Kerry Washington on "the burden to be better"
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You're listening to a podcast from Washington Post Live, bringing the newsroom to you live. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much for being here. I'm Robin Givhan, and I'm senior critic at large here at The Washington Post, and I am very excited to be joined today by a triple threat, actress, producer, and activist, Kerry Washington. Hi. Welcome. It's such an honor to be here with you. Thank you. Thank you.

So we had a chance to see just a snippet from the 6888, and you are executive producer as well as starring in, and it is the story of a group of unsung heroes from World War II. And I'm really surprised to find out that really people knew nothing about their story

till 75 years after the war. I mean, what's your assessment of why all of that went

untold, undiscussed. And I hesitate to use the word untold because I'm sure it was told within the families of these women. - Sometimes. You know, we're actually getting out, first of all, thank you for having me. Thank you guys for all being here. We're getting phone calls and emails and outreach from people saying, "I just found out my grandmother was in the 6888. "I just found out my great aunt served." Because there was a lot of shame when women came back.

There was a lot of misleading misinformation. There were rumors that these women were sent overseas to be concubines for the black male soldiers. They were not given due honor and respect for the immense

accomplishment that they achieved there, which I'm sure we'll get into. But so for a lot of people, they didn't tell the story. And as we know, kind of the larger systems at play were invested in not telling those stories as well because an agenda of sort of creating heroes out of everyday black women was not first and foremost in a lot of people's minds. And the woman that you portray, Charity Adams, is extraordinary in this film.

And just tell the audience just a little bit about who she is. - Well, Charity Adams is much more impressive than me. She led this battalion of 855 mostly black, all women of color regimen.

in World War II. She was 27 years old at the time when she did it. She was fearless. She spoke several languages. She was a pastor's daughter, and she just really, truly wanted to serve her country. She wound up leading these women on a mission overseas to do something that was seemingly impossible. They stopped delivering the mail during World War II because they wanted to save resources where they thought

it was more necessary on the front lines. But as a result, soldiers were not hearing from their families, families were not hearing from soldiers, and there was a huge morale problem. People started reaching out to the government to say, "I don't know if my child is alive. I don't know where my husband is." You could really feel the impact in the war. So many people tried to fix this problem and they couldn't, and then they kind of dared this group of 855 women

to go overseas and try to get it done. 17 million pieces of mail. They gave them six months to do it because it was hangers full of care packages and love letters and they did it in less than 90 days.

Because what we do is twice as good with half as much. And it was extraordinary, really extraordinary. And she has a wonderful memoir, Charity Adams, that I read twice and then underlined and photocopied and had all over my trailer and spoke to people who knew her and watched every interview and listened to all of her interviews. It's just everyone said that she was such a woman of dignity and

Everything you hear about her, I think of myself at 27. I couldn't take myself overseas at 27. She just was, she was extraordinary. Yeah, she truly was an American hero. And she led this battalion of women from all over the country who did something very special because they returned morale to our soldiers and really helped to win the war and defend democracy all over the world.

- I mean, there is a wonderful line that you said about the film, which was that they were fighting for the American dream, even when there are others who believe that the pursuit of that dream does not belong to you. How would you describe the dream of the women in that film? - The film opens with a really beautiful quote from Mary McLeod Bethune, who

Do we tell them who plays Mary McLeod Bethune or do we leave it as a surprise? Oprah. Just a little Oprah. I just executive produced a movie with Oprah, you guys.

And there's a quote in the film about how important black women have been in democracy, which I think really resonates today for obvious reasons. And I think what these women, a lot of these women were looking for what a lot of our armed soldiers, a lot of what our serving soldiers are looking for is a way out.

a way into a bigger life, a bigger adventure, something beyond the small town provincial experience maybe that they were born into. And a lot of time we've been spending with soldiers and those serving in the armed forces, I keep hearing that story again and again. I really related to that desire to do something bigger, to be somebody bigger, to have a larger, more adventurous experience.

think they also wanted to be of purpose, many of them. They wanted to, and in particular, our way into this world is a beautiful character named Lena Derricotte King, a real woman. She was one of the surviving members of the 6888. She just passed earlier this year, but she saw the film before she passed. Wasn't she like 100 years old? She was 100 when she passed.

I just met with one of the other... There's now two living members, and I was in Pittsburgh recently, and I got to visit with her. And she was showing me old pictures and giggling that I would be playing Charity Adams, because I think I'm smaller than she remembers Charity Adams being. But I...

I think these women wanted to make a difference. They wanted to be part of making this country a better place. They believed in this dream of a better union, of moving toward

the ideal of we the people really including all of us. And they felt that this service to their country would help to embody the manifestation of that dream of even though when those first three words were written, we the people, it didn't include women, it didn't include black people, it didn't even include poor white people, it didn't include anybody under 21, but they believed that they were included, that they deserved to be included, and that they

wanted to do their fair share to protect the dream of what this country can be. Well, there are many great lines in the film, and I don't want to give too much away. No spoilers. No spoilers. But you, as Charity Adams, when you meet your new recruits, you say something like, when I say do it, we get it done. And also, you have the burden to be better. Yeah.

When you think about those words that were spoken in, what was it, 1945-ish? I mean, how do those words resonate today? They're still relevant. They're still so relevant. I mean, one of the most famous...

speeches from Scandal is... Don't worry, we'll get to that. Was when my dad says to me, you have to be twice as good. And people reference that speech all the time. And when we were shooting this scene, I was thinking, this is so ingrained in the DNA of the experience of marginalized people in this country, in this world, is that we are constantly...

carrying the burden of representation and knowing even for me as an actor when I do a film like this you know there have been no World War II movies about women of color it's I mean they can't you I mean I bet any of you could off the top of your head name five war movies from World War II none with women of color so the burden is if this film doesn't succeed will they make another one

Same with Scandal, right? There hadn't been a black woman as the lead of a network drama in almost 40 years when that show aired. So the burden was, if the show doesn't succeed, will there be another one? The beautiful thing is, when you all show up and say, inclusivity matters, quality matters, we show up, then there gets to be a show with Priyanka Chopra and a show with Viola Davis and a show... We get to continue to have the legacy so that it's not another 40 years. But that is the burden. How did...

- How do you carry that burden knowing that, as you said, if people don't show up, that it could close the door for another possibility? - I know I can't control it.

Fair enough. You know, right? So I think what you can control is your work, is the quality of your work. And so I think I just really work very hard at doing the best that I possibly can and continuing to challenge myself to elevate the quality of my work. And then it's up to audiences.

When you're looking for stories like this, I mean, are there particular parts of the culture that you try to mine when you're trying to sort of dig up these stories of people who have been overlooked?

No, it's funny. I don't really have, like, we don't have a mandate at my company to tell stories of people who've been overlooked. I am drawn to folks who are kind of in our margins because I'm drawn to stories that are, I'm drawn to centering stories that haven't always been on the center. I really have this core belief that every single one of us

is the hero of the story of our lives. And we all deserve to be the lead character in the story of our lives. And it's important for that idea to be represented in the narratives that we engage with.

I guess that gets considered political because I'm a woman and because I'm black. It's not meant to be a political act. I'm just really interested in making sure that we are sharing the microphone and not just allowing only certain voices to speak all the time. Well, that is a perfect segue into a little bit of broader look at your career. And you mentioned your production company, Simpson Street, correct? Yes.

And you said that it stands at the intersection of what makes us different and what makes us the same. So how does that motto, as you were saying, how does that guide your sense of the kinds of stories that you want to tell? Yeah.

We say that we stand at the intersection of what makes us different and what makes us the same because I'm so, we are so drawn to stories that are about very unique particular human experiences, but human experiences that are universal. So the

the kind of container that carries the story. We want it to be very specific, something you've never seen before. We want to allow you a window into a world you may not have access to. We want to tell a story with a high level of specificity. But deeper down, that story has to be about those resonant human truths. We all want to be loved. We all want to belong. We all have fears. We all want to succeed.

Those things everyone understands. And I think there's a real power in realizing that there's so much that we have in common that makes us beautifully connected to one another, but also so much that makes us different. And that too is our strength. So as everyone got very excited at the mention of scandal.

I was just at the Smithsonian Museum, the National Museum for African American History and Culture, and was showing my team that Olivia Pope's coat and hat are on display at the museum. And I thought, if you told little girl Carrie that she would be at a museum one day, it was

So exciting. And also to walk around that museum and see other characters that I've... To see Anita Hill, who I had the honor of playing in Confirmation, and to see they had medallions from Charity Adams' uniform on display in the museum. So it's really such an honor to be engaging with our history. And you've really been engaged recently with history, in particular with this film, but also with Daughters and... Yes. And I mean,

Is there something, are there lessons that you're always looking for when you are portraying historical figures? I've been really lucky to get to play a lot of real people. I played Ray Charles's real wife and Idi Amin's, a character based on a couple of Idi Amin's wives. And Olivia Pope was inspired by Judy Smith. So I've been really, really, and then Anita Hill and

and now Charity Adams. I think that there's a real joy for me in playing true characters because I am, you know, I went to college here in D.C., I went to GW, and I was a social science major, not an arts major, and I love to... At George Washington. Yes, at GW, and I love to approach

my work really as an anthropologist and a sociologist. So the research to me is kind of the most fun. So playing real people, the research is much easier to access. And it is in some ways liberating to have that much information to ground you as you kind of take the leap to try to be an entirely different human being.

Well, I mean, Scandal really kind of took on a life of its own. It did. And you've talked about how, in some ways, it kind of inspired the activism that you have gotten involved in because people were sort of looking at, you know, the Washington that you inhabited, right?

and your ability to be a gladiator and fix things. How did that sort of speak to your desire to kind of step into the political fray in real life? Yeah, it's interesting. So Olivia Pope, I would not say Olivia Pope inspired me to be an activist. I started activism in my adolescent years. I was doing a lot of work around education, sexuality education, health care, LGBTQIA rights. But

I would say that

- Well, even that's tricky. I was an official surrogate for the Obama campaign before scandal started. In fact, I had to call the Obama White House because I was appointed to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and I had to call them in a very awkward phone call one afternoon and say, "I need to tell you about two jobs that I'm about to do." And they were like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Just in case it changes anybody's mind, I'm about to play the wife of a slave in Django, who at the end of the movie blows up the plantation."

"Okay." I was like, "And then I'm gonna go do this TV show "where I play this DC fixer who's sleeping with the president." They were like, "What? "I put that through your vetting." But I will say, you know, I think one of the things that happened for me in 2016 was when I woke up after the election in 2016, my social media was really filled with messages of people saying, "Olivia Pope, you have to fix this."

And I realized in that moment that we as Americans have forgotten our agency and power in a democracy. The fact that so many of us don't show up to participate in our democracy, but then ask imaginary characters to do something about it is a problem. And I think...

I also don't say that with judgment. I say it with a lot of compassion. I think many of us don't see ourselves as being part of this democracy. And many of us don't see our needs being addressed, our priorities being tended to. So I started to think about ways to address

turn the spotlight that was on me to some of the folks who I think are the real Olivia Popes in community, like community organizers. Well, you took a very active role in the DNC. I did, yes, I did. Like multiple DNC conventions. Yes, yes. And I also have done this work with an organization called the VIP Cohort, where we pick people

really strong democracy building organizations all over the country that really do the day-to-day work, week after week, month after month, not every four years, but every single day, every single year, knocking on doors, addressing the values and priorities of communities. So we work with those organizations all over the country to support their work, uplift their work, help them tell their story to funders, to communities, help them with real media, traditional media, social media,

funding, infrastructure building. So that's, I'm just trying to kind of help us realize who the real Olivia Popes are and that's us, not me. - Well, I know a lot of people were disappointed with the outcome of this election and-- - And a lot of people weren't. - And a lot of people were not. But you had a message on your Instagram the day after. - Uh oh. - No, not that one, no I'm kidding. - Okay.

My mom made me take that one down. What did I say? You said be kind to yourself today. There's more work to do. So what do you see as the work ahead and your role in it? Yeah, I think I'm still figuring that out. I'm still like listening and trying to be kind to myself and to community members.

I think one of the things that -- It brings me back to "6888." One of the things about the film that I think is so important is that each of these women, when they go into this battalion and when they go overseas, you get the sense

that they all feel like they're on their own on this quest to try to achieve something. And they're very, they come from different places and they don't really understand each other all the time and Charity Adams in particular is carrying the weight of the success of this battalion. But how they win is when they come together.

How they win is when they stop trying to do it alone and fix it by themselves and they kind of lean into each other, into each other's superpowers and into each other's capacities. And when they link arms as sisters, that's when they find solution. So I think one of the things I'm really thinking about is how do we link arms in community and not

go this alone, but really figure out how to continue to walk toward the idea of a government by the people for the people that includes all of the people. That, I think, is the best vision and something that I'm thinking a lot about how I can contribute to making that a reality. Yeah. And I'm curious, when you said to be kind to yourself, what did you do?

the day after. Well, one of the great things about being a mom is that you don't get to stay stuck in your own stuff for very long. And I mean, like,

-Hard days and good days, right? Like, when I showed my kids the trailer for "6888," I was so -- You know, I'm a producer. I did a movie with Oprah. I'm so excited. This historic, important movie. And I showed my kids, and they were just giggling. And I was like, "What is so funny?" And they were like, "You talk so weird in that movie."

Because they know me as like their mom from New York and I sound like this southern, you know, captain and they were like, what is that voice? So that was fun. But I think the same is true on election day that, or the day after, you know, I got up and I went to, I dropped them to school and I hugged them and you just like, you... You carried on. You carry on with love. And I think that's,

That's really important for all of us right now to carry on with love for ourselves, for each other, for our communities, for the people we don't understand, to try to move forward with love. When you think about the arc of history from Charity Adams' time to today and the kind of glass ceiling that she was attempting to break,

Where do you sort of see the arc? Oh my gosh. I wish I could zoom out and see it clearly. What I know is that I live a life filled with more opportunity and freedom than Charity Adams had. And that is, I live this life as a thank you to Charity Adams.

right? Like I think it's part of my job to show up boldly and tell these stories and fight for my democracy and uplift my neighbors. Like doing all of that, I have to do in gratitude for the heroes who came before me, who believed in the possibility of an Olivia Pope, who believed in the possibility of a Carrie, of a Robin, right? That there's so much

to work to do, but there's space to do it because of the people who've come before me. And I think a lot these days about the kind of ancestor that I want to be, you know, because I want to be an ancestor who somebody else feels grateful for because I did my part. Yeah, I think that is a perfect note to add on. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Robin. The following segment was produced and paid for by a Washington Post Live event sponsor. The Washington Post Newsroom was not involved in the production of this content. Hi, everyone.

I'm Kathy Baird. It's nice to be here. I'm pleased to be joined by Claire Casey. Claire is president of AARP Foundation, a charitable affiliate of AARP that works to reduce senior poverty. One of the ways they do this is by helping older adults fight age discrimination and stay in the workforce.

As technology and economic forces are transforming the labor market, women are at the forefront of that disruption, which is no surprise. Claire is with us today to talk about these changes and what they mean for women. Welcome, Claire. It's so great to have you. Thank you for having me. Great to be here.

So we're going to start more broadly, and then we'll get into some specifics. But as we talk about this topic, what are the major changes that are shaping the economy, and how do you think they will impact the workforce? Yeah, so as someone who sits at the top of an organization focused on keeping people at work, getting them back to work, we spent a lot of time over the last couple years trying to understand what was changing in the workplace. And it's actually...

an incredibly interesting period in history to be working in, but there are some real massive shifts afoot. By some estimates, 60 million people in this country between today and 2030 are going to change occupations, not change jobs, change occupations.

And that's being driven by a number of big, big trends. One is our longevity. Our healthcare workforce is growing at four times the rate of the general economy. So that's driven by many, many, many more older people.

The second is that we've made a once-in-a-generation investment in changing the structure of our economy. We've put $2 trillion of investment into new infrastructure to be greener, cleaner, and more efficient, and also set up the third one, which is this massive technological change. We already had digitization. We already had automation. Now we have AI coming like a whirlwind and hitting all of us.

And we're seeing that as creating enormous productivity gains for some workers. It's also going to displace a lot of workers and what they used to do. When you combine AI with robotics and automation, suddenly a lot of jobs that people used to have will no longer exist.

and lower income workers are really at the, they're the population that is most vulnerable when we think about that shift. And so it's really front of mind for us at AARP Foundation. And I think it needs to be front of mind for all of us as a society.

Yeah, we were just talking about AI back in the backstage area, too. So this is the topic of today. But how can you describe what this disruption means specifically for women? Yeah, so as in the case of many more challenging things, women are really disproportionately impacted by this.

I said that low-income workers are in those fields. The fields that are gonna be declining are also fields that are dominated by women. We're talking about office support, food service, production lines. 72% of administrative and office support workers are women.

So as those roles decline, I think women have about a 50% greater chance of being in a job category that will be declining over the next coming years than men, 50% more likely. So we are really, as women, concerned about women. This is something we really need to be focused on. Last year was the first year in many, many, many years that the gender pay gap increased. Let's let that sink in for a minute.

You mentioned earlier in your setup longevity. So people are living longer lifespans and people want and need to work longer. But many people actually leave the workforce long before they're ready. Why is that happening and what trends are you seeing? Yeah, so again, we're coming from AARP Foundation. We're focused on that lower income worker. And so when you look at the experience of an older worker, anyone older, independent of skill level, income level,

If they lose their job or they have to leave for caregiving responsibilities, I've recently taken on caregiving responsibilities. I'm lucky enough to be in a job that A, allows me to do that and gives me the flexibility to do that. That's not the case for everyone.

There are a lot of things that will pull us out of the workforce temporarily. If you're an older worker, you're 40% more likely to enter the long term unemployed. Only one in 10 older workers, when they get back into the workforce, ends up in a job that pays them the same or more than the job they left.

So it is really, really scary. And then again, for lower income people, the situation is worse. So only a third of lower income workers in this country will be continuously employed through their 50s.

And so there's this imperative to figure out how to do this better, create pathways back into work, and create pathways for people to stay relevant, develop the skills they need to remain valuable to their workplaces, and to make that an inclusive approach. I'm a few years till 50. I'm almost there. It is scary to me that a 50-year-old is not someone that an employer thinks is worth training or retraining or upskilling.

So we've got to do a big shift in mindset. So those are some barriers, and I know there are others, which I'd love to hear about more for older workers who are seeking new skills to stay employed or change careers. What are those barriers? Yeah, I mean, I think it's,

- It's a simple answer, it's ageism. And it's ageism we have about ourselves and it's ageism that we have about others. I spend a lot of time talking to workforce organizations, going to economic justice events where people are really focused on how to improve the working lives of lower income people in this country. And it is extraordinary to me

how much that is just exclusively focused on young people. Not that we shouldn't be focused on young people, but we live in a country where we have to keep working and we have to stay relevant. And skills are changing faster than they've ever changed. IBM did this great report talking about the lifespan of a skill.

And it's down to two to four years. It's halved over the last few years. So when you're 50, you might have 20 years of work. You might need to upskill four or five times. How do we change our mindset about ourselves and about others to say that's worth investing in? I can learn and try new things. And so can they.

So on that note, what successful models for helping workers get the new skills they need to stay employed or find pathways back to work and how do we make these models better? Yeah, so that's a great question because I think it's where there's a lot of hope. We're actually really good at this. U.S. companies are great at upskilling their workforce. They're great at investing in people. Apprenticeship programs are proven tools to get people into better, more sort of what we call like decent work.

jobs that have benefits, jobs that will set you up to actually be able to retire one day. We know what works. I think we have two gaps. A, who's viewed, and sort of getting back to ageism, sexism, who's viewed as worth investing in as one. And also that we have large segments of our economy, huge employers,

that really don't have the resources to do what big companies do so well. So small and medium-sized enterprises that are going to need to adapt to technological change don't really have the infrastructure to upskill their workforce. It would be easier for them to fire the person who doesn't have the skill and hire someone who does because they don't have that capacity.

So how do we start thinking about supporting SMEs and giving them the tools to keep their workers, keep the people who they trust, who are great, and just help them evolve to remain relevant? I love these practical takeaways that you're giving us. And I want to get into more specifics of that because this is a room full of engaged citizens and change makers. So what is at stake for us if we don't act? Yeah, I mention this to people all the time. I think a lot about

When I was growing up professionally, I'm trained as an economist. And in the 90s when I was learning economics, that was a period where the big focus in terms of particularly global economics was around trade and around what happened in this country after NAFTA. Now NAFTA was great for the country overall. GDP went up, it was a net benefit. But there was a profound failure

to focus on and invest in transitioning those workers and those communities that got left behind by NAFTA. I was in Reading, Pennsylvania two years ago, and it is astonishing to me to see that town, which could be a vibrant economy that is a generator of growth and of good lives, of opportunity. It is still carrying the weight of losing its industries 30 years ago.

So we have this in front of us. Again, we are talking about millions of workers, and it scares me. We've got these AI companies investing in studies on universal basic income, something that I don't think is politically feasible in this country today. I think it's a bit of a distraction. What are we going to do for workers? How do we keep them engaged? How do we build opportunity? Yeah, I think there's a lot that could be done so we don't end up with millions of more people who feel hopeless

and who feel like there is an opportunity for them. Because I think we've seen what that's produced for our society and for our politics. I like the message of hope a lot. I think specifically sort of my final question, what can we do to help older workers navigate the technological shifts, which we've discussed today, AI, et cetera, that are shaping all of our workplaces? Yeah, so I would say this. I think it actually starts with us.

I sat on Monday night at a dinner and I met this wonderful woman named Joey. She's 78 years old. She's just about to step down from being the chair of the board of a great foundation out in Colorado. And she said to the table, "I wish at 50, 28 years ago, I had realized or understood how much I had in front of me, how much I would do, how many new skills I would learn,

And I was really inspired by that idea that she's looked back and said, "I would have made different choices. I would have acted sooner if things didn't feel like things were ending rather than beginning." So I think we really have to get comfortable doing things that are uncomfortable. Trying new skills, saying the job I'm in may not exist and I want to get ahead of that. So if we start doing it for ourselves, I've been thinking a lot about how we also talk to each other and what we talk about.

I think it's a little uncomfortable to talk about picking up entirely new skills. Not, you know, I picked up knitting or I picked up a new language. But, like, I got really good at using Claude to draft a – I used it this morning to draft my holiday card. But picking up new things, trying new things, because if we're doing it ourselves, if we're talking about it with each other, menopause is having a moment because women started talking about menopause.

but we hadn't been, right? So how do we do that? And if we do that, how do we open a conversation where everyone is saying older people are still valuable in terms of training, women are valuable, and let's invest in that value. - Such a great message from Joey and also from you. Claire Casey, president of AARP Foundation, thank you so much for the conversation. - Thank you. - And now we'll continue with the rest of our program.

And now, back to Washington Post Live. Good afternoon. I'm Susanna George. I'm the Washington Post Gulf Bureau Chief. Before this role, I was the Bureau Chief for Afghanistan and Pakistan. And I'm joined on stage today by Nagina Khalili. She was the first female prosecutor in her province in Afghanistan investigating cases of domestic violence. She fled the country in August of 2021.

And Homayra Khadari, an Afghan writer, activist, and educator. She also left the country with her son after the Taliban takeover in August of 2021. Nagina, Homayra, welcome to The Washington Post. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.

I'd like to start off our chat with talking about some personal stories. Nagina, you were born in Afghanistan, and we mentioned you were the first female prosecutor in your province. Explain where were you when the Taliban took over in the country? How did that day unfold for you?

Yeah, thank you so much. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for having me in this panel. As you mentioned, I was born in Afghanistan and I was raised in Afghanistan and I had many opportunities to stay in other countries when I had my master's degree from the United States to stay here or go to other places, but I chose to go back to my country many times.

I was in Afghanistan the day that Afghanistan collapsed. And I remember that day and still it's a nightmare for me and I'm sure for millions of people and also girls especially and women in Afghanistan.

That day I felt like the world had turned upside down. I saw the tears, I saw the fears, and I saw the collapse of not just a government, and also a collapse of generation, hope, and all the achievement that the women and also the girls had during the 20 years. I was in my office, it was 11 o'clock.

One of my colleagues, she came and I was doing an investigation for my client and she told me the Taliban came and I was shocked.

I didn't believe it, like, you know, that they happened in my life. And I remember, like, you know, I couldn't stand. And I was shocked and just remembered all of the things that happened in 1996, which my mother told me and I saw in the movies. I said, what will happen? Like, you know, how will be the future for me and also for other girls in Afghanistan? Humayra, you were born in Afghanistan. You lived under Taliban rule in the 90s.

For you, how did that day in 2020 when the Taliban took over, what was your reaction? And how quickly did you begin to worry about the future of women's rights in the country? It was at 11:00 in the morning, and my brothers called me that Taliban entered the city. I was in Kabul University and lived near to the Kabul University. I went to a street.

And it was for second time that I faced with Taliban. For me, it was like they back from their graves again. And at that moment, I really wanted to be like a whale and swallowed all this Taliban. Back in 1996,

They solved all of my friends. We had a normal life. Yes, we came out of the civil war at that time, but we could be at street, we could be at university, we could be at schools, and our mother could go to do their jobs. But Taliban in 1996 conquered my city and our lives suddenly come to a halt. So,

This time, but the big difference was that this time Taliban were more anger. I could see that anger in their eyes and we women didn't do things wrong. We just studied during those 20 years, every day of 20 years. So I couldn't be availed, but

I started to call to many of friends that I had in media and I begging them that please invite me to your TV because I knew what would happen after that. It was a shock for them that I wanted to be in a station, TV station at those days. But I started to go and I knew that I should speak out. That's it. Since the Taliban takeover, women's rights have been rolled back steadily.

It was something that happened very quickly and has been tightened over the months and years since they took over the country. Most recently, one of the laws this year forbid women from raising their voices in public. That's the level that we've gotten to.

Nagina, are you surprised that this is what has happened to Afghanistan since the Taliban took over? Or did you think that there was space for what people used to talk about, a Taliban 2.0, a more moderate Taliban?

- Yes, so actually, to be honest, I was not surprised because the regime that the Taliban had in 1996, it was the same that they have now in 2021. The first time that they say, everyone say the Taliban changed, but they said no, they are the same that they were in 1996. Nothing happened to the ideology to change.

Because the Taliban, they just believe to restriction of women. They don't believe on human rights. They don't believe on women rights. Even like, you know, they don't believe in humanity. They just think like, you know, the power that they can gain and also to have it is just to restrict women in Afghanistan. And this is stories that we are hearing from like inside. It's not just forbidding of the voices.

The women and the girls, especially my students, they were my students when I was in Afghanistan, they are telling me even they have all of the requirements, like hijab requirement that the Taliban ask for, they are investigated by the Taliban. They cannot walk freely outside without punishment. And also, when they go with the male chaperone, they ask to show they are relatives, like brothers or husband, or have Nikanama, which is like marriage certificate.

And it's hard for everyone to get marriage certificate now in Afghanistan. And if they don't show, they took them in the prison.

In the last month, more than 95 people flagged in Afghanistan, which includes 15 women. 38 women were arrested in one month. Think how this new law affected on women's rights, not just the women's rights, but also the men's and also human rights in Afghanistan.

Mayra, I'm interested in what you think. What is the purpose of this clampdown on women's rights? I know that some people thought that maybe the Taliban were restricting women's rights in order to have negotiating power with the international community. Do you think that that was the long-term goal?

- I want to add to Nagina's talk that as a woman from Afghanistan who lived under the rule of Taliban for five years and was in a, like my house was a jail for me at that time. I am also not surprised at all. I'm very familiar with this cruel,

anti-women misogynistic rule of Taliban. But I wanted to add that I'm really surprised with that bravery woman in Afghanistan. Every time that Taliban come with a new decrees, for example, the last decree was that woman cannot hear each other voice.

one adult woman are not allowed to, is it like a haram, forbidden? And in the media, women from Afghanistan girls, they use every platform that they have in media. They came singing and speak loud. So I'm not surprised with the rules, but I'm very surprised with the women acts and activity in Afghanistan. We didn't have it before. But I think

Taliban identity is to be anti-woman. So it's not just for, maybe at the beginning, a word saying that they wanted to take all these woman rights from society to come for bargaining chips like this. But no, it's not like that. This is the definition of the Taliban identity. They are exactly like this. They don't believe in women.

Nagina, I know that you're in touch with your family that's still in Afghanistan. I like that we talked a little bit about the bravery of Afghan women. When you talk to your family members, what do they say about their day-to-day lives now, especially your female family members?

Yeah, they are telling me like the life, they felt like, you know, they are in prison. They don't have freedom. They don't have anything that we have in the United States or outside of Afghanistan. In this century, we are the only country in the world that the women are banned from education, from work, and from all the fundamental rights that we are talking about.

They are telling me, do you remember COVID-19 that it was in all the countries in the world? And how much it was hard for us to stay home and be separated from our friends, relatives, not to go and also visit them. Even if we want to go grocery and buy stuff for our eating or something.

We were locked down in the houses. And in Afghanistan, more than three years, the women, they are locked in the houses without no freedoms. Even when they are speaking to me, my brothers, he also told me he cried last day. And I said, why are you crying? He said, when I went outside in the street, one of the talib, he stopped me.

And he said, "Why you wear a T-shirt and jeans?" And he asked me to do Afghani clothes and also to not have long hairs.

So, I think it's not just about women, it's also about the men. They are losing the chance to grow up in a society that values education, that values democracy, that values human rights, and also depriving women from all of their values that they have and give them this

incentive that you are a woman and we see you like a second gender and you're not allowed to have all of the rights that men have. - It's that tight control over all public life for men and women. - Yes. - Humaira, I know that you created a virtual reading and writing community for Afghan women and girls.

How are you meeting with these students? And I know that we've heard a lot of stories about these underground schools with these women and girls who are determined to learn, even that it's illegal. Susanna, in 1996, when Taliban took the power, I started to cry. And my mom told me that if a woman can make something with the crying, it was me. I should have a big building right now.

So do something. And she was the person who helped me to turn her kitchen. In Afghanistan, usually in the buildings, in the house, woman has the most biggest room as the kitchen because they live there. They cry there, they fall in love there, they gossip, and they do everything in the kitchen.

And my mom gave her kitchen to me to turn it to a school. I was barely a teenager. And I love it because I had some student at my age and I could play with them. And at the same time, yes, teach them.

At that time, my father is a teacher of literature, Persian literature in Afghanistan, and he had many books. And I started to read his book. And there was a time that I think reading is not enough, and I started to write. We had a class.

We named it the Golden Needle. And we supposed to do needlework there. But what we did? We started to write and read a story. And my first story was published in 1999 under the Taliban rule with my real name, which was totally forbidden. Yeah, all the family went to the street and collect the newspaper. And they burned them in the house. Taliban said, we will lash this woman. Who is she? But I survived.

And when I had to leave Afghanistan with the last flight in August 28, I was in a camp in September, in a military camp in Texas, and I asked myself,

What's helped me to survive? Of course, I lost many of my friends. Let's take a name, Lida. She was very close for me. She was a poet, very big poet, famous poet in Afghanistan. And you don't know her name because we didn't have any internet at time to send her name out.

And she put herself on fire. And I asked myself how we can help others because, again, I knew what would happen in Afghanistan based on my experience living in Afghanistan. And I remembered the Golden Needle. So I started the Golden Needle Literary Association, of course, at the beginning like a golden needle, when I was in a camp.

And you can go to my Facebook page. When I put the first announcement and claimed that I want to have a class for creative writings, you can see hundreds of hundreds of boys and girls. They wanted to come, and they submitted their application and asked me to enroll them in my class. Now, in that Golden Needle Literary Association, which I registered in Boston while I was in Harvard,

And we have 11 courses. And there are many Afghan women and girls that work with me. And two days ago, one of my students, Latife, I wanted to take her name, and she just sent me a picture of the cover of her books. And it's very important in Afghanistan where we say a good woman is a silent woman. We now learn to speak loud.

I'd like to show all of you one of those voices, one of the students. We have a video that features your student, Samira. Let's take a listen.

I told my sister this morning, "Zohreh, I think you are jealous." My sister said, "No, why do you think so?" I said, "I don't understand. A friend of mine went to Iran." This channel has a Telegram. It has pictures from universities. It says, "This teacher said this." For example, we did this. Another friend of mine went.

I was in a university. I don't want to say that they are not in this situation or that I am not familiar with them. I just want to say that I was in such a situation. I wish I was going to university. It has been many days, sir, that...

We're running out of time, but I do want to put one final question to both of you.

It's a question I get a lot from my friends and family when I talk to them about what's happening in Afghanistan. People here today, other people who are listening, who care, who this has touched them, who care about the plight of Afghan women, what can they do to support Afghan women at this time? Ira? Yeah, this video, like, you know, remembers me, like, all the things that we were in 1996,

And, like, you know, the biggest dream for an Afghan woman just to go back, like, to school and university. And I imagine, like, you know, your daughters, your sister, even yourself, like, you know, be in a country that deprives all of these rights, even not be able to go to school and also university. And that's hard. Just imagine that if you're in that same situation. One thing that I want to say...

Nowadays, the media is not covering all of the things in Afghanistan that's happening. And what happened to the war, like in other countries, we are also kind of forgotten by the people and international communities. Which I want to say, I want the people, and especially the United States, to recognize Taliban as a terrorist.

and recognize their government as terrorists and also not support them, not financially and also politically. And I hope this new administration have a clear and also proactive

policies regarding the ongoing humanitarian and also human rights crisis in Afghanistan and also recognize them as a terrorist and also not supporting them financially and also politically, meantime support Afghan women who are inside and also who are outside of Afghanistan and gave them the opportunity to raise their voices

and not forget that when there is a talk or like a meeting or like diplomacy, Afghan women should be at the table and not just the men and also not just the Taliban. That's a perfect note to end on. Ladies, thank you so much. Nadina Khalili, Humaira Qadari, thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for listening. For more information on our upcoming programs, go to WashingtonPostLive.com.