The women who fought their way into the Afghan Embassy

Women hold up half the sky, but in the room at the Afghanistan Embassy in New Delhi last week, there wasn’t space for even one.

The team of the visiting Taliban Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, which used the premises to hold a press conference, did not think it necessary to invite a single woman. The Ministry of External Affairs did not think it was necessary either. Earlier that day, Mr. Muttaqi was hosted at the grand official venue, Hyderabad House, without a woman, official or otherwise, in sight. Whether this was mandated by the Taliban leader, a former Minister of Education for a regime that doesn’t allow girls in school beyond Class 6; or a genuine oversight; or a “technical error”, as he termed it, it wasn’t allowed to pass.

Reportage of the ‘men only’ press meet, followed by public outrage, forced the government to distance itself from the event and the Taliban delegation to rethink. Two days later, I received a call, inviting me to another press conference. Everyone was invited, with no conditions laid on attire, as they may have been in Kabul. Inside the briefing hall, male journalists, who had attended the previous press conference, had cleared the front row for female journalists, to ensure that Mr. Muttaqi would have no choice but to see them and take their questions. “This is your day,” said one of my male colleagues. “We will not be asking any questions, so as to ensure you will all be able to.” I smiled, protesting that we should behave as we normally do, sitting together without any gender distinction, and compete for the official’s attention, but I was also touched by the gesture.

That day, as Mr. Muttaqi faced a fusillade of questions about the Taliban’s denial of basic rights to women in the country, the solidarity of journalists against the prior injustice, however small, sent a powerful message: women cannot and should not be left out of the room.

The truth is, most journalists see their profession as gender-neutral, although there are circumstances and countries where they face different impediments to doing their jobs. In the heat of a conflict, or a riot, or even during a raucous election rally, women will often find that they are not assigned the “tough” stories; discouraged from the front-lines and trenches in a war; or face sexual harassment in the newsroom or in the field. During the protests in the capital against the brutal rape of “Nirbhaya” in 2012, I remember young female colleagues returning ashen-faced from India Gate with horrifying stories of being manhandled or groped by the protesters themselves. On assignment in wars, I have often been told, “this is no place for women”, or been asked to stay back. These are all battles women face in every field, not just in journalism, and learn to fight them.

I will also admit that women journalists are sometimes treated more politely and with more consideration than their male counterparts. I once fought my way onto an Indian warship going on an evacuation mission. As the only woman on-board, I got my own cabin, while five colleagues were cramped into one room on hard bunks.

Let us be clear, though: the fight that day in the briefing hall of the Afghanistan Embassy was not primarily for gender justice or equality, but for media access. It is a fight that journalists wage on a daily basis, and increasingly in democracies such as India and the U.S., where leaders shy away from press conferences, or restrict the media that can attend or the questions they can ask. That battle for access may have been won on that day, in that hall, but the fight continues. Sadly, the much larger, and in some ways, more vital battle for millions of Afghan women to go to school, college, or work, and even gyms and public parks has not even begun to be fought.