American Opens Opportunity for Women at the Kabul Beauty School

Empowering Afghanistan's Women One Haircut at a Time

The Oasis Salon is like most other beauty salons: bottles of shampoo sit on sinks, hairdryers line a wall and black combs soak in blue solution. It also has a security guard, runs on a generator when needed and is empowering a handful of Afghanistan's women.

Women of Afghanistan continue to be the worst off in the world. During the March 8, 2006 International Women's Day celebration, the Afghanistan government presented a plan to advance the status of women which includes empowering them through education. 

Visiting Kabul last March, I saw firsthand how education is empowering a small group of women one haircut at a time. It may seem frivolous in a war-torn, terror ridden country to be concerned with hairstyles, but a hairdresser is one of the few professions where cash gratuities are made.

Why is this important? Whether it is a husband, brother or father, the man in a woman's life controls her income. When a woman is generating cash gratuities, he does not know how much she is earning. Men of hairdressers have learned to be respectful towards them in order to have access to some of her income.

American Deborah Rodriguez is owner and matron of the Oasis Salon. In a patriarchal society where women are expected to be demure and passive and most wear neutral colors of browns and blacks, the tall, vivacious redhead stands out. But Rodriguez disputes Afghan women's taste in fashion saying, "Afghan women are very gaudy," they are "the Queens of Bling." The bling happens to be hidden under burquas.

Rodriguez landed in Kabul in a roundabout way. She was a Michigan hairdresser and felt the need to help following the tragedy of Sept. 11. She went to New York and worked at Ground Zero, describing it as a "traumatic experience."

Spring 2002, the team she worked closely with was deployed to Afghanistan and traveled with them, taking a job working in the laundry. Eventually, Westerners frustrated finding someone giving decent haircuts learned Rodriguez was a hairdresser.

"I would come home from work and find sticky notes on my door requesting haircuts," she told me.