When I was in seventh grade, I had a teacher who could be described as a feminist…or as close as you could be to one in the hills of Tennessee in the early 90’s. She made us watch “Not Without My Daughter” starring Sally Fields. Long story short, Sally is married to a Persian man who wants to take his family to his homeland for a few weeks for a vacation. Sally has her reservations, but eventually caves. Once they get there-Surprise!- he reveals he isn’t leaving, which was his plan all along, of course. She has to wear the head scarves and submit to his every will or risk beatings and all the worst things imaginable. She tries to leave and finds it impossible to take her daughter. High drama.
So this book is set in the same type of environment: strong women trying to escape brutal, illiterate, powerful men. And they will do ANYTHING for a few moments’ reprieve…including, but not limited to, dressing like a man. And who can blame them? These girls are frequently sold-that’s right-SOLD to the highest bidder (often their first cousin) for a sum of a few thousand dollars or some desolate dusty desert land by the time they are fourteen. Earlier, if they achieve puberty. And many of them try to hide that little nugget from their family in fear of what comes next: you are treated as a brood mare. Worse, actually, as most brood mares get plenty of rest and all they want to eat. And if you don’t magically produce a son in the first few offspring, your husband takes a second wife and you get to live with her and whatever passel of young’ns she brings into the picture. You aren’t allowed to go outside, except in the company of your husband, or gain weight, or drive, or make eye contact. You can’t show your wrists or ankles or heaven forbid anything else in fear of being labeled a whore. So who wouldn’t want to grow up as a boy instead? You can wear pants and climb trees and yell as loud as you want and get served first at the table. You can go to school and have a job and not answer to anyone. To them, this is freedom.
And all of these things I have taken for granted. “Too much education can potentially make a girl less attractive to a spouse, as she may develop plans to work or simply become too opinionated.” HEAVENS TO BETSY!! That is a definite problem. You can’t dance, either. “Dancing falls into the same category as poetry for a woman-it equals dreaming, which may inspire thoughts about such banned topics as love and desire. Any woman reading, writing, or citing poetry is a woman who may harbor strange ideas about love and romance in her head, and thus is a potential whore.” Boy, would I be in trouble. And we know why they don’t want you having romantic thoughts–so their sorry men don’t have to be nice, there are no standards to live up to. They teach their women that in Western civilizations we walk around naked in the streets and have sex with a thousand men. They justify their shroudlike covering thusly: “A woman is a very beautiful thing. In order to protect something beautiful, you should cover it. Like a diamond. You cannot just put it on the street, because everyone would just come and take it.”
“Do you understand that it is the wish of every Afghan woman to have been born a man? To be free?” One of the women followed in the book, Nader, has a team of protégées that she is training in Tai Kwon Do, and she tells them if they are lucky, no one will want to marry them. This could not be more true. Marriage to the wrong man is the kiss of death. And there are so very many wrong men. Women playing sports is strongly discouraged, so they must play and train in secret. “Too much physical exercise could be dangerous for women. Men who watch them could get too excited by catching glimpses of female bodies in motion. And the (more important) male athletes may become too distracted to engage in competitive sports at all if women were on the field. And what might the point of winning or even playing honorably, if women are not cooing on the sidelines?”
*Deep breath*
Number one, I find it humorous in a disgusted way that they even use the word honorably to describe anything about their culture.
Number two, I’ve never cooed in my life. Pigeons coo. Phoebe coos. Amy does NOT coo.
And neither do many of these women. “Those around her used to argue that biology would overtake her one day, when she married and had children. She would agree, just to make them stop talking, knowing it would not happen.”…”When one gender is so unwanted, so despised, and so suppressed in a place where daughters are expressly unwanted, perhaps both the body and the mind of a growing human can be expected to revolt against becoming a women. And thus, perhaps, alter someone for good.”
Our endearing author wants to try it. “‘Okay, so make me into a man, then,’ I say. “If you think a person can switch. Teach me.’…She has watched me several times, she explains. Although I have been styled and persistently trained in discreet, womanly behavior, people still stare at me as I stride by, taking big steps in my all-black coverage. They watch me not only because I am a Westerner, they look at me because I walk around as though I am ‘the owner of everything’. I arrive everywhere without a husband or father. And when we speak, I look her in the eyes, seeming neither shy nor emotional. I do not giggle-my laugh is more of a hoarse kind. And like a child, my face has no makeup and my wrists and hands carry no jewelry. She looks at me again, quickly, before she turns back, striking an apologetic tone. She asks that her next words not be translated, as they may be too insulting. But Setareh has already burst out in low laughter, gently passing the message along: “She says you are a man already. There is nothing she can teach you.'” I guess we do come off as a little unladylike to these shadows of humans. I, for one, would rather be a man than a shadow. They don’t understand why someone who has the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world-or DO ANYTHING in the world- would want to come to Afghanistan (I share in this troublesome enigma). They also find it strange her father would allow it, as all decisions made up until marriage are made by their fathers. They want to know what her purpose of life is, if it’s not to get married and have children. “You might as well have been born a man. What is there now to make you a woman?” This is spoken by one of the sisters to one of the girls raised as a boy. You can see that sometimes the women can be harsh and judgmental.
Which brings us to the subject of divorce. Of course Afghan women aren’t allowed to divorce…at least not easily. It’s explained that “women have less brainpower and may haphazardly ask for a divorce for no good valid reason.” Indeed! You wouldn’t want to divorce a perfectly good man who only beats you severely twice a week and whose mother keeps the food under lock and key. “An Afghan women who wants to leave her husband will be obliged to also leave her children behind. Making divorce nearly impossible for most women is exactly the point- otherwise, the thinking goes, women could just divorce men left and right, taking the children with them. Women are too emotional, rash, and impulsive-particularly when they are menstruating. They cannot be trusted to make rational decisions. So, for their own well-being, the logic goes , children should always remain with the father to avoid being carted off to a series of new husbands whom their whorish mothers may decide to marry at a whim.”
Oh, dear. Now, while some of this does bring to mind some women I know, the same cannot be said of these poor prisoners of Arab husbands. Our protagonist, Azita, her parents have been married 37 years. By all accounts, her father is a forward thinking (read: former communist) man, who had the foresight to send Azita to get an education, therefore paving a way into the Parliament. When the author asks her mother the secret to such a long marriage, the answer is immediate. “She looks at me like I am clueless. ‘It’s very hard to get divorced here,’ she says, throwing her hands up in a gesture of ‘What else did you imagine?'”
“By law, women are allowed to drive in Afghanistan. Just as they are formally allowed to inherit property and divorce their husbands. They just don’t, most of the time.
Nader wore a head scarf while driving once, just to please her brothers and to humor what they insist God requires from her. It nearly got several people killed, herself included.”
This book is a worthwhile, entertaining read, and I recommend it to anyone who needs a little perspective, a little broadening of the mind, perhaps a little compassion or reasoning of why we press on in these wars against terrorism. Although much of the crimes against women are blamed on society and tradition, the only way to stop them is education. It is the key.
And if that won’t work, a good tooth-rattling sock to the jaw from a marine never seems like a bad idea, either.
This should be required reading for all high school students. We can all use a reminder that we are truly in the land of milk and honey.
