Prejudice Against Women In A Thousand Splendid Suns

According to the United Nations, approximately 87% of Afghan women suffer from abuse. An example of this mistreatment of women is depicted in Khaled Hosseini's novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. The novel is centered on the lives of two women living in Afghanistan under the oppression of their husband, Rasheed, and the Taliban. The women face physical and mental abuse from different family members and the law throughout the novel. The novel tells about the lives of the two women before and after their lives come together; they play a large part in each other’s life once they meet by attempting to focus on the happy moments rather than dwell on the hardships they must face. Hosseini’s novel teaches that in times of hardship, the mistreated form an unbreakable relationship which helps them to endure life.

Violence, war, discrimination, and poverty: these issues have long been a part of Afghanistan’s history. Even though things in Afghanistan are getting better, war fills the country, and women and children have to learn to endure abuse, caused by men and the Taliban; they also learn to endure poverty. Considering this, it is no wonder why Afghanistan is in the terrible position it is in now. Many Afghan cities like Kabul are filled with things like violence and discrimination, and the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini takes place in Kabul. This book follows the lives of two Afghani women, Mariam and Laila, as they suffer pain and discrimination received from the Taliban and their

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.

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, gender roles play a major role in how characters think about themselves and others. Men are raised to believe that they are responsible to suppress women’s independence and autonomy, and women often internalize a sense of inferiority and/or subservience. The results of these conditions often include men’s violence against women, and a general mistrust between the two genders. In this novel, Rasheed demonstrates this type of behavior to be true. Rasheed is a single shoemaker whose first wife and son died many years ago. He becomes the suitor for the young 15-year-old mariam. He is a very traditional and strict older gentleman, which some difficult situations for Mariam to deal with in her life. Rasheed tries to exhibit excessive dominance in their marriage and instructs Mariam to be obedient, subordinate, and compliant with every single one of his demands.

Historical information about the Setting: The major events in this book occurred in the last decade. After the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001, the lives of many Middle Easterners (Iraqians, Iranians, etc.) and South Asians (Afghans, Pakistanis, etc.) were changed. Many people, especially women, were brutally slaughtered for disobeying the Taliban, a terrorist group that worked closely with al Qaeda. Not only were the Taliban extreme religious fundamentalists, they were also strict with enforcement. The US and many other countries have tried to end these terrorist organizations, but they hurt a great deal of innocent people, which this book goes further in depth about. In these recent years, there has been great progression in basic rights for women, as well as men, which most likely could have never happened prior to this time.

In Khaled Hosseini’s novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, women live in an oppressive, discriminatory Afghan society in which they are deemed useless and obtain little to no rights, yet still manage to endure the burden that falls upon them. After the immensely false interpretations of her father and the bitter fatality of her mother, Mariam’s father demands she marries a stranger considerably older than her at the age of fifteen. Rasheed prays daily in hopes for Laila to produce a male offspring and is exceedingly unappreciative and disrespectful when Laila produces a female instead. Rasheed and the Taliban claim it is extremely blasphemous and embarrassing for a married Afghan woman to look directly into a man’s eyes, wear makeup, or display her knees so Rasheed asserts Mariam and Laila wear burqas. Women’s diminished rights and limited input in society is evident when youthful Mariam unwillingly marries an outright stranger because her father and wives demands she do so.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini takes a solid focus on the lives of two young women, Mariam and Laila, who grow up in a struggling and turbulent Afghanistan. This book emulates the lives of those who have actually been affected by the extreme changes of power within their culture. From the Soviets to the Taliban, these people are caught in a war they cannot win but must deal with the consequences of. The lives of Mariam and Laila are consumed and silenced by those with power over them, namely males with traditional values. The book conveys the idea that even with an immense amount of destruction and terror wrought throughout Afghanistan, underneath lies a beauty that has been muted but it still provides hope for the future.

Women living in this period received blame for everything. They were viewed as liars, objects, and someone to continuously abuse both physically and mentally. This is shown in A Thousand Splendid Suns when Nana teaches Mariam what it is to be a woman living in Afghanistan with no social class. She explains to her that being a woman and in the class they were born in, there is really not much they can do. She points out to Mariam, “Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam” (7). This shows women like Mariam have no rights and their only choice is to live through it. They are born with the denial of rights to education,

Throughout Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, the reader observes many injustices committed due to the presence of the Taliban and cultural conflict in Afghanistan. One of the most concerning issues in Afghanistan is the mistreatment and inequality that women face on a daily basis due to Taliban mandates. Women in Afghanistan are treated as inferior beings to men and are unable to stand up for themselves due the laws the Taliban enforces. Hosseini uses the wives of Amir and Hassan, Soraya and Farzana, to represent the injustices to which women in Afghanistan are subjected.

Imagine living in a society where most men and women are embraced as equal, but then everything changed when outside forces invaded, abolishing the old norms and leaving nothing left for women’s rights. That was the case in Afghanistan in the late 1900s and Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns gives the reader insight into what it was like to be a woman trying to survive in those trying times. Hosseini’s use of character development and setting, with it’s respected culture, such as the city of Kabul and burqas, reveals the themes of the integrity of woman and the power of love.

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

Through their bravery and hope, Mariam and Laila demonstrated what little rights women had in Afghanistan, between the 1960s and 2000s. The Taliban army and husbands treated women horribly and showed them absolutely no respect. They were two examples of the many women that were fighting for their rights. They were fed up with the constant beating. They could not stand being treated like dogs anymore. So one day they stood up to their husband and fought back. This is great example of two strong female roles. This books demonstrates the courage and strength some women gained from the harsh treatment. This book might encourage other women to stand up for what they believe in and not just sit around and watch. Mariam and Laila were not going to let people stomp on their faces. They stood up for themselves in hope for freedom. After all that they had fought for, it soon paid off when they killed Rasheed and were finally free from him.

Oppression of women, especially in the thirds world countries like Afghanistan have been an ongoing struggle. An Afghani woman’s roles and identity is strictly associated with her family and tribe, the woman is a part of society, but her identity does not belong to her it belongs to her family at large. Afghanistan is a traditional and religious countries, therefore Gender roles is clearly market in the Afghan society. Afghani women had a difficult road toward getting their liberty in society where male are superior to women in status. In the past four decades, Afghanistan has been under the rule of different political ideologies, the Soviet communism from 1979-1989 and the Taliban regime from 1996-2011. Both the Soviet Union and the Taliban oppressed women in one way or another, the systematic oppression of Afghani women portrayed them as passive members of the society.

Under the laws of the Taliban, the position that women in Afghanistan were put in amongst society is regarded as the worst in the world. According to one Taliban spokesman, “The face of a woman is a source of corruption”. (Taliban treatment of Women 2006) During the time in which Taliban’s were in control of majority of Afghanistan, women were not allowed to work, they were only allowed to get an education until the age of 8 and after that age, they were only permitted to study the Qur’an. The book ‘Kite Runner’ shows examples of how Women were treated during this time period in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, it is widely known that certain sub-cultures allow a man to violate his wife physically and sexually to gain dominance over her. This notion is typically created by the unequal treatment of women in their society. The low social statuses of women in society and the power imbalances between men and women created by this, result in discriminatory practices and physical and sexual abuse against the female population of all ages in Afghanistan. (Povey 268). Despite violence against women being part of their general society, during times of war or political conflict, similar to Afghanistan in the novel, this violence toward women increases. This idea is presented throughout A Thousand Splendid Suns in Rasheed’s relationships with