Oppression of Women in Afghanistan in the Text Aa Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Shad Helmstetter once said, “Choosing to live your life by your own choice is the greatest freedom you will ever have.” It is important that people are able to choose the paths of their own lives. As the quote suggests, the ultimate freedom is choice. Nonetheless, many people are denied this ultimate freedom. In relation to Afghanistan, many women are denied the ability to choose the course of their lives. The oppression of women in Khaled Hosseini’s, A Thousand Splendid Suns, subjects them to total control by men, however, when the prominent woman characters in the novel, such as Mariam and Laila, are able to maintain a sense of control, they pave the paths of their own lives.

In Afghanistan, Women’s rights were very denied and completely dismissed. Women were treated horribly. They were beaten, abused verbally, and even killed. Under the rule of the Taliban, women were better off staying in the safety of their own homes.

Today in the post –Taliban era, women still struggle with their rights. Resolutions were produced and rights for women have advanced since September 11th but in order to move forward, much work needs to be done. Hundreds of years of repression for Afghan women will take a lot longer than a few years to actually revolutionize. There is violence towards women that are not practicing traditions customs and fear retaliations from the Taliban. Customs are difficult to change as well as government policies. (Bora Laskin Law). In Afghanistan, religious and cultural values, politics, and an uncertain acting government have played a major part in the struggle for women’s rights.

In most societies, men feel the need to reinforce the idea of their superiority upon women, so thus they use religion to prove their dominance. A Talib told Mariam of how ‘God made us differently’(Hosseini 324). These “differences” that the Talib speaks of is one of main ways patriarchy is defended, since God made man and woman differently, the Afghan community assumes that they must be treated differently as well. Also, there must be one sex that is superior to the other then, many communities along with the Afghan community chose to place men above women due to sexist beliefs of the

The Constitution that was created in Afghanistan during the 1920’s, stated equal rights for women and men. In fact, during the year of 1959, new policies created educational and career opportunities and voluntary removal of having to wear the burka. Women’s roles become similarly equivalent to male roles; they had the opportunity to acquire knowledge from universities, and were provided jobs in industrial, business, and entertainment settings. The atrocities that came about during the Mujaheddin and Taliban control were unheard of years prior, when women lived in peace and prosperity

Growing up and living in Afghanistan as a woman has its challenges. Parents choose who can marry you and they choose everything for you. In this book, Laila and Mariam both show the struggles it is to be a girl, and how much disrespect they get in Afghanistan. Both Mariam and Laila are married to the same man, and he is abusive to both of them. They also live under Taliban rule, and the rules that they set are very unfair for women. In Khaled Hosseni’s novel, he has many different themes but the most prevalent one is of woman inequality, and that is shown through multiple accounts of abuse, disrespect, and unfairness.

With this in mind one can see how maintaining family connection in Afghanistan is the best way to reach success. Men and women have different roles within these households as well. Ultimately their actions bring honor or shame onto their family based off of these roles, for instance while men work to provide income, women receive great honor through being a good wife and mother (Fluri, 2011). These methods gaining honor or shame often stem from their Muslim religion which carries over into their social lives. Afghan women typically wore long baggy clothing such as burqas as they are modest and provided them with a sense of spatial privacy (Fluri, 2011). They also wore their clothing such as a hijab is seen necessary as a sign of respect to their god as the people around them (Fluri, 2011). They also also hold power within the household through social networking for her family, giving her the responsibility to extend the family contacts through this manner and control who the family is associated with (Fluri, 2011). Women would traditionally gather in places void of men forming their own social sphere to better themselves and their families(Schütte,2014). Women even sometimes marry for the sake of creating a permanent connection to another family. All of these concepts are completely foreign to westerners as we don’t socialize in this manner, but even if we don’t except their social norms, that doesn’t give us a right to critique it.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, a book written by Khaled Hosseini, gives us a unique and informative glimpse into life in Afghanistan in the early 1960’s to the 2000’s. In it we can see many different political and social issues ravaging the country, with the most evident being gender inequality. Though many diverse groups of people were being discriminated against at the time, most of the subordination fell onto women as they had more and more rights taken away from them when various ruling powers took control. The author relays this information to us and educates us as to what happened through compelling and thought-provoking literary devices such as symbolic characters and objects, and allusions. By using these

The Taliban is an extremist Islamic group highly emphasizing a strong interpretation of sharia law that arose in the early 1990s after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Referencing the BBC article, a common belief holds that the Taliban first emerged in religious seminaries that preached a hard line of Sunni Islam. The Taliban’s promise to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the surrounding area was to restore peace and security using their interpretation of the sharia law once they were in power (“Who Are the Taliban?”). Along with the many new policies and regulations of society, there arose a new interpretation of the role of women in society. Women became very restricted and had to live in a way that was extremely submissive to men to the point where it was almost dehumanizing, as many would argue. Although the Taliban has been out of control in Afghanistan since December of 2001, remnants of their oppression towards women remain. In this paper, I will demonstrate the Taliban’s remaining effects in Afghan society regarding many aspects of everyday life, such as the workforce, education, healthcare, and human rights. To begin, I will give a brief overview of how Afghan women participated in society before the Taliban came to power. I will then provide information and examples that shed light on women’s life during Taliban rule. In the final section of this paper, I will describe how the lifestyle of women has changed as a result of the Taliban’s oppressive laws and

Today in the United States, freedom is taken for granted by almost all citizens. People think that because of the way our government is structured, not having freedom will never be an issue. This thought of peace and safety was similar to that of the women in Afghanistan prior to the Taliban reign, and before the government in Afghanistan was overthrown. Their fortunes would change in 1996 when the Taliban ended up controlling Afghanistan, and denying women of all their rights such as work, education, health care, and many more. The lifestyle women were accustomed to be forced to be drastically changed, and the country they once felt love for, they felt fear. Even though their regime only lasted for about 5 years, the Taliban took a

The Taliban implemented laws restricting the movements and actions of women in Afghanistan in public places. While attempting to visit her child in a home for young girls, Laila is beaten within an inch of her life as a consequence of walking outside without a male escort (Hosseini). The extreme course of action, beating a woman for walking alone, demonstrates the illogical and unjustifiable actions the Taliban promotes the practice of in Afghanistan. The women and men have dramatically unequal rights.

Hosseini makes it very apparent that honour is extremely important to people in the Afghan culture and what others think of them means a lot. An Afghan would do anything to keep their honour, even if it means they are unhappy. In both novels, Hosseini shows a number of examples of dishonour and the negative impacts it can have to an individual’s well-being. According to the Honour Based Violence Network, In Afghanistan, ‘honour’ crimes remain very high along with many other forms of violence against women, and are increasing as attitudes fail to keep pace with economic and social changes.

During the Taliban rule, Afghan women’s fight for their rights increased and strengthened in response to the strict rules that the regime enforced. However, the problem in advocating for their rights was the fact that a lot of the Talibans were stationed in almost every area. If the Afghan women had to the chance to, at times, standing in each direction of their way was the Taliban who would stop them with any means necessary before they could even get their point across. For instance, Latifa an ordinary citizen, who had lived during taliban rule “freely admits that fear of the Taliban drove her to stay inside and risk this depression" (Cole, 2008, p. 148). Latifa along with other Afghan women who were surveyed under the oppression of the Taliban

Since the beginning of time, women have had to fight rigorously for basic human rights. In the western stratosphere, those human rights were achieved in the early 20th century, but in a lot of eastern countries the battle for the women is just beginning, or worse hasn't even started. Women in Afghanistan have been subject to heinous circumstances, even though their religion, Islam "demanded that men and women be equal before God,"(Qazi). Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner offers a very insightful view of the governing politics of Afghanistan pre-Taliban regime and during the Taliban regime, and the differing situation of women in both those eras. Based on the book and outside research, it is evident that the situation of women in

The Taliban became responsible for punishing those who committed crimes by killing the criminals. These acts started a small fear in the Afghanistan people. Soon, the Taliban group became a well armed and well funded militia with the support of a province in Pakistan. As soon as fear stirred among the Afghani people, the president of Afghanistan, Burhanuddin Rabbani, tried to create an alliance against the Taliban in Kabul, the capitol. This alliance fell through, and the president eventually fled Afghanistan. In December of 1995, the Taliban took hold of Afghanistan as a result.