On the outside you look, talk, and act like a man, but on the inside you are a young girl. There is a tradition in Afghanistan culture that was gone on for centuries called bacha posh where young girls grow up as men in a culture bound by women oppression. In Jenny Nordberg’s book The Underground Girls of Kabul she explores the Afghan culture and tradition on bacha posh. The bacha posh tradition is often seen as a practical to solution to women oppression that can lead to female empowerment and a higher family social status; although it can also leave negative psychological and mental affects that lead to issues later in life. In a society where a girl’s life is not valued as highly as a boy’s a family may choose to create a bacha posh or …show more content…
They grow up seeing sisters be the girls they are, but the bacha posh girls can create this false sense of male gender. These girls go from full male freedom back to women oppression that they never experienced in the first place. “A person’s sex is determined at birth, but a gender is not: It is trained and adopted through performance” (Nordberg 176). The transition back to being a woman is the hardest part “… the clear rules on exactly what constitutes masculinity and femininity in Afghanistan are the reason it was so hard... for her to learn how to become a woman” (179). Growing up a man and transforming back into their assigned sex can be confusing. Timing is the key figure in the transition back, if done too late it can cause more …show more content…
Waiting too long to turn someone back could have consequences for a girl’s reputation. A teenage girl should not be anywhere near teenage boys, even in disguise. She could mistakenly touch them or rather be touched by the, and could ruin her chances of getting married, and would be seen as a tarnished offering” (70).
If these girls are forced into marriages, they will be missing pieces of how to be a woman and a wife. It is so risky for not only the family but could jeopardize the girl’s future. If she is ‘tarnished’ she can’t get a husband. This can really take a toll on their psychological wellbeing. It makes the girls feel as if they are not enough, or have no value. The only value women have in the Afghan society is to be a wife and mother. The tradition of bacha posh can really hurt these young
Khaled Hosseini, an inspirational author, has experienced and wrote books based on the society and culture of Afghanistan. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, the main protagonist, Laila, is in the middle of a war-fighting country. At one point, her father says to her, “marriage can wait, education cannot” (Hosseini 103). Her father urges her to take the advantages of knowledge rather than jumping into marriage. Marriage is a life-long process that according to the Quran, bids a woman to follow her husband. All in all, it’s general knowledge that love, respect, and trust is what keeps the strong bond between man and wife. There have been too many times where they have been caged and looked down upon. Women deserve the same equality as men. It won’t happen immediately, but the change is happening, slowly. One way to gain that right, is to create an organization and promote the idea of women being able to get a job, education, and not being married at an early age in Afghanistan. The organization would be able to collect money for two buildings. One building will be for a school, so that women get the education they deserve. The other building opens up for opportunities for a job. Those jobs could range from sewing to cooking. Women are more than just a trophy to just sit there and act as though they do not have a voice. The challenge may be a struggle but not
The movie series "Bacha Posh: She Is My Son: Afghanistan's Bacha Posh, When Girls Become Boys" is a movie documentary which emphasize on the gender roles practiced by the citizens of Afghanistan. The movie depicts how the social construction of gender roles affects mostly the female children in their society. It focuses on the need for every family to have a male child, with the reason that only the Male children have the right to go to school, obtain a job and make money for the family, while the Female children are expected to stay at home and take care of the family and they are often discouraged from getting a job. The most interesting part of this movie series is the fact that in an event that a family gives birth to only female children the family would most likely disguises their female children into dressing and acting like a male child a term which is referred to as
Even though women may be constricted from the tasks that they like, they will make sacrifices for their family members in order for them to survive. In a Deborah Ellis’s novel, The Breadwinner, we follow the story of a young girl named Parvana. Parvana’s life had turned upside down under the Taliban’s rule, but she still kept her head high and support her family. The young protagonist, Parvana, is affected by other character’s choices within the story; Taliban took her father away, Mrs. Weera convinced her to disguise as a boy and Shauzia befriends her.
I choose this extraordinary novel because the story is very heartbreaking and heart-touching, about many culture issues such as women life which dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their only path to an accepted social status, the story of an illegitimate daughter who finally forced at young age into marriage, the portrait of friendship and love in the middle of conflicts, the cruelty to women is endorsed by custom and law, and social document covering Afghan history from before the Soviet war until after the Taliban rule.
Abstract: Women of Afghanistan are forced to live under oppressive regulations set forth for them by the men of their societies. Women have virtually no rights to do anything for themselves. There entire lives are controlled by and lived for someone else. Through their songs, they lament the conditions of their lives and are able to convey a beauty in their verses that all people can identity with. (67 words)
Travesties are committed against women every day, in every country, in every city, town and home. In Afghanistan women are not only discriminated against, they are publicly reduced to animals. Women are deprived of basic human rights: they are not allowed to travel outside their homes without being completely covered by the traditional shroud-like burqa; they are not allowed to speak or walk loudly in public; they are not allowed to laugh or speak with other women; they are not allowed to attend school nor work; they are expected to be invisible; they are the ghosts of what were once educated, notable, and successful women. With their ruthless and extreme laws, the Taliban have effectively removed the physical presence of women in Afghanistan. The Taliban have stolen the very souls of these women and have turned them into the “living dead” of Afghanistan. The Taliban’s harsh restrictions and extreme religious laws have tainted the freedoms and basic human rights of the once valued and prominent women of Afghanistan.
(Christine Skelton, 2006). Evidence from various researches suggests that gender is socially constructed and children learn them through their everyday social interactions within their families, schools and societies as a whole. It can be noted that not all research or studies on gender necessarily look at ‘where gender comes from’ because many of these approaches only look at the existing social relation without exploring the origins. Talcott Parsons (1956) argued that the different roles of men and women are complementary and perpetuated because they are the most effective way to ensure the social and economic functioning of the society. Looking further indications of gender disparity in the Indian society are rooted in historical literatures on patriarchy found in the early brahmanical texts which illustrated ways to control a women’s sexuality by confining them to household duties or seclusion from the outside world in
The practice of bacha posh can empower women and subvert society’s traditional rules. Women dressed up as a boy show society that they can do the same activities as men, which means that women have the capacity to the do the same work as a man. Practicing bacha posh can impact the system of Afghanistan, because women will have more power. They will be able to get an education and to be part of society. Women can then arrive at the point of being part of the government in Afghanistan by the practice of bacha posh. The empowerment of women can strengthen the system. Nowadays, Afghanistan continues having women out of the system, but the difference is that today’s society recognized the value of women because there were and are women
This article was written to bring attention to the way men and women act because of how they were thought to think of themselves. Shaw and Lee explain how biology determines what sex a person is but a persons cultures determines how that person should act according to their gender(Shaw, Lee 124). The article brings up the point that, “a persons gender is something that a person performs daily, it is what we do rather than what we have” (Shaw, Lee 126). They ...
This book by A. Widney Brown and LeShawn R.Jefferson reflects on the negative impacts of different Talib decrees on the overall development Afghan women.
Lila Abu-Lughod’s article titled, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” takes a closer look at the problematic ethnocentric approach many have when trying to gain an understanding of another culture that may be foreign to that individual. In this analytical paper, Lughod looks at women in Islam, specifically the treatment of women and how it might be utilized as a justification for invading into a country and liberating its people. The country Lughod refers to in her article is Afghanistan, and Lughod points out the misunderstanding from the people to the Bush administration like First Lady Laura Bush who believed that intervention was necessary to free women from the captivity of their own homes. It is important to consider the role that different lenses play into all of this, especially when one’s lenses are being shaped by the media. Depictions of covered women secluded from society leave a permanent image in the minds of many, who would then later support the idea of liberation. This paper will discuss that the practice of using propaganda when referring to the lifestyle in the Middle East is not exclusive to the U.S; rather it has been utilized throughout history. Additionally, we will take a closer look on the importance of symbols, such as veils in this case; help to further emphasize the cause to liberate. Finally, we will analyze Lughod’s plea towards cultural relativism and away from liberal imperialism.
The aspect of masculinity and feminine is learnt by a child from their guardians implying that gender role is not a concept that is biological but much of a cultural. The Muslim dominated countries have their own gender roles that define their way of life. From the perspectives of how men and women relate, dress to how they carry out their duty. This contrasts the western societies where by gender ideals have changed over the last few decades (Clevard, 2006). The reason as to why such gender roles still inhibit the Muslim world and the western society has changed is because of the cultural ties that have always been maintained by the Muslim societies and broken by the western union.
From the 1950’s until around 1985 the Soviet Union had Afghanistan under its control. This Soviet involvement in Afghanistan caused the ideologies of communism to spread into the Afghanistan culture. One of the communistic ideas that were assimilated into was the thought that every person is equal. This idea made life a lot easier for the women of Afghanistan. One of the freedoms they were given under Soviet control was the allowance of woman being educated, “The government had sponsored literacy classes for all women. Almost two-thirds of the students at Kabul University were women now… women who were studying law, medicine, engineering” (135) Hosseini expresses this through the character Laila. Laila’s father, Babi, was a professor and strongly urged the necessity for Laila to get an education. He was so dedicated that he would help out Laila with her homework every night. Hosseini expressed this when Laila claimed “Babi thought that the one thing that communists had done right- or at least intended to- ironically, was in the filed of education… More specifically the education of women.” (135). To Babi there was nothing more impertinent than the education of woman in Afghanistan. He knew that when half the population is illiterate the country cannot properly aspire to new and better things. Along with the new right to learn, women’s requirement to cover their skin was relaxed all throughout Afghanistan. ...
For the duration of time, society perceives men as superior, which infused to their cultural aspect in life. Society instilled male dominance to the minds of young children, imposing a role each sex must play. Girls are slaves of society, submitting to men as their master. And child brides are a perfect way to exhibit patriarchy society (Ludden). The young girl would be married off to take care of her own family, crippling them in attaining an education and getting a job. Girls were not meant to work (Radu). It is also said that the purpose of marrying off girls young was to keep their attractiveness. Roberta Radu says, “'Virginity is an "asset" that families customarily trade for substantial sums of money, so marriage is arranged as early as possible in order to preserve the girl's "desirability". Out of all of these inducements money was the biggest factor. Parents would arrange their daughter marriage due to poverty. The bride’s family would receive a dowry, basically trading girls for money. Again, girls were burdens and the parents used child marriage as a relief...
Arranging a marriage for a young girl is a simple way for the family to collect dowry money. For families living in poverty this is something they looked forward to since the birth of their daughter. Furthermore, having one less mouth to feed makes supporting the remaining children less demanding on the parents. In addition to financial reasons for the practice, in times of war an arranged marriage is a way to ensure that the child bride remains safe and out of harms way. An important aspect of most religions is purity. “The very idea that young women have a right to select their own partners—that