The mothers of girls in Afghanistan are not weighed down by books, at least not in public. Their daughters can’t go to secondary school. No woman or girl can go to the park or to the beauty salon or to the gym or to visit their dead in the cemetery. The women and girls of Afghanistan are subjugated, oppressed and banned from virtually every aspect of public life because they are female.
Schoolbooks neatly stacked on shelves, I bring my daughters to see Animal Farm: The Musical, a Dublin Youth Theatre production in Smock Alley. A parenting win. The teenagers are outstanding playing Mr Jones the drunken farmer, Boxer the horse, the raven, the chickens, the dogs. They are especially brilliant as the power hungry pig liberators turned dictators Napoleon and Squealer.