Hosseini's Violation Of Gender Inequality In Afghanistan

Khaled Hosseini uses his powerful words to portray the growth and development of women in patriarchal society. Women are eager for freedom, but the society not allows them at that time. They have lower social status than men, leading to unequal power relations. Women is suffering physical abuse and psychological abuse at the same time. It not only talks about Marian and Laila’s life, but also refers all tragic women live in the Afghanistan during that period. The speaker of novel try to reveal the typical image of man power in the patriarchy society. Women are the victims of this kind of social system. But in order to live better and become the master of their own life, they choose to fight for their freedom and rights, rather than rely on men and wait to be respected. We are faced with challenges and events that can seem overwhelming, life-destroying to the point where it may be hard to decide whether to keep going. But you always have a choice. Inequality between men and women is the root cause of the right to private ownership and male social repression. Different culture scripts really affect the people who live there. We need to change men’s mind, and educate woman to build up the correct value and views on life. To achieve the equality, we still have long way to

Gender inequality remains a major barrier to human development. In this PBS, they talked about Afghanistan women’s right. In Afghanistan, women and girls are discriminated against in health, education, political representation, and labor market. Women roles are given at birth, as one's biological sex, they are to be learned and taught amongst those surrounding one at an early age, and the society and culture one lives in. I think this is a serious problem around the world, not only in Afghanistan. We can see crimes against women consist of violence, femicide (murder of women), and rape (war rape) in countries such as Pakistan and the Muslim Middle East. I think it doesn’t happen in developing countries but also in the modern countries. If we compare between women and men salary in the same kind of jobs in America, men will get more salary than women even women might work harder and better. I think this gap needs to be fixed. However, this issue has been chronically for at least 100 years and it is hard to solve. I think if we want to get this culture changed, we need to start new cultivation to the new generation. The remedy would have to emanate from the cultural tradition of the citizenry; accordingly, the collaboration of local communities, institutions, national authorities and international bodies is essential to influencing change and promoting the value of women.

After the war, the Taliban, a fundamentalist group, known for providing safe haven for Osama bin Laden, came to power. They were known for twisting Islamic law and filtering it to their needs. The Taliban showed no respect to women and despised them, giving them unjust laws with harsh consequences if broken. In the article, “Women in Afghanistan-The Back Story,” it’s stated that, “There were many other ways their rights were denied to them. Women were essentially invisible in public life, imprisoned in their home. In Kabul, residents were ordered to cover their ground and first-floor windows so women inside could not be seen from the street. If a woman left the house, it was in a full body veil (burqa), accompanied by a male relative: she had no independence.” Under the Taliban, women were locked up in their homes like prisoners, and not permitted to leave unless accompanied by a man. Women were already denied the right being involved with the war physically, and now they are being denied the right to actually leave their house physically. This “imprisonment” made it even harder for the women to be involved with the war, because they didn’t have the chance to go out and make a change when they were stuck in their homes. They couldn’t get involved with the war, or act on feminist rights because they didn’t have a chance! Because they were

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, the two protagonists, Mariam and Laila, fight against those who hold power in their lives. In the setting of the book, Afghanistan, women had essentially no rights starting in 1994. This was the year that the Taliban took control of the country after the Soviet Union had left. The Taliban installed a new set of laws which stripped women of their liberties, in the story Mariam and Laila are two of the many women these new rules affected. Mariam and Laila struggle against the structure of their society — which is embodied by their husband Rasheed — and fight against it by continuously trying to break free from Rasheed’s control; and it is this struggle which demonstrates the hardships women face in Afghanistan.

The Taliban is an Islamic fundamentalist political movement which came to power as Afghanistan’s government in 1996 but was overthrown by the U.S. after 9-11 in 2001. The official government put into power by the U.S. after the Taliban overthrow was headed by President Hamid Karzai, but he and his government mostly only had power in Kabul and Kandahar, urban cities. After the Taliban, the misogynistic Mujahedeen regained power in many rural parts of Afghanistan, where they forced women to stay indoors and constantly wear the burqa. Although the Mujahedeen oppose the Taliban, the two organizations are similar in many ways when it comes to women’s rights. The Taliban enforced Sharia law, which is strict Islamic law, according to the Taliban members’ interpretation of the Quran. According to this law, women have little to no rights. Women under the Taliban could never leave their houses unless they had a permit because of an emergency, and even then they had to be accompanied by a close male relative. Women were also forbidden from school and work. This was devastating for many women who didn’t have husbands supporting the family. Countless families were left completely impoverished with no income. On top of that, women were forced to wear the burqa, a garment that completely covers the body except a small screen for the eyes. Even though they had just lost their salary, and did not have enough money for food, numerous women had to buy these garments

According to the Taliban’s interpretation of the Holy Koran, women were inferior in every aspect of life. As a result women and girls were stripped of their rights and were considered possessions. As Sirius Black said in the novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, “… to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” (Rowling, 2000). The Taliban’s treatment of their “inferiors” shows their indifference towards the helpless innocents of their society, an inability to feel compassion regarded as a villainous trait.

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

Feminism has revolutionized the rights of women around the world. From having almost no rights to suddenly being set free, the women of Afghanistan have faced a drastic change in their lives. After the Taliban was overthrown in 2001, the women of Afghanistan have gained new liberal rights that were once lost under the Talban’s rule. However, the women lack protection to be able to safely use these freedoms and continue to be abused for not complying with the rules of the past. These new liberal rights will set the path for the women of Afghanistan towards equality.

This short video covers women’s rights in Afghanistan before and after the Taliban, the mid-90’s. The makers of this video often post informative videos, in fact, that’s all they post. In this video, Paula Bronstein, a woman that studies Afghan culture with a main focus on women, is interviewed about the information she found in her studies. This video’s content explains the oppression of Afghan women.

During Hosseini time living in Afghanistan, women essentially had the same rights as men. They had the right to education, the right to seek a professional employment, and last but not least the ability to marry the man they chose themselves (Stuhr 2). For example, his mother was a high school teacher and his father a diplomat with the Afghanistan Foreign, meaning that they had equal rights (Biography 1). Then during the Taliban Era, women were protected under the law and banished from numerous human rights. They were stripped off form the work force and the women’s schools were closed down. The woman could not leave their homes without a man and they had to wear a burqa that covered their whole body. All these rights were implied in the novel

Men are the main perpetrators in most women's rights cases, but in Afghanistan, it is society. Women are looked down upon so severely that even women themselves are ashamed when they give birth to females because “everybody feels sad for you” (Nordberg). A pregnant woman in Afghanistan gave birth to twins prematurely. When they arrived, they were extremely small and unconscious. The woman's mother-in-law began to cry, not because the babies were unconscious, but because both of them were girls. It is a disgrace to have more girls in the family.

In addition to the ongoing problems, a lot of people in Afghanistan are internally displaced, meaning that they fled their homes only to move to the borders of Afghanistan. Most people have to flee from their homes because of violence, wars and lack of necessary needs to survive. The location in which they move is usually from war zones or places with high violence, to camps and “safety” shelters. However, Afghanistan does offer some assistance by having camps and shelters, unfortunately it doesn’t provide much help because of the terrible conditions and health hazards. Being internally displaced affects the population severely because a lot of women don’t go to school, and their is a lack of contraceptives causing more child birth rates.

Afghanistan, since the past three decades, has been known for its repressive rules against women. The history of Afghan women’s subjugation goes as far back as the Mujahedeen and can hence be viewed within the larger historical context of Afghanistan. Islam, although considered a global religion, the radical Afghan Muslim preachers or influential Afghan teachers react belligerently towards the western

Before reading this novel I thought that I had a fairly good understanding of the restrictions that faced women in Afghan culture. However, after finishing this eye-opening novel, I was struck by the abundance of knowledge that was unknown to me. The most prominent theme that I saw in this story was social injustice, especially through gender roles. The oppression that Mariam, Laila and countless other women faced each day due to the fact that men in Afghan culture desired complete control and power over women shocked me.

This film was powerful. Illustrating many aspects of gender inequality in Afghanistan, this film communicated to me just how oppressed women are in these middle eastern countries and how drastic of devices they have to resort to in order to live a life worth living. It was truly moving. This film certainly changed my perception of what it is like to live in Afghanistan as a women. This film changed this perception in two way. The first of which is that this film exposed me to the rigor at which oppression is enforced particularly by the Taliban. I have always thought of the Taliban as a militant government group that pushed its oppressive agenda by way of force, but only on rare occasions. This film changed that as it showed how the Taliban