Not long ago, I came across a claim that travels widely online: that Afghan women were granted the right to vote in 1919, before women in the United States, France, Italy, and Switzerland. I understand why people share it. It pushes back against a false and damaging picture of Afghan women as people who have never had a public life, a political voice, or a place in their country's story. But history is not made more honorable by making it simpler. The more I looked...

We lived freely among the stars. Now we roam like ghosts around our homes.