 'I trust my constituents'

Major VA job cuts planned under Trump

Musk to House Republicans: DOGE ‘can’t bat a thousand all the time’