It’s hard to believe, but this is the other Newsweek press release that went up today: Newsweek: Afghan Woman Who Had Secret Beauty Parlor in Kabul Says in a Month Or Two, ‘I’ll be One of the First to Open a Beauty Shop in Public’

An Afghanistan woman who secretly
operated a beauty parlor in her home for five years tells Newsweek’s Melinda
Liu that although hers is still a “Taliban style” beauty salon, in a month or
two, “I’ll be one of the first to open a beauty shop in public. I hope you and
other Western women will come.”

Sure I’ll be on the next plane. Pencil me in for Sunday at 2:45…

The woman, named Latifa, wore lipstick and had dyed auburn hair. She
secretly styled women’s hair, applied makeup, hidden by the all-enveloping
burqa, which covers the face, and played forbidden music cassettes and
videotapes for women who lounged on sofas covered in leopard-print material in
her living room…

And isn’t that what freedom is all about? (Lounging on leopard-skinned sofas, listening to Elvis the pelvis and secretly piercing your ears..)

The politics of post-Taliban Afghanistan still need to be sorted out and
Afghan women are waiting to see if Northern Alliance representatives are
serious about women’s liberation.

So it’s in the hands of the Northern Alliance, is it? How unfortunate. They haven’t been overly concerned with women’s rights in the past.

Under Taliban rule, Afghan women were
forbidden to work or show their faces and were required to wear the burqa.
But since last week, Afghan women are venturing into public again and looking
for work…

And food and shelter…

At least four women got jobs at Radio Afghanistan, and others
continued to stop by the radio station to apply. “When I heard the Taliban was
finished, I rejoiced beyond measure,” says Rida Azimi, 25, one of the first
women to read the news at Radio Afghanistan after the Taliban fled. After
Azimi heard the news about the Taliban’s defeat, she joyously burned her burqa
at home. “I felt so depressed wearing the veil,” she tells Newsweek. “Now I
see the sunlight and it’s so beautiful.”