Around the first anniversary of 9/11, the U.S. media portrayed Afghan women exclusively as traumatized, sad, helpless-looking victims, asking for support to relieve their suffering. In October of 2002, I was privileged to meet 14 Afghan women who were in Austin, Texas on a State Department tour.
I found them to be very different from the media images. As a photographer who had lived in the Middle East, with connections in Afghanistan, I saw that I could provide a more complete picture of their lives. So I created The Afghan Women's Project and traveled to Afghanistan nine months later, with no idea where my photographs and interviews would lead.
Among the surprising Afghan women I met, were:
After my first trip, the Afghan Women's Project photo exhibit (complete with short biographies and excerpts from my interviews) led to presentations that resulted in my returning to Afghanistan in 2010. At that time, I updated my interviews and expanded the range of women I'd met. On my last day there, I realized I could only do justice to the stories the women had entrusted to me by writing a book.
Before my first trip, I worried that women might be unwilling to speak with me and be photographed. This turned out not to be the case because someone they trusted introduced me to each woman. One time when I pulled out my camera, a woman told me she couldn't be photographed. In that case, I said, I could only conduct a brief interview. She immediately sent her child out to ask her husband's permission, which he granted.
Peggy Kelsey is the author of Gathering Strength: Conversations with Afghan Women, which is endorsed by Khaled Hosseini (A Thousand Splendid Suns) and Mavis Leno (Feminist Majority Foundation).
Kelsey is the founder of the Afghan Women's Project and is an international photographer recognized for her visual presentations on Afghanistan, Afghan women, and human rights. She and her photo exhibit, "Afghan Women: Portraits and Stories" have toured universities and colleges in Ohio, New Jersey, Wyoming, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, New York, and Texas. Learn more about Peggy Kelsey's work.