Assignment: Women
Name:
Complete some further research about the idea of Warrior Women and Damsels in distress and
answer the following questions.
1. What roles have these types of characters played in literature?
2. What are some classic examples of each? (Briefly explain why you made these
selections.)
a. Warriors
b. Damsels
3. Do you feel that male characters have had similar roles in literature? Give examples to
prove you point. (Explain your answer.)
4. Women in real life. Read and complete the following:
The al-Qa'ida attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. and the downing of a plane in
Pennsylvania killed about three thousand people and triggered a series of actions in which
hundreds of thousands more people have died. Although the human costs of the war in
Afghanistan have been extremely high, so, in some cases, have been the benefits to the people of
Afghanistan.
Late in 2001, after a U.S.-led coalition toppled the Taliban, women saw a return to the kinds of
rights they had not enjoyed since the Soviet occupation. Female education--banned by the
Taliban until fully-segregated facilities could be erected--was restored, and wearing the burka
became a matter of choice rather than compulsion.
While the resurgence of the Taliban has since rolled back many of these freedoms in Afghan
villages, women in the Afghan capital of Kabul are now free to act in ways that would have
invited severe punishment during Taliban rule.
Using the following two images of Kabuli women--the first, just weeks after the Taliban
captured Kabul in 1996, and the second, just days after the Taliban fled Kabul in 2001-- write
THREE catchy slogans or ad lines that could be used on a poster or ad that make statements
about women's rights in Kabul.

a.

b.

c.
AFGHAN WOMEN WAIT FOR RELIEF OUTSIDE AN AID AGENCY
Kabul, November 1996
© Getty Images, Inc.
A YOUNG WOMAN REMOVES HER VEIL
SHORTLY AFTER THE FALL OF THE TALIBAN
Kabul, November 2001
© Getty Images, Inc.