Ma`rifat Farhangi Ejtemaei

The subject of the present study is the formal education of women in Afghanistan and the issue of gendered notions that create meaning in men's perception of formal education of women in Afghanistan. Despite social changes and modernity, women's education in traditional societies such as Afghanistan is one of the important components in studies and research in the field of women and family for various social, cultural, religious, political and economic reasons. The research was conducted with a qualitative approach of content analysis and using semi-structured interviews with men (single and married) aged 20 to 50 to collect data. After implementing the interviews, more than 310 open codes were obtained, and a review of the open codes led to 120 primary codes, 16 secondary codes and finally 4 central codes. "The link between female identity and household skills", "Concern for gender-based moral and religious order", "The continuation of male authority in the shadow of female limitations and deprivation", "The empowerment of educated women in the midst of threats and admiration" are the central codes of the research. The research findings show that women's education has a dual and tense nature in the discourse of Afghan men. This means that women's education is seen as an inevitable necessity and in line with the needs of modern society, and at the same time, it is perceived as a threat to the dominant gender order and hegemonic masculinity.