Подпольные девочки Кабула. История афганок, которые живут в мужском обличье

by Jenny Nordberg

Их одевают и воспитывают как мужчин. Они - нерожденные сыновья, внуки и братья. Каждый в Афганистане знает их секрет, но никогда не говорит об этом вслух. Ежедневно они бросают вызов шариатскому порядку. Бунтарки и одновременно узницы собственного тела, которое с каждым годом все больше выдает их секрет. Их жизнь - воплощенная провокация. Их награда - свобода, которой они лишатся, как только наденут паранджу. Эти девочки – тайна, и в тайне весь смысл.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Feminism, Book Club, Politics, Middle East, Womens

432 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Jenny Nordberg, Sweden and the United States, is an investigative reporter and author.

A profiled foreign policy analyst and correspondent, her long-form investigations have been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian. Her topics range from U.S. politics and policy, international human rights to finance, tech, corruption and conflict.

As a Bellingcat-trained visual investigations reporter, she has led many large-scale investigations in the field, most recently into the formerly occupied territories of Ukraine.

During her time as a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iran, she broke the story of “bacha posh” — on how girls live disguised as boys under gender apartheid.

The cross-border investigation was published in The New York Times and expanded into the nonfiction book The Underground Girls of Kabul: In search of a hidden resistance in Afghanistan, published in 2015 and translated into eighteen languages.

At the New York Times’ investigations unit, Nordberg worked on projects such as examining cover-ups of fatal accidents freight railroad system — a series that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting — and U.S. State Department collusion with rebels in Haiti. She has produced and written several television documentaries, on the U.S. Army’s intelligence collaborators in Iraq, Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation and financial crime in Eastern Europe.

In Sweden, Nordberg founded the first investigative team at the national broadcasting’s radio division, where she supervised projects on terrorism and government corruption.

A frequent lecturer at U.S. universities, she has also appeared on NPR, WNYC, MSNBC and The Jon Stewart Show, and is a regular contributor of foreign policy commentary to Swedish radio and television. As an adjunct professor at New York University, she created and taught a class on cross-border investigations at the international journalism program.

She has won awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors; IRE, The Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize from Columbia and The Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard and Sweden’s premier investigative journalism award Guldspaden, and been awarded an Arabic fellowship to the American University of Beirut. She is an elected member of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Jenny Nordberg holds a B.A. in law and journalism from Stockholm University and an M.S. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She has written two novels and she is an artist.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

Karl Marx said, "[To] abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness; the demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs that needs illusions."

I'm not a communist but I 100% agree with that. But why on earth would men in Afghanistan give up the illusion that women are a lower form of human life when they benefit so much? Still less why would they give up religion when they say their repression of women is based on that? Better to accept the very minor illusion of a few women being men and keep all their rights and privileges.

This is a tremendously powerful boook and despite its title covers a lot of Europe too, mainly Muslim countries but not entirely. Its main message is Women are Unacceptable. Women are the Lowest of the Low. Women are such trash you can do anything to them you (male) want to. All women are good for is Cleaning, Breeding (boy babies, girls are a disappointment) and Sex. And the only way out of such an appalling life is to Become a Man. To start with, a Boy, a bacha posh, even an imitation one by dressing in boy's clothes, cutting the hair short, no doubt adopting an appalling attitude towards women and never, ever peeing at a communal urinal.

When you get to puberty, providing you can resist the blandishments of your peers about beautiful long hair and kohl around the eyes, jewellery and perfume, and, despite all evidence to the contrary do not believe as they do, that you will make a love match with a handsome man and live happily ever after caring for your babies, you can continue life as a man.

And, despite all evidence to the contrary the real men will accept you as one. Evidence to the contrary? How, in a village or a neighbourhood, could not everyone know exactly what gender everyone else really is?

Probably because people are kinder than political and religious systems and know that a woman who has no husband or father to provide for her or male of any age to accompany her outside her house, to shop for her, would be in very desperate straits. This acceptance of a male who cannot marry or have children (a crucial aspect of manhood in this society) is the kindest way of treating your neighbour as you would want to be treated, might have to be treated. But what about when these bacha posh go to the cities where they are unknown, are they shown such tolerance or, if unmasked (if that is the right word", what then?

In this way, this acceptance of changing gender, Afghan and the other mostly Muslim societies who restrict women's lives so they literally cannot live without a man, are very modern. It is perhaps the only way in which they are.

Read May 2017, finally reviewed Dec 2019 because of reading Kevin Shepherd's excellent review

[Dem · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing book club discussion book that had our group deep in discussion for 2 hours in which all the members contributed to one of the most passionate discussions our group has ever held.
I kept thinking as we all sat around the table discussing Afghan culture and Western culture. What if 12 Afghanistan ladies sat around a table discussing western culture what their thoughts would be on our lives and traditions.

I had actually rated this book 3 stars until we had our discussion and upped the rating to 4 because I didn't realize until the group discussion just how much this book affected me. This was a book that make me angry, sad and taught me a great deal about a coulture I knew very little about and to be grateful for the menfolk around me who respect me as a wife, a mother, a sister, a boss and a friend I now realize ...... What I take for granted everyday may just well be someone else's everyday struggle.

An investigative journalist uncovers a hidden custom that will transform your understanding of what it means to grow up as a girl. Nordberg interviews several women and it is through their stories we learn what it means to live as a Bacha Posh (girls who are are born female but are brought up as boys in family's where there are no male children) in a country where men rule and women do as they are told.

The book is quite detailed and quite a lot of research has taken place by this Journalist, while it is quite a factual read it is extremely interesting. There were times when I did feel the stories overlapped a bit and became repetitive and some of the scientific research I would question and hence my original 3.5 stars but this is a book that does make you think, gets a discussion going and temperatures rising and for that alone this book is is well worth 4 Stars.

I listened to this one on audible and the narrator Kristen Potter was excellent .

The ownership of an Afghan girl is literally passed on from one male - her father to the one who becomes her husband. He will take over the ruling of her life down to the smallest details if he is so inclined. (Quote from book)

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A great many people in this world would be willing to throw out their gender in a second if it could be traded for freedom.”



Jenny Nordberg's The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan is an interesting exploration of what might seem like an unexpected form of resistance. Nordberg's book chronicles her investigation into bacha posh (girls being raised as boys), why it is practiced and how it is viewed. Nordberg's account bogs down in a few places, but overall it is thought provoking and compelling. 3.5 stars

“Being born with power, as a boy, doesn’t necessarily spur innovation. But being born entirely without it forces innovation in women, who must learn to survive almost from the moment they are born."

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Bacha posh: a hidden Afghan custom of resistance. Meaning 'dressed up like a boy' in Dari, bacha posh are girls raised and presented to the world as boys."

Having at least one son is mandatory for a respectable Afghan wife. Failing to produce a male child is shameful. A woman who has only daughters or, even worse, no children at all, is a disgrace to her entire family. It matters not that it is, in fact, the father's contribution that actually determines the sex of the child. In a country where the literacy rate hovers around 10%, myths and lies are passed down unchallenged, generation after generation after generation. A good wife can determine the sex of her child simply by making up her mind about it. In a world where women are often confined to the home, unable to step outdoors unless accompanied by a male family member, baby girls are no cause for celebration.

"The baby blinks a little, and her tiny mouth gasps a few times. She is perfect, down to her tiny, grasping fingers. Yet to many in Afghanistan, she is 'naqis-ul-aql,' or "stupid by birth," as a woman equals a creature lacking wisdom due to her weak brain. If she survives, she may often go hungry, because feeding a girl is secondary to feeding a son in the family, who will be given the best most plentiful food. If, in her family, there is a chance of the children going to school, her brothers will have priority. Her husband will be chosen for her, often before she reaches puberty. As an adult, very few of life's decisions will be her own." (pg. 43)

There is a tendency here in the West to lay the blame on Islam for the woes of Afghan women, but that is an ethnocentric point of view. Islam itself is no more anti-progressive than Judaism or Christianity. All organized religions are susceptible to tyranny when they are hijacked by social and political institutions as a means to control others.

It should come as no surprise that, in a society where women are second-tier citizens, some little girls are raised and presented as little boys. Whether it's an act of resistance, a means to preserve and protect the honor of a family, or a work-around for a daughter's freedom of movement and education, it is an acceptable but secret solution to an unacceptable but inevitable situation. 'Bacha posh' is a way to function in a dysfunctional society.

Batshit crazy? Yes. But is it any more crazy than gay U.S. Marines who are forced to present as heterosexual in order to serve their country? What about South Africans who bleached their skin in order to present as 'white' under Apartheid? Or, and I'm paraphrasing Jenny Nordberg here, what about Jews who presented as Protestants in order to survive the holocaust? Deceptional presentation is a coping mechanism in any society where one group, one ethnicity, one gender is unjustly favored over another.

Jenny Nordberg is one hell of an investigative journalist. She quite literally risked her life to ferret out the truth about the practice of bacha posh and its consequences. This was 351 pages of enlightenment, empathy and cross-cultural understanding that I will carry with me for a long, long time.

[Alireza · Rating 5 out of 5]

کتابی با یک موضوع خیلی عجیب و بسیار ناراحت‌کننده ولی در عین حال آگاهی دهنده: بچه‌پوشی در افغانستان.
تا الان چندین کتاب داستانی، تحقیقاتی و حتی سفرنامه از افغانستان خونده بودم ولی جالبه تا حالا هیچ کدوم در مورد همچین چیزی به طور واضح صحبت نکرده بودن، یه جورایی یک راز مگو بوده و نویسنده سوئدی هم وقتی اولین بار باهاش روبه‌رو میشه خیلی تعجب میکنه ولی هی با تلاش و پرس و جو میتونه به نمونه‌های خیلی بیشتر و در سنین مختلف برسه و باهاشون صحبت کنه. رسم بچه‌پوشی به این صورت هست که خانواده‌هایی که تعداد دختر زیادی دارند به دلایل مختلف که در ادامه میگم تصمیم می‌گیرن یک یا چندتا از دخترها رو به صورت پسرونه لباس بپوشن و به همه هم بگن که این بچه پسر هستش تا اینکه این بچه به نزدیکی سن بلوغ برسه و دوباره برگرده به داخل خونه و نقش دخترونه خودش تو اون جامعه یعنی ازدواج و به دنیا آوردن پسر رو ایفا کنه.
کتاب به شدت دردناک هستش. در کشور خودمون هم نمونه‌هایی مثل دخترانی که در سال‌های گذشته به استادیوم می رفتن داشتیم یا در نقاط دیگر جهان زن‌هایی که با لباس مردانه در جنگ‌ها شرکت داشتن ولی شدت و فرهنگ این قضیه در افغانستان بسیار بسیار بیشتر و عجیب‌تر هستش. در اونجا ممکنه وقتی از کسی بپرسی چندتا بچه داری تعداد پسرهاش رو بهت بگه و دختر رو اصلا به عنوان بچه حساب نکنه برای همین بچه‌پوشی به نوعی به معنی پوشیدن یک دختر در لباس پسرانه هست. خانواده‌ها به دلایلی مثل ارتقای جایگاه اجتماعی، افزودن یک نان‌آور که بتواند در خارج خانه به راحتی کار کند، راحتی در عبور و مرور خانم‌های خانواده و حتی خوش‌یمنی در تولد فرزندان بعدی، یکی از دخترها رو به این صورت دربیارن و خب توجیه هم میکنن که این دختر توی این جامعه‌ی بسته چند سالی میتونه راحتی و آزادی داشته باشه و بلیط ورود به هرجایی رو با لباس پسرونه داشته باشه. جالب اینکه در جامعه، مدرسه و حتی پیش بعضی علمای دینی پذیرفته شده و از نظرشون هیچ اشکالی نداره، یعنی همه میدونن و هیچکس در موردش صحبتی نمیکنه. مشکل اصلی جایی شروع میشه که یک دختر که انقدر پر و بال گرفته و تونسته بره درس بخونه و آزادی داشته باشه رو یکدفعه بهش بگی از فردا باید بمونی توی خونه و لباس دخترونه‌ای رو بپوشی که حتی نمیتونه باهاش به راحتی راه بره. این دختر باید آماده بشه که طی ماه‌های آتی به زودی ازدواج خواهد کرد و و تا آخر عمر خانه‌نشینی و حرف زور شوهر و خانواده شوهر اغلب بی‌سواد خودش رو تحمل کنه. (تازه اگر یه دختر رو از مرکز کشور برندارن ببرن یک روستای دورافتاده بدون هیچ گونه امکانات و کسی رو که تا حالا مدرسه و دانشگاه میرفته رو بگن برو شیر بز بدوش و آغل رو جارو کن).
همیشه در کتاب‌هایی که از افغانستان میخوندم سوالی برام بود که در خانواده‌هایی که مثلا پدر فوت میکنه و بقیه اعضا خانم هستن، رفت و آمد به بیرون از خانه و کسب درآمد به چه صورت میشه که خب این یکی از راه‌حل‌های ابداعی مردم به این پدیده سختگیرانه و احمقانه هستش.
حرف برای گفتن زیاده که بهتره به نظرم خودتون برید کتاب رو بخونید. توی این کتاب با چندین نمونه دختر که به رسم بچه‌پوشی بز��گ شدن در سنین مختلف صحبت میشه و جالبه نمونه‌هایی داره که حتی در سنین بالا هم حاضر نشدن به هویت زنانه برگردن و ترجیح دادن همون روش رو ادامه بدن.

پانوشت: این کتاب قبل از قدرت گرفتن مجدد طالبان نوشته شده بود و الان قطعا اوضاع شخصیت‌های این کتاب خیلی وحشتناک و ناراحت‌کننده‌تر هست مخصوصا اینکه نویسنده خودش یه جایی آخرهای کتاب این پیش بینی رو کرده: اگر افغانستان دوباره چرخشی بنیادگرایانه‌تر را تجربه کند، ستاره‌ها، مهران‌ها، آزیتاهاو تمام دختران گریزان از قید و بندهای جامعه در صف اول قربانیان قرار خواهند گرفت.

یه جاهایی دیگه آدم نمیدونه چی بگه و زبان قاصره!

[Mystica · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story is basically that of survival of a girl in Afghanistan - seemingly one of the worst places to be born a woman.

Afghanistan is a country where the birth of a son is heralded as one of good luck and where the birth of a daughter is one of misfortune. The daughter would not be a problem if there are sons but if it is only a family of girls it is not just the child that is unlucky, the mother is considered unfortunate and a disgrace and even the husband is pitied. In this story, even very educated women accept blindly the fact that sons are the protectors of the family, the guardians of the family honor and the person who will look after them in their old age. So the son is important.

In this backdrop we have the strange phenomenon of a girl of the family being designated as a boy to all intents and purposes - from dress, mannerisms and behaviour till puberty when she has to revert to being a girl. From Azita to Mehran to Shukria to Zahra this journalist unravels the story which is not acknowledged or spoken about of how families adapt their girls to either provide the escort the sisters need or in many instances to provide the "magic" element that them being a boy brings on the family because subsequent pregnancies bring only boys. The story of bacha posh shows how this third gender live unacknowledged in society and whose families simply accept that it is best for the family, uncaring of the psychological or physical effects on the child concerned. It is the family unit that is most important, the honor and position of the unit, not the individual which is of prime importance.

We follow Azita's path - a female parliamentarian who has to trod a very narrow path between her constituents, her illiterate husband and her four daughters. She is trying her best to provide something to her supporters, provide education and some kind of normalcy for her daughters and also pacify her husband and in laws with money and material comforts so that they would literally get off her back.

This is a very emotional read and one that makes me extremely glad I was born Sri Lankan. Sons are liked in my part of the world but the female infanticide prevalent in parts of India are non existent, and the attitudes of Afghanistan do not exist at all. The book shows the spirit of the Afghan woman in the context of the war in Afghanistan - both Russian and American interventions doing almost nothing for women. How this situation could be prevalent today in the 21st century is a sad indication of the fact that somethings just do not change. That men themselves would want to keep their women in servitude and submission and be so cruel and unforgiving is difficult to both understand and accept but that this is the plight of a lot of women who have no recourse to either justice or even familial support. The latter was one I found very difficult to understand because once the daughter was married she was almost thought of as an outsider and someone else's responsibility. Despite Azita's mothers entreaties and opposition, there was nothing she could do in her daughter's case, as it became a case of either accepting her husband's orders or facing divorce herself.

A subject handled with sensitivity and discretion - understanding on her side of the inherent characteristics of the situation and the position of women and definitely not being judgemental on each individual case.

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We are who we must be.”

In The Underground Girls of Kabul, Swedish journalist Jenny Nordberg reveals a hidden practice in Afghanistan of presenting young girls as boys for part, or all, of their childhood. In an oppressive patriarchal society that demands sons at almost any cost, these girls are known as bacha posh.

"[I] have met girls who have been boys because the family needed another income through a child who worked; because the road to school was dangerous and a boy’s disguise provided some safety or because the family lacked sons and needed to present as a complete family to the village. Often...it is a combination of factors. A poor family may need a [bacha posh] for different reasons than a rich family, but no ethnic or geographical reasons set them apart."

Nordberg attempts to explain the complex role of a bacha posh by sharing the moving personal stories of a number of Afghan women, including Azita, a female parliamentarian who turns her fourth daughter into a boy; Zahra, who refuses her parents’ attempts to turn her back into a girl; Shukria, now a married mother of three after living for twenty years as a man; and Shahed, an undercover female police officer, who remains in male disguise as an adult.

The author also explores the traditional roots of the practice within the cultural, political and religious framework of Afghan society, and how it contributes to the global dialogue on gender issues. "The way I have come to see it now is that bacha posh is a missing part in the history of women." concludes Nordberg.

Written with keen insight and sensitivity, The Underground Girls of Kabul is a fascinating and poignant account of women's lives in Afghanistan.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few years ago, I sat in a Swedish classroom with other foreigners all studying Swedish. We came from a variety of backgrounds and were given an assignment to give a presentation in Swedish about a famous person from our home country. One young woman, who often brought her small baby to class (in those fantastic Swedish prams that have never become popular in the United States), began her presentation about her home country, Afghanistan. As she explained to the class, illiteracy was incredibly high--over 90% of people in the country cannot read or write. Decades of unrest, war, and government corruption had left her country culturally bankrupt. There weren't famous authors or poets to laud, politicians were too interested in lining their pockets with foreign aid, and people were simply too busy trying to survive that she couldn't name one famous person from her country to talk about. So she shared with us the grim reality of this complicated and war-torn country--Afghanistan.

I have thought of her often when I've read the news about Afghanistan or the rare book about the country. I think of her when I consider my life as an extremely privileged woman living a remarkably easy life.

She came to my mind again as I read this book, a true book, written by a Swedish journalist, Jenny Nordberg. Having lived in Sweden for many years, I could see evidence of Ms. Nordberg's own cultural background and her own innate biases-as much as she tries to remain neutral and allows the characters to speak for themselves. Her perspective and insights are very much Swedish.

In her work as a journalist in Afghanistan, Ms. Nordberg encountered a hidden phenomenon of girls dressed and raised as boys until they hit puberty. In Afghanistan's culture, boys are treasured and valued deeply. To be without a boy brings great dishonor and shame to a family. There is a hidden practice of allowing a daughter to become a boy for a time, while society sort of turns a blind eye to the practice. The girl-turned-boy gives her family more freedom or more income if she can work. It becomes a way for poor girls to support their families. According to superstition, the custom also can have the magical effect of allowing a real son to be born to the family.

Ms. Nordberg traveled the country meeting with these girl/boys and explores what it means in their society, why families make this choice, the challenges these children face when changing back to their biological sex, and how this both empowers these women but also can hinder them.

This book also highlights the extremely fragile and difficult lives women in Afghanistan lead and what they must do to survive in a society which doesn't value women. Nordberg analyzes the ineffectiveness of western initiatives who while understanding that there is a problem, often fail to address it in ways that actually make a difference for women in the country.

If you ever have questions about gender and society, you really should read this book. In highlighting this society, it provides a way to look at one's own culture. Whether you agree or not with Nordberg's conclusions or analysis, it will surely provoke thought and discussion about the way gender is constructed and deconstructed.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many New York Times readers, I read Nordberg’s first article on girls disguised as boys in Afghanistan and was fascinated. It’s a topic that deserved a book, and fortunately Nordberg went deeper and wrote one.

This book relates many stories of girls disguised as boys, and women disguised as men. Sometimes changing a girl to a boy is done to raise the family’s social standing, as both fathers and mothers are looked down upon for not producing sons. Sometimes it’s done for practical reasons: Afghan boys can work outside the home, but girls and women are rarely allowed to do so. And many families do it for superstitious reasons, believing that creating a faux boy child will hasten the birth of a real one. The transitions back to femininity are equally diverse: one eight-year-old girl is changed back early because she’s “terminally girly”; another girl, a teenager, refuses to change back and give up her freedoms despite family pressure. Some women who spent time as boys during childhood look back on it as an empowering experience, giving them self-confidence that lasted into adulthood; others, especially those who changed back as older teenagers or adults, are left confused, feeling not quite male or female.

One of the biggest surprises for me was how accepted this practice is in Afghan society; I’d imagined families going to great lengths to hide the true gender of their daughters, but despite or perhaps because of the rigidity of gender roles, dressing girls as boys functions as an acceptable release valve. Appearances, in many cases, suffice. One father admits to forgetting that his “son” isn’t a real boy (sadly, this does not make him rethink his clear favoritism for this child; he can form a bond with an honorary son, it seems, but not a daughter). Even the schools get involved: in the case of one young girl, “all the teachers play along and help protect her secret by letting her change clothes in a separate room when necessary. . . . The rules are clear: dresses for girls, pants for boys. . . . But it is not for the school to get involved in a family matter, [a teacher] explains. Whatever gender the parents decide upon, the school should help perpetuate.” Cross-dressing seems less a matter of truly convincing others than of being credible enough to let everyone pretend.

Nordberg does an excellent job of presenting this information clearly and letting readers into the life stories of the women she meets; we get to know them as individuals, as the book provides a window into their daily lives. Two authorial decisions bear mentioning, though. First, Nordberg repeatedly mentions that women have disguised themselves as men in many patriarchal societies, and that more broadly, there have always been people who pretended to be something they weren’t to avoid discrimination. This broader context is useful, but Nordberg never develops it in any detail. Second, a substantial chunk of the book focuses on the life of an Afghan parliamentarian, the mother of the first disguised girl Nordberg met, despite the fact that these sections go far afield from the subject of girls disguised as boys. The parliamentarian, Azita, has a fascinating story that illuminates the challenges faced by women in Afghanistan – Nordberg mentions early in the book that 90% of Afghan women suffer some type of domestic abuse in their lifetimes, but it’s the individual stories that bring home how abusive behavior is the foundation of gender relations there for most people. Still, I wish the book had spent as much time on the stories of some of the disguised girls and women as it spends with Azita.

Overall, I found this to be a captivating look into another culture, and very readable, though sometimes depressing. Some of the marketing for this book focuses on Nordberg’s “discovering” a cultural practice westerners had previously overlooked, but her treatment of the people she writes about is always respectful. She seems to have immersed herself in the culture far more than a typical western journalist, and earned the trust of the women she met. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone interested in Afghanistan, gender issues or feminism.

[Una Tiers · Rating 3 out of 5]

The oppression of women is worse than I understood. The beliefs described in this book are not easy to understand. But the author suggests the same beliefs prevail in men and women.
While the book was important to understand different beliefs and ways to live, the author lost much of the attention with repetition.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary journalism tumbles out of Afghanistan at a staggering pace. From Steve Coll's Ghost Wars and Ahmed Rashid's Descent into Chaos to Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Little America and Jake Tapper's The Outpost, the wars and suffocating corruption afflicting this crossroad's troubled people have been exhaustively chronicled. These singular correspondents rarely excavate past the past the front rooms of Afghan society, however, because their stories come and go with would-be pacifiers and liberators.

Afghans are acted upon and rarely have agency to react in these narratives because only a handful of leaders from a community sit across from American commanders and their allies; Taliban fighters may be a part of a Kandahar or Helmand community, but they are not representatives of that people because of the nature of their power over it and that caustic interaction’s consequences for its permanent inhabitants.

Jenny Nordberg has leveraged that strange duality of the foreign woman to pierce the walls past which coalition foot soldiers rarely tread. The stories she finds beyond that cultural shroud should stand as an indictment of the tragic superficiality of a decade’s development projects and priorities for women and girls in Afghanistan. That they were heard and able to be brought to life in the hearts and minds of thousands of girls across ethnic and class lines speaks to the relief brought from years without Taliban control, and that is something worth fighting for. It is only heartbreaking to learn more about this splintered, sequestered world and realize that so much remains buried that might grow to strengthen the country that has so malignly neglected them.

The Underground Girls of Kabul serves as an excellent compliment to Shereen El Feki’s regional collection of portraits in Sex and the Citadel. That Nordberg has borne witness to the world of the Bacha Posh as a Swedish journalist is a remarkable accomplishment in and of itself and speaks to her talents as a journalist in searching out the threads of this story. That her stories sweep across so many lives and yet lodge so deeply and compassionately in the lives and secrets of those she encounters brings her book forward as a necessary counterpoint to every work of conflict journalism that has dissected the battlefield of Afghanistan while leaving its society largely unscathed.

It is uncertain what can come of such journalism. Will the female parliamentarian find justice and a fair election? Will fathers entertain the wills of their wives and daughters? Will the wives and mothers flicker out of the world in which they grew up and transpose their daughters into a broader field to see in which way they may wish to flourish? Who will read The Underground Girls of Kabul? I, for one, hope that it is every foreigner who hopes to understand and assist Afghans in their torturous climb towards a fuller future in which the countries gendered fractions may grow whole.

[Stella Popa · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Fetele ascunse din Kabul”
Jenny Nordberg
5/5

Câteodată vreau să tac mâlc, să aștept muza, să fiu cuminte, nici chiar să povestesc despre ce-am mai citit. Dar azi vreau să urlu de fericire și mulțumire că m-am născut într-un leagăn în care sunt considerată - prețioasă. M-am născut într-o familie în care sunt iubită și prețuită pentru cine sunt, într-o societate în care, doar câteodată mai trebuie să demonstrez cuiva, că pot la fel de bine să rezolv o problemă sau să gândesc o strategie, așa cum ar face-o un bărbat. Nu neg, suferim încă de o doză de cretinism cu privire la rolul unei femei în societate, și rolul unui bărbat. Unii fac glume cu duiumul, unele încă nu sunt gata să-și asume poziția de drepți atunci când un bărbat nu vrea să-i ofere locul. Dar, eu am deviat grav de la subiect, pentru că această carte nu este despre mine sau societatea noastră, ci despre cea dintr-o țară îndepărtată.

Cartea
„Fetele ascunse din Kabul” ne face cunoștință cu câteva femei care trăiesc sau au trăit în Kabul, Afganistan. Fiecare dintre ele are istoria sa tristă, nu cred că am putea găsi femei fericite acolo, știu că îmi asum prea multe, dar după așa o lectură amplă, mi s-a creat impresia că iadul ar semăna cu Kabul. Aici ideea occidentală de „a fi tu însuți” nu se aplică aici nici adulților. În Afganistan trebuie să ucizi tot ceea ce există în interiorul tău și să te adaptezi. Este singura modalitate de a supraviețui. Faimoasa republică, care se slăvește ca fiind cea mai bogată sursă de droguri, este totuși islamică (big facepalm).

Orașul, chiar și țara întreagă sunt măcinate de o inegalitate constantă între cele care dau viață și cei care „au dreptul să decidă pentru ele”. Ei sunt o binecuvântare, ele sunt o nenorocire. Ei sunt lumina care intră în casă, ele sunt guri în plus de hrănit. Ei sunt speranța de a avea un sprijin la bătrâneți, ele nu pot avea nici măcar un post de muncă plătit. Puține sunt norocoase, să fie crescute în familii înstărite, unde tații văd capacitățile lor fără prejudecăți, să fie trimise la școală sau universități, să li se permită să lucreze, foarte puține. Le poți chiar număra pe degete. Dar ele există, și unele au devenit vocile acestor pagini, alături de altele care-și plâng amarul sărăciei și a lipsei de binecuvântare: să nască fii!

Controlarea și diminuarea rolului femeilor a devenit un simbol deformat al masculinității în cultura agresivă a talibanilor, în care bărbații din Afganistan sunt tot mai segregați de femei. Femeia trebuie, bărbații au dreptul. Și pentru ca unele să poată șterge obrazul părinților disperați de rușinea care flutură în întreaga comunitate, acceptă să fie crescute ca fiind băieți, de mici copii, pentru a munci și a-i susține, până când le permite adolescența, după, tam-nesam, ele își îmbracă hainele femeiești, își iau locul cuvenit de „osândă”. Ele sunt ascunse, unele de la naștere, mai ales dacă se nasc după alte șapte-opt „dezamăgiri”, sub minciuni și frustrări, și devin băieți, pentru câțiva ani.

Adevărul nu poate fi ținut sub lacăte, la fundul mării sau safeuri, el iese la suprafață mereu. Această carte îl readuce în lumina reflectoarelor. Și nu ne putem bucura de el din păcate, cine să se bucure de durerea cuiva? De neconceput, de neînțeles modul acesta de viață. Oamenii încă iubesc să se auto-pedepsească, să se chinuie constant pentru că interpretează scriitura unei cărți după bunul său plac.

Pe lângă miile de frustrări, pe care le-am resimțit de-a lungul acestei lecturi, eu am învățat istoria unui tip de gândire, acel tip de gândire care stagnează evoluția omenirii. În unele țări, femeile decid ce vor să fie, unde și cu cine, în altele nu au o identitate. Ea lipsește. Ea îndură. Ea nu există, pentru că nu este prețuită nici măcar ca mamă. Cel puțin nu așa cum o vedem noi. Mama nu are un loc de respect în dragoste și grijă. Dacă decideți să citiți această carte, încercați să înjurați în gând, pentru că s-ar putea să nu vă abțineți. Nu o recomand s-o citiți în public. Ocoliți oamenii, doar acasă, lângă cei dragi și egali vouă, din toate punctele de vedere.

Prea tristă, prea adevărată. Minunată realizare jurnalistică!
#foxbooks #jennynordberg #feteleascunsedinkabul

[Doreen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book from a Goodreads Giveaway! What an amazing, revealing, educational piece of work!! Afghanistan's history, culture and traditions are explained in detail. Yes, we know that women are their husbands' property. We know that there are neither rights nor freedoms for women in this middle eastern country. This book goes FAR BEYOND what the average Westerner thinks or believes about Afghanistan.

The immediate focus of this book is the practice of bacha posh; allowing daughters to live as boys until puberty forces them into womanhood. The birth of sons takes precedence over everything else within Afghanistan's society. If a wife fails to produce sons, the husband may take a second wife for that purpose. And until a son is born, a daughter may be dressed as a boy. This saves the family's reputation and standing in the community. The selected daughter is allowed to dress and act as a boy. She has the benefit of education and a taste of the freedoms that only males enjoy. These girls grow to think more independently than those who spend their childhoods as females only. Understandably, when it comes to transition back from boy to girl, there are those who refuse to do so.

The research in this book is impressive. Nordberg's fieldwork , as well as accessing the immense trove of written, historical documentation about Afghanistan and its culture, proves that Islam is not the 'problem' in Afghanistan. The problem is the strong belief in centuries-old traditions, combined with non-stop violence and years of foreign intervention that wreak havoc on the political, economic and caste systems there. And how does one go about affecting change? From this book, it seems that foreign interlopers are 'throwing good money after bad'. Western civilization views Afghanistan as committing crimes against women and denying basic civil liberties that we hold dear. Why should our beliefs in gender-equality be pushed upon these people? Perhaps Afghanistan needs to grow at its own pace. Maybe what is right for Westerners cannot be achieved in Afghanistan until their own people are ready to bring about such laws and changes for themselves.

This book answers questions about Afghanistan's history and culture, while exposing bacha posh. The value in this book is not only in the answers it reveals, but in the questions that it raises about Afghanistan's future. I'm so glad that I read this book and that I OWN it, thanks to Goodreads.

[Sadie Forsythe · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
I can read a 300 page novel in a day but it took me a really long time to read this book, I mean months. The reason is that I could only take it in small doses. It's dry. It's depressing and its content takes digesting.

I'm really interested in the lives of woman in Afghanistan (or any culture so far removed from my own). My first degree was in anthropology and the reason was that the way people live fascinates me. This isn't the first time I've tried to get a handle on the Afghani culture and I'll give this book credit for trying to be more well-rounded than most.

And I think Nordberg managed it up to about 40% through. Up to that point I was loving that she took a lot of time to place some of the practices that just make no sense by Western standards within a historical, political and religious context so that, while they still feel wrong, wrong, wrong, the reader is able to understand how the practice developed and at one point made some sort of sense.

And this was part of why I could only take small doses of the book. When I've read plainly inflammatory texts (some of which I can barely deem better than anti-Afghanistan war propaganda) it's easy to dismiss a lot of the bad stuff as over exaggerated or tell yourself they just left the good stuff out. But when it's presented as balanced and therefore believable it's hard to face in bulk. And lets be clear, life in Afghanistan for women is horrendous.

The main problem I had was that this is presented as a piece of nonfiction, as research. And certainly, Nordberg did a lot of fieldwork, conducted a lot of interviews and observed a lot of Afghani daily life. But this is not a piece of straight research.

At best, I might call it a well structured, well padded field journal. This is the story of her experience conducting research into the Bascha Posh, as opposed to a presentation of the research results. And as such, it is heavily biased and opinionated.

This started becoming more evident at around the 40% mark, when the basha posh stopped being children and the book moved into marriage practices and transitions back into girls. In other words, when they start having personal volition that is subjugated.

As an example, there is a quite detailed chapter on marriage practices of non-basha posh girls. While basha posh are usually expected to marry, this is relevant, but the detail it goes into is clearly meant to be defamatory to the culture. Nordberg isn't able to keep her judgment concealed.

Granted (and this is important), Nordberg is a lot more open-minded about the culture than most. But she still definitely presents a colored picture of the lives Afghani females live.

I went into this book hoping to finally find an author who would present a picture of Afghanistan, admittedly a very androcentric society, as something other than inhabited by nothing more than a bunch of power-hungry perverted old dudes perping on little girls and victims. I got more. I'll admit that. But I also got a lot of the same old same old.

I also wasn't entirely clear what the intent of the book was. As I said, it's represented as straight research but isn't, not really. It also repeatedly decries the usefulness and effectiveness of international aid in the region (which I actually agree with her on) but then ends on what essentially amounts to a general call to action. She spends the whole book presenting herself as vested in the culture and then leaves like everyone else. The end result was that the book feels anchorless and as a reader, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be taking away.

Similarly, the basha posh tradition, as presented, does not appear to actually be a form of resistance, as the title suggests. Rather, it is a way of functioning within an extremely paternalistic culture. But it's important to note that everyone involved is still functioning under the belief that males are superior to female (socially at the very least).

It's just that they see certain aspects of gender (though not sex) as fluid. With one possible exception, none of the basha posh interviewed or their families used the basha posh tradition as a form of social resistance. Instead they used it for personal gain within a system they were not seeking to reform.

The lack of male insight is also a glaring omission, especially since there is a whole section titled Men in which men are not interviewed. I understand that this is a book intended to center on females and, as a woman herself, Nordberg may have faced access challenges. But Afghanistan is a country controlled by men. The bosha pash are an open secret. It would have been informative to know how men—fathers, brothers, government officials, etc—saw the practice and felt about associated with theses 'men.' (Though it's worth noting that despite their insistence that they are MEN, Nordberg refers to them as women throughout the book.)

Similarly, despite declaring that the foreigners who go to Afghanistan can't ever really understand the culture, all of her 'experts' seem to be foreigners or Afghani women living outside of the accepted behavioural norms. I have to wonder how accurate her information, which she then presented as fact, was.

I had the same thought when events that occurred when she was not present were discussed confidently, while it was simultaneously evident that she only received the account from one of the participants. I would have been interested to know how, if at all, the narrative changed from the other person's point of view. However, I sensed that, as a reader, I wasn't supposed to care about anything but the slim perspective the author chose to present the events through.

Despite these complaints, I think I highlighted about half the text. There is still a lot to be gained by reading it. The book is garnering a lot of attention and I think it is deserved.

[Alam · Rating 5 out of 5]

امتیاز واقعی کتاب چهار ستاره‌اس اما دلم نیومد پنج ستاره رو ازش دریغ کنم چون خیلی درد داشت و خیلی واقعی بود. به این فکر میکنم که این کتاب تصویر سال ۲۰۱۱ افغانستان‌رو نشون میده که حتی خوندن اون حجم از تحقیر و سرکوب زنان منزجرکننده‌اس، الان که طالبان در راس قدرت هستن دیگه چه فاجعه‌ای در حال رخ دادنه؟!
کتاب در مورد شکل مبارزه زنان افغان با جامعه مردسالار هست، یکم شبیه ایرانِ ماست و بیشتر شبیه جهنم!
در تمام طول کتاب به این فکر میکردم که چقدر عجیبه مردان و زنان افغان در انکار واقعیت به سر میبرن، اونا حتی اعتقادات و حقوق خودشون‌رو هم نقض میکنن. قطعا فساد مالی، ضعف فرهنگی، اعتقادات مذهبی کورکورانه، عدم آگاهی و بی سوادی از دلایل مهم پیشرفت نکردن افغانستانه. با خوندن کتاب به این نتیجه رسیدم که حقوق برابر زنان با مردان و آزادی عملشون در یک جامعه چقدر میتونه در پیشرفت اون جامعه موثر باشه و این مسئله با وجود مردان آگاه و روشن‌فکر میسر خواهدبود.

بعدا نوشت: یه چیزی که الان یهو یادم اومد گله‌ای از نویسنده‌اس. خانم نویسنده یه نقشه قدیمی تو کتاب اورده که گستره امپراطوری ایران در گذشته‌رو نشون بده اما اسم خلیج فارس در نقشه دریای عرب نوشته شده! یعنی حتی اگه به وسعت اون کشور نگاه میکرد متوجه میشد که اسم این دریا یه ربطی به سرزمین پارس‌ها داره نه به عرب‌ها که سرزمینشون‌رو باید با ذره‌بین پیدا کرد 😏

[Maria Ferreira · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Nosso irmão é na verdade uma menina”
O Afeganistão é o pior sítio do mundo para se ser mulher.

Jenny Norberg, jornalista, passou cinco anos no Afeganistão a investigar as bacha posh raparigas que por razões diversas se disfarçam de rapazes.
Jenny acompanhou a vida de 4 famílias que se disponibilizaram a contar as suas histórias, iguais a tantas outras histórias vividas por famílias no Afeganistão

Azita Rafaat, ex-parlamentar da província de Badghis em Cabul, é a personagem principal da investigação de Jenny Nordberg, e é a história dela que conhecemos com mais profundidade.

Um pouco da história do Afeganistão para melhor compreender o livro.
Na década de 1979-1989, a união soviética apoiada pelo governo da República Democrática do Afeganistão, aboliu a segregação de sexos, as raparigas não vestiam burca, aprendiam a ler e a escrever e casavam com quem queriam. Os direitos humanos abrangiam igualmente a condição feminina.
Da aliança entre os mujahidin e os EUA os soviéticos foram obrigados a retirar em 1988. A repressão dos talibãs sobre as mulheres tornou-se ainda mais violenta do que na era pré-soviética, com a anuência dos EUA.

O pai de Azita foi professor universitário na era soviética, Azita, tal como todas as outras meninas, por essa altura, eram obrigadas e estudar, por isso Azita frequentou a escola durante anos, aprendeu várias línguas.

O enfraquecimento do governo e a saída dos soviéticos, foi palco de sangrentas guerras entre as várias tribos afegãs, que ainda hoje pululam no país, com a permissão dos EUA, que apenas queriam e querem é explorar as companhias petrolíferas. O Afeganistão é dos países mais corruptos do mundo, vivem do ópio e de petróleo.

Com a saída do URSS, o pai de Azita teve casar a filha com um parente, com medo que os talibãs lhe raptassem a filha para as montanhas. Os talibãs recolhiam adolescentes solteiras para servir como escravas sexuais, mas tinham preferência pelas instruídas.

Azita, segunda esposa de um homem pobre de pouca instrução, gerou quatro meninas. A falta de um filho varão para além de abalar a reputação da família, se mostrava como um obstáculo à sua carreira na política.
Cortou o cabelo, vestiu um par de calças, uma camisa jeans e sua filha mais nova Mahnoush se transformou no pequeno Mehran. Foi eleita parlamentar, embora usufruísse de pouca atenção dos seus pares, falava várias línguas entre elas o inglês, por isso comunicava bem com as ONG, com as comitivas estrangeiras no país. Ganhava um bom ordenado, gozava de uma boa reputação social e tinha acesso a alguns privilégios negados às outras mulheres.

Zahra, uma adolescente que se recusa a passar pela transição à condição feminina, tornou-se bacha posh devido ao mito existente que, se se transformasse uma rapariga em rapaz, os filhos seguintes nasceriam rapazes. Assim aconteceu, dos nove filhos, o casal foi abençoado por um filho varão, mais novo que Zahra.

Zahra, cresceu com todos os privilégios que beneficiavam os rapazes, frequentava a escola várias horas por dia, brincava na rua, jogava à bola, andava de bicicleta, podia olhar os outros rapazes nos olhos, podia trabalhar fora, etc.
Tornou-se adolescente e o corpo começou a ter contornos femininos, os quais ela dissimulava e negava. Rejeitou a transição para a condição feminina e tornou-se num grave problema para os pais.

Na cultura afegã a homossexualidade é crime, assim como os bacha posh, contudo, nas crianças desde que elas não sejam descobertas os homens toleram, mas quando se tornam adolescentes são todas obrigas a desempenhar o seu papel na sociedade, ou seja, têm que casar e gerar filhos.

Zahra continua homem, esconde-se da sociedade para não ser notada e sonha com a possibilidade de fugir do Afeganistão.

Shukria, de idade aproximada à de Azita, também estudou e tornou-se enfermeira. Viveu 20 anos como homem, casou e teve 3 filhos. O pai obrigou-a a casar e ela teve que respeitar a sua decisão, contudo nunca se sentiu mulher/esposa e o casamento foi uma fracasso, o marido abandonou-a, tornando-se um grave problema para ela, porque o marido nunca lhe deu o divórcio e para efeitos legais ele tem direitos sobre ela e sobre os filhos.

A sociedade afegã é patriarcal e patrilinear, o pai tem direitos sobre as filhas, que por sua vez, transmite esse direito aos maridos que o pai escolhe para as filhas. As mulheres não têm direitos legais, nem do próprio corpo. O casamento é contratualizado, se a família é pobre, o pai recebe um valor monetário pela venda da menina, como ressarcimento pelos anos em que o pai teve de a alimentar e vestir, se a família é rica normalmente são feitas alianças entre famílias, procura-se manter o nível socioeconómico e o reconhecimento social. O preço da rapariga é tanto maior, quanto maior for a sua beleza e a sua reputação (ser uma menina recatada e tímida).

Não existe punição ao homem que bate nas mulheres, porque se eles lhes bateram foi porque elas assim o mereceram, tal como, não existe crime de violação, porque se a mulher foi violada foi culpa dela, por exemplo, se uma mulher afegã anda na rua desacompanhada de um elemento masculino (marido, pai ou irmão) pode ser violada, e não pode recorrer à justiça, porque as mulheres não podem andar na rua sozinhas.

Nader também frequentou a escola e aprendeu a conduzir, gosta de carros e mecânica automóvel, arranja-os, não se casou nem teve filhos, e nunca se tornou mulher. Criou um grupo de raparigas bacha posh, onde lhes ensina técnicas de taekwondo.

No Afeganistão as mulheres não frequentam a escola e não aprendem a conduzir, Nader foi uma exceção, que não é bem vista aos olhos dos homens, consideram uma provocação e criam-lhe problemas na estrada.

Ao longo do livro Jenny presenteia-nos com investigações paralelas feitas noutras regiões do planeta a ao longo dos séculos, recorrendo antropólogos, cientistas sociais e médicos: psicólogos, psiquiatras, pediatras, etc. para desvendar a situação feminina nas sociedades patriarcal e patrilinear que prioriza o género masculino e considera fundamentalmente defeituosas as mulheres que só geram meninas.

Na sua investigação, Jenny tenta explicar questões de género e orientação sexual que envolvem as bacha posh, os efeitos que estas raparigas podem sofrer, dependendo da idade em que voltam à condição feminina, e as razões de esta prática não se restringir a determinadas idades e classes sociais.

A sociedade afegã é patriarcal e patrilinear como já foi referido, por isso a segregação dos sexos, os filhos homens vivem sempre perto dos pais, mantém o apelido da família, sustentam e cuidam os pais na velhice, enquanto que as raparigas ao primeiro sinal da menorreia, saem de casa da família para serem entregues à família do marido.

Algumas situações que fazem chorar as pedras da calçada:

Na província, onde o estado islâmico é mais repressivo, as mulheres quando dão há luz uma menina, se for a primeira filha é tolerado, nada acontece, a partir daí está sujeita a passar uns dias na capoeira ou no curral a conviver com os animais, sem qualquer alimentação, é um castigo, porque não ter cumprido a sua função, por isso as mulheres passam toda a gestação em preces para que o filho seja varão. É o marido que impõe esse castigo, porque a mulher o desonrou ao não lhe dar um filho homem. O marido procura outra mulher. Um homem pode ter no máximo 4 mulheres, desde que tenha dinheiro para as comprar e as sustentar.
Se o primeiro filho é varão, é motivo de festa, em homenagem ao filho e à mãe o marido oferece uma festa à família, aos amigos e aos representantes locais para apresentar o novo membro da família. O marido pode comprar outra mulher, mas geralmente não o faz, se conviver bem com a primeira.

O tempo médio de vida das mulheres é de 44 anos, passam metade do tempo grávidas. A mortalidade infantil é muito elevada, porque: as condições sanitárias são inexistentes, os maridos não deixam as mulheres irem ao médico, e os poucos médicos que existem é nas grandes cidades, o infanticídio feminino é bastante elevado e regra geral, as mulheres devem ter pelo menos 6 filhos vivos para perpetuar a espécie.

No Afeganistão, a premissa é que o homem precisa de estar permanentemente bem fisicamente e psicologicamente para poder trabalhar e sustentar a família, como tal, pode ter as mulheres/crianças que quiser, e fazer com elas o que bem entende sem que ninguém interfira, por exemplo, se bater ou violar as mulheres, nenhum outro homem pode interferir, nem mesmo os pais dela ou irmãos.
As mulheres para alem de gerar filhos, servem para dar prazer sexual, e não se podem negar a nada, sob pena de serem castigadas. É vedada à mulher qualquer satisfação sexual, porque se gostarem de sexo, podem ter o desejo de querer experimentar com outros homens.

Uma mulher que leia romances ou que escreva é uma prostituta,
Uma mulher que mostre o tornozelo ou a cara na rua é uma prostituta,
Uma mulher que abandone o marido é uma prostituta,
Uma mulher que traía o marido está sujeita à morte.

As raparigas afegãs sentem pena das raparigas ocidentais porque é passada a ideia que as mulheres ocidentais têm relações com mil homens, o que torna a vida das mulheres ocidentais um inferno, se elas, com um homem têm uma vida miserável imagine-se com mil.

As mulheres afegãs não sabem o que é a liberdade, nem os direitos humanos, apenas vêm televisão americana (poucos canais, essencialmente filmes), comem no fast food americano e bebem coca-cola.

Se os EUA não tivessem interferido no Afeganistão e não tivessem mentido ao mundo, quando disseminaram a ideia que os russos estavam a dizimar a população inocente, quando na realidade estavam a lutar contra os talibãs a pedido do governo, para que se instaurasse os direitos humanos a todos os cidadãos, e desenvolvessem o país, o Afeganistão podia ser hoje um país desenvolvido, onde todos os seus concidadãos pudessem viver livremente. O que temos hoje são tribos corruptas que se subjugam ao poder americano e que lhes fornecem riqueza e poder.

O livro é denso e, em diversas partes nos obriga a parar, pois gera revolta e faz sofrer ao pensar na situação em que vivem milhares de mulheres, que são: mutiladas, maltratadas no seio da família, que sofrem de depressão e se suicidam, e outras que enterram as filhas, para evitar o seu sofrimento futuro.

Este livro é também, e principalmente, uma declaração da força feminina para encontrar maneiras de resistir à opressão masculina enraizada, no sentido de lhes permitir tomar, futuramente, o controle das suas própria vida e do seu corpo, quando tudo ao seu redor lhes impede de continuar de cabeça erguida.
A última declaração de Azita no livro é um pensamento profundo, e que consegue finalizar o estudo de maneira incomparável:
“Sabemos como é ser homem. Mas eles não sabem nada sobre nós.”

[Omid Hosseini · Rating 5 out of 5]

تلخ، تلخ و تلخ
لعنت به افراط‌گرایی و سنت‌های احمقانه از هر نوع در هر جایی.
جنی نوردبرگ، ژورنالیست سوئدی که حدود ۲ سال در افغانستان زندگی کرده، از رنج‌های زنان و دختران افغان میگه که در چنگ فرهنگ و باورهای مرتجعانه دینی اسیر شدن.
یکی از موضوع‌های اصلی این کتاب، سنت "بچه‌پوشی" هست. در فرهنگ افغانستان، نداشتن فرزند پسر موجب سرخوردگی و بدبختی تلقی میشه به همین دلیل خیلی از خانواده‌هایی که پسر ندارن، یکی از دختران کوچک خودشون رو بچه‌پوش می‌کنن (یعنی اسم و ظاهر پسرانه براش انتخاب می‌کنن و اون رو به عنوان پسر بزرگ می‌کنن. وقتی هم به سن بلوغ رسید، دوباره جنسیت دخترانه‌ش رو پس می‌گیره). فقط تصور کنید این کار چه بحران‌های هویتی و شخصیتی جبران‌ناپذیری برای اون بچه‌پوش به وجود میاره.

مهم‌ترین ویژگی نویسندگی جنی نوردبرگ به نظرم این بود که اگرچه محور کتابش حقوق زنان هست، اما اصلا به "نئوفمینسیم انحرافی" و مردستیزی نمی‌پردازه. در پایان هم پیامش اینه که تمام این رنج‌ها و نابرابری‌ها علیه زنان فقط با اصلاح فرهنگ افغانستان می‌تونه درست بشه؛ نه هیچ چیز دیگه‌ای.

** بخش‌هایی از کتاب:
"وقتی تازه‌عروسی دو سه فرزند اولش پسر باشند، بعد از آن فشاری متوجهش نخواهد بود که دوباره حامله شود. زاییدن چند دختر هم بعد از اولین پسر خوب است اما اگر همه آن‌ها دختر شوند، اکثر زنان برای به‌دنیاآوردن فرزند پسر به تلاش خود ادامه خواهند داد. در اینجا امید به زندگی بین زنان ۴۴ سال است و قسمت عمده‌ی این عمر صرف بارداری می‌شود. اکثر زوج‌ها به نحوه پیشگیری از حاملگی آگاهند اما فشار برای اضافه‌کردن فرزند پسر به خانواده غالبا بیشتر از نگرانی برای جان مادر است"
"فشار برای آوردن فرزند پسر فقط از جانب مردها نیست، زن‌ها هم به همین اندازه مشتاقند. دکتر فریبا [متخصص زنان] با گفتن این حرف‌ها خودش را مثال می‌زند و می‌گوید سه پسر او نه تنها افتخارآمیزترین دستاورد زندگی‌اش به شمار می‌روند، بلکه برای تداوم سلسله خانوادگی پدرشان ضروری هستند."

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: ARC read via Netgalley. ARC did not have pictures.



I requested this book because I read Nordberg’s original piece for the New York Times.

In certain parts of the world, Afghanistan only being one, there is a strong emphasis put on the importance of sons. A woman’s only duty is to give birth to sons, or mostly sons. Women in these cultures are usually seen as less important, less valuable. However, there is a tradition, as Nordberg discovered, of taking a girl and transforming her into a boy, at least, in some cases, until puberty or it is time for her to marry. This type of girl is called a bacha posh.


Nordberg looks at this tradition in Kabul and in the process raises awareness about how we see gender and how aid neglects certain key or needy individuals; she also somewhat tentatively discusses why such a tradition occurs. It has to do with honor, but also money and protection.



By interviewing and relating the stories of several different underground girls, vary in age and class, Nordberg does paint a boarder picture. It should also be noted that she did change names to protect the identity of the women, girls, and boys. I’m not even sure what gender pronoun to use.



At first, it appears that Nordberg is just going to look at the effect of the gender disguise on young girls – pre-teens and teens, but she ranges further than that. She meets a bacha posh, bacha woman really, who is teaching others. She interviews a former bacha posh who struggles to adapt to married life. She looks at the conflict that such a disguise can cause in the family.



Furthermore, she also links the tradition with famous crossing dress women in other societies – Mulan, Joan of Arc. There is also a wonderful passage about the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton that makes you think about how things really aren’t that different after all.



The heart of the book is the women Nordberg describes and their heartbreaking struggle. Will the teenager be forced to be something she doesn’t want? What will happen to the politician? There is also a look at the role of fathers. The more well adjusted bacha poshs have supportive fathers, and the more educated women have supported fathers. Nordberg seems to suggest that the situation of gender and gender roles is something that every member of society should think about. She does not disregard the societal forces that control not only the women but the men as well. The book isn’t so much a feminist tract, but humanist one.



And she has a point. Society likes labels and labels always, eventually, suggest some type of worth. What these women and bacha poshs do is challenge not only traditional definitions of gender, but also love and sexuality. At the very least, the book will have you re-evaluating how your culture sees gender.



Nordberg’s reporting is clear and concise. I do not know if the final proof will have photos, but her skill at description makes them unnecessary. The last scene that she describes is absolutely beautiful.


Crossposted at Booklikes.

[°H∆di§° · Rating 4 out of 5]

از ظلم به زنان و دختران در افغانستان میگه و جامعه مردسالار.
در این حد که کودکان دختر رو بچه پوش میکنن با پوشش پسرونه و معتقدن پسر قلابی داشتن بهتر از پسر نداشتنه. کتاب تلخیه ولی خب واقعیت طعمش همینه متاسفانه.

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a nonfiction account of the struggle for gender parity in Afghanistan. Swedish Journalist meets Azita, an elite-educated daughter of a Kabul University professor. In 1995, shortly after she’d reached puberty, as war was imminent, her family fled to the countryside. It was not long thereafter that her father, who had always promised her that her talents would be put to good use, married her off to her illiterate first cousin, a farmer. Although her mother opposed this arrangement she apologetically told her “This is your destiny. You must accept it.” Azita was nineteen and could not escape this decision. Her, and her family’s long ago made plan for her to attend university was immediately dashed.

By 2001 the Taliban regime was toppled and the liberated Afghanistan formed a new government and created a new constitution. It mandated a 25 percent minimum female share of seats. By 2005 Azita was a member of parliament. Sadly her voice is often stifled when she attempts to speak or propose new ideas. Women in parliament largely remain silent. Some are there only as placeholders for wealthy land owners or powerful warlords

Azita is an Afghan woman elected to the political system, the breadwinner in her family and mother of four daughters.

In the culture of Afghanistan failure to bear a son is a failure for the entire family. It transposes to loss of status, respect, community position. Families would either announce a female birth as a son, or at an early age treat and dress one of their young daughters as a son. This was known as a bacha posh. This was expected to create a magic aura that would soon produce a real son within the family. The bacha posh could attend school, attend the market, accompany the female siblings outside, work and earn income (even as a child), thereby allowing the entire family freedoms they could not otherwise enjoy. After all, having a made up son was better than not having one at all.

The reality is that in Afghanistan gender segregation is among the strictest in the world. Hence they denied this practice of dressing a daughter as a son when you had no sons. Yet this gender separation had not always existed. In fact historically gender parity had been a struggle that improved for many years when the country was under Russian rule. Girls were educated and the particularly bright ones were selected for better and higher education. Azita remembers this time when Kabul was like being in Europe. She took an electric tram to school on her own. The tram was driven by a female driver. At school she was captain of the girls volleyball team. Although Soviet occupation instigated and supported these practices, this gender equality was contrary to Pashtun tradition and disapproved of by the religious mullahs. In the countryside little support was found for these practices as they were seen to disrupt the Afghan lifestyle. The threat of communism needed to be contained. The Americans were quick to step in, in the name of world peace. The gains of women contributed to war. Violence shut down schools, and civil war developed by 1992.

Yet a mere decade later, childhood as she knew it has changed. Azita’s daughters don’t go to school or play sports. Azita’s fourth child, also her fourth daughter becomes the “son” she yearns for. Suddenly her status improves, both politically, as a parliamentarian, and socially, as a woman. This also can be said for the status of her husband.

A female obstetrician explains that children’s rights are a concept that is not acknowledged in Afghanistan. The “creation” of a son is a parent’s decision and their choice should be respected. For this reason the private circumstances of a family remain private and are not documented nor spoken about. That is the reason such girls remain hidden. That is entirely the point of the tradition.

This journalist was in Kabul in early 2000’s. She was shocked to learn of this tradition and when she tried to research it found little information. Having next made inquiries locally in Kabul, people denied its existence. Suddenly I no longer felt alone in my ignorance. I am always on a quest to learn more and had not heard of this tradition until recently. Of course, being the dinosaur that I am, I grew up where news came from one of only four available tv channels, only one which was Canadian, the other three came from across the river in Detroit....all delivered on a black and white television set, with rabbit ears and tinfoil attached to that! No internet, no news feeds across your tv screen, no pop ups on your computer...no computer. Only good old Encyclopedia Britannica.

At the time of the author’s experiences, in early 2000’s Afghanistan was experiencing high unemployment and poverty. The number of sons in a family meant strength, both financially and socially.

The journalist author, then with the help of Azita, and a translator seeks out other bacha posh of varying ages, education and social status. She finds one who is a nurse, one who is a member of an elite paramilitary police force, one who is bodyguard/driver/teacher of the kwon do for girls, one who is an honorary man. Some are married, some are not. Some are teens who vow to never marry and to remain in a man’s world.

This phenomenon is really more common than you would expect in this part of the world. Historically, it has occurred for years....women dressing as men to go to war, to pursue education. It is a matter of survival where the culture and religion do not otherwise permit women the privileges of a man.

In Afghanistan the literacy rate is no more than 10%. This too is a contributing factor to the necessity of the bacha posh.

The author surmises that until there is safety and rule of law in Afghanistan the opportunities for females will not arise. She continues with the idea that education is power and empowerment that will eventually challenge flawed interpretations of culture and religion. That countries wanting to develop their economies and standards cannot afford to shut out half the population. She hopes that change is afoot.

Anyway...education is an ongoing journey, an evolving idea, an ever changing opinion, all of which I appreciate and can’t seem to get enough of. So, thank goodness for those who go into these adventures and dig and poke and uncover the little known facts that help us to understand the plight of others and appreciate ours.

This book is highly recommended as a valuable discourse on the plight and resilience of women. It is only through the eyes of others that we will come to understand not only our world, but also ourselves. We need to be less judgmental as we strive to understand their world and how it is we can help them evolve to their potential.

An incredibly fascinating look at journalism seeking to make sense of that which we we can’t accept because we don’t understand. Once we do understand, we still won’t accept it, but we will understand it is a matter of survival...for now.

[Zahra · Rating 3 out of 5]

بدترین فقر، فقر فرهنگی و اجتماعیه که گویا در برخی جوامع بیداد میکنه که باعث شده پدیده بچه پوشی (تغییر لباس به پسر شدن) باب بشه.
در جامعه افغانستان به دلایل مختلف این رسم در دختران نوزاد تا قبل بلوغ ادامه داره دلایلی مثل نداشتن پسر و ممانعت از ازدواج مجدد همسر، فقرمالی و کمک به کسب درامد و......
نفوذ و حاکمیت مردان بر دختران و زنان باعث پدیده های عقب ماندگی زنان از دنیا شده.
این کتاب که توسط یه خانم ژورنالیست سوئدی که برای تحقیق جامعه شناسانه با دختران، زنان و بچه پوش های زیادی مصاحبه کرده و نتیجه دانش و تحقیقش رو به صورت یه کتاب درآورده نشان از جامعه مردسالارانه و بردگی زنان در عصر معاصر را نشون میده.
کتاب تلخ از حوادث زیر پوست جامعه افغانستان را به نمایش میزاره.

[Silvana · Rating 4 out of 5]

When patriarchy is a norm and a society becomes dysfunctional where being a woman is considered a curse, there could be a form of adaptation and (possibly later) resistance lurking in the shadows. Bacha posh is one of them. The idea of crossdressing, taking a gender role of a man, is seen as a solution, no matter how temporary it is. This construct predates Islam, beginning at least from the Sassanid Empire era, and is still practiced today.

The book was quite a revelation to me - I've never read the author's expose before nor heard any of this practice in a country like Afghanistan. Indeed women taking up men's role, even dressing and behaving like them, such practice can be found all over the world, from the East to the West. The book has examples of the bacha posh in various stage of life, one of them was still a child, the others were a teen, a married woman, and a paramilitary officer. Some managed to avoid the feared marriages (marriage is a core component of the patriarchal system), some did not. Some experience gender identity disorder. All paths are unique and will definitely provide lots of foods for thought for the readers.

The book is not perfect. The author often philosophizing a lot or being repetitive. There's not many interviews with the menfolk either - as she said, involving men in any discussion is key. But maybe she just did not have the access, who knows.

Still, a very informative book. Makes one thankful for own freedom and privileges, and hopefully be more empathetic to others who are not as lucky. I am glad I picked this for the Non Fiction Book Club's Book of the Month.

[Moshtagh hosein · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتابی جامعه شناسانه‌ گونه تا حدودی که به پدیده مردسالاری در کشور افغانستان می‌پردازد و واقعا به این مسئله خوب پرداخته،اسم کتاب ممکنه کمی گول زننده باشه ولی یک نان‌فیکشن قابل قبو�� هست.
جایی در کتاب میخوانیم:
«ما(زنان و دختران بچه پوش)میدانیم مفهوم مرد بودن چیست،اما مردان هیچ شناختی از زنان ندارند!»
(فقط بنظرم موخره کتاب کمی فمنیستی هست که خب نویسنده سوئدی هست!)

[Heather Reads Books · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I was in grad school, I read an article by scholar Lila Abu-Lughod, who writes about the phenomenon of Orientalism through a feminist lens. In it, she argued that in terms of modern iterations, when Western writers write anything using the framework that they are attempting to explain the Islamic East to a Western audience, they are participating in the Orientalist project, no matter how well-intentioned.

I thought about that a lot while reading this book.

In many ways, it's a damn shame. In The Underground Girls of Kabul: In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan, Swedish journalist Jenny Nordberg has hit upon a real phenomenon: that of the bacha posh, the practice of dressing prepubescent girls up as boys. Curious, I did a little outside research, and found an academic study circa 2019 that surveyed a number of women in Afghanistan confirming this practice. However, it has been so little-studied (in the English-speaking world, at least) that even the study admitted the seminal work on the topic is in fact this book. The problem is this book is so shoddily researched, so poorly constructed, and so overwhelmingly dependent on both the author's preconceived notions of gender and her own Orientalist beliefs that it's nearly impossible to glean much of value from it. Because of this, I could not in good conscience give it more than one star.

Here's the very little blood I was able to squeeze from this stone: the practice of bacha posh – meaning, apparently, "dressing up like a boy" in Dari – is primarily done in families that have more girls than boys, or no boys at all, and doing so serves both an economic and security purpose. As boys, girls are able to enter the work force and bring in lifesaving income they would not be able to as girls. Also, in many instances, in Afghanistan, a country that has been at war for decades, it just seems safer to be a boy than a girl. In a country in which many regions have barely functioning governmental institutions, a boy can travel unmolested. In a place that not all that long ago was under such severe tyrannical rule by the Taliban – and, sadly, just months ago, went back to having them in charge – that women were not allowed to leave the house without a male family member's supervision, having an extra boy in the family is just so much more useful. By the time they hit puberty, however, most girls are unable to keep up the ruse and go back to their gender assigned at birth.

However, this information, though interesting and which probably can tell us a lot about gender roles in war-torn countries, is buried beneath layers upon layers of baseless speculation on the author's part. In particular, she leans heavily on the outdated and debunked anthropological concept of the "honor-shame society," an old chestnut of Orientalism that was once thought to be true about the Mediterranean region, but has come to be claimed about many places in the "Muslim world." According to Nordberg, the practice of bacha posh has not persisted into the 2010s in Afghanistan because of continued political and economic instability, widespread corruption, and the ongoing neo-colonial enterprises of the United States and its affiliates. Instead, it's that the men in Afghan families are plagued by the backward tradition of maintaining "honor," and therefore treat their women like chattel, marrying them off into arranged marriages as soon as they hit their teens so that they won't bring "shame" on the family by acting like silly whores.

Nordberg makes a number of contradictory claims, such as that Afghanistan is such a "traditional" and "conservative" society that "no one talks about sex," and then goes on to cite a number of instances when she talked to Afghans about sex. Including an instance where a male doctor told her it's best to make a woman come twice before a man does. Additionally, her summaries of Islamic "history" contain some basic errors, including implications that hadith exist in the Quran (they are an apocryphal body of work attributed to the prophet Muhammad, and scholars consider some hadith more legit than others). I grew weary of the many Orientalist stereotypes, like that Afghan men are uncontrollable brutes, Afghan women are so repressed and passive, and they all need to be saved from this backward culture, blah blah blah, only to then read quotes from her subjects that directly contradicted these stereotypes. These instances are all but ignored by the author and made me wonder why she included them at all. “The foreigners think they are helping women in Afghanistan, but it is so corrupt," says Azita, the book's main subject. "All this money coming in, but we still suffer. They think it’s all about the burka. I’m ready to wear two burkas if my government can provide security and rule of law. That’s okay with me. If that is the only freedom I have to give up, I am ready.” Instead of listening to this insightful statement, the author goes around demanding Afghans define to her what "makes" someone a woman or a man, in a way I can only imagine must have been exhausting to them. Why is the author so obsessed with differences between girls and boys, asks an interviewee; Afghans have a different idea about gender. I could not help but agree. In her zeal to "understand" the bacha posh phenomenon, Nordberg gives the impression of unrelentingly pushing her own ideas of gender on these poor people, much to their confusion and chagrin. When the author asks an Afghan worker for the UN why they hadn't mentioned the practice before, the response is telling: “The foreigners like to teach us about gender.”

And Nordberg's ideas aren't even particularly enlightened. Possibly the worst transgression of this book is its refusal to acknowledge the existence and rights of trans people. In a long, tortured section, Nordberg interviews someone who seemed to be a young trans man to me: at sixteen, he was not only dressing in boy's clothes and wearing a short haircut, but insisted he was a boy. His mother tells the author he has always wanted to wear boy's clothes since he was a toddler, and they didn't force him to be a bacha posh (a departure from many of the other subjects, who were perfectly content to be girls until their parents suggested the switch). Despite this, the author continuously misgenders him and insists upon referring to him as his female name, Zahra, and not the male name he gives her, Naweed, even when he tells her he wants a sex change operation. Nordberg then postulates that being "forced" into a bacha posh role has made Zahra so "psychologically damaged" that "she" must think "she's" a boy now! This is followed by a description of "transsexualism" as some sort of exotic mental disorder that Nordberg not-so-subtly implies is caused by being a bacha posh.

This section genuinely took my breath away. This book was published in 2014, and although I know trans rights has been an issue far more visible in America and Europe over the last couple of years, 2014 was not that long ago. I certainly remember being aware of and sensitive to trans people's basic needs at the time. This refusal of Nordberg's to accept "Zahra" as a boy and her portrayal of being trans as something caused by the "psychological damage" of being dressed as a boy before puberty struck me as both offensive and unethical. Even more so in a book that is claiming to be a feminist work. All that's riding a little too close to TERF town for my taste, thanks. (One wonders what Nordberg might think of me and my parents, who let me dress up as Han Solo and other male characters for Halloween as a child.)

Also, there were many times when I was skeptical of the information from her "subjects" Nordberg was presenting at all. Despite acknowledging she was conducting interviews through an interpreter, she includes several conversations between family members as if she were a "fly on the wall," especially ones of argumentative or sensitive natures. I had a hard time telling whether she, as a foreign journalist and a stranger, was truly witness to them, was dramatizing them from accounts told to her later, or was fabricating them entirely. This is complicated by the fact that none of her subjects come with last names, and only one of them, Azita Rafaat, a former Afghan Parliamentarian, has an easily confirmable persona. (Even so, despite having half the book dedicated to her, the only information I could find about Rafaat that was not in connection to this book is that she's currently "in exile in Sweden with her four daughters.") As for the rest of them, we kind of just have to take Nordberg's word that they exist at all, never mind whether any of their accounts were mistranslated, taken out of context, or embellished in any way. If this sounds like an outrageous idea, it isn't until the very end that the author casually slips in the fact that her tireless interpreter "Setareh" is actually a composite character of several different people. (Interesting, I thought, since I wondered when exactly it was that they reconciled. Earlier in the book "Setareh" gave voice to what I had been thinking for several chapters and called the author "a cold-hearted machine," only to have the final chapter end with a touching moment of them dancing together.)

If this aspect of the book gives rise to the suspicion of other deceptions, I wouldn't blame you. I, too, wondered. The afterword contains a call to action, imploring the reader to "join the conversation" at bachaposh.com. Curious, I tried to go to that address and got only a 404 page unfound notice. There's also an advertisement and preview for a "memoir" about a bacha posh named Faheema, but the only book with that title on Amazon I can find claims the author's name is Ukmina. All of this overzealous marketing for related products of questionable quality raises a number of red flags to me. It would be far from the first time an account has been published that capitalizes on a Western audience's preconceived prejudices about the "Orient," and something about the idea of a "bachaposh.com" makes me wonder what exactly the end goal was in all this. Spark a movement? To do what? Make sure all girls dress properly as girls? Because that seems to be the main grievance at the heart of The Underground Girls of Kabul.

And what else exactly are we to take away from this book? I think it's clear Nordberg has a particular disdain for men, especially Afghan men, as she seems to hold them responsible for the plight of girls in Afghanistan. But then again, she seemed to have a real distaste for Afghanistan and its culture in general, to the point where I wondered why she bothered being there and talking to all these people if she was going to disregard what they were going to say to her anyway. In her opinion, it seems that if Afghan men and women just let go of their "traditions" they'd just be a more enlightened society. But that is just a fantasy that ignores the conditions on the ground. Even her most prominent subject, Azita, is painted as a victim of the controlling men in her life, her father and her husband, whom her father made her marry during the Afghan civil war in the 90s. For the whole book, these men are portrayed as abusive and volatile, the main cause of Azita's suffering. But then near the end, an interview with her father turns the tables yet remains troublingly uncommented upon by the author. Explaining why he forced Azita to marry someone even he saw as unfit, he says, "Society was very unsafe for girls, and law and order had broken down completely. If anybody realized you had a beautiful girl or an educated girl in your house, they would just come and take her, to ‘have relations’ with her. And that would have ruined my family. I am not happy about it, but I was forced to give my daughter to my brother’s son. It was that or have my daughters end up in the mountains as brides of warlords. This is how it happened that I gave my daughter to an uneducated man. He was the best solution at a time of war.” Clearly, the culprit here isn't just "men" or "tradition" – it's the complete obliteration of society in wartime.

It's just a shame, as I've said. A shame that what could be excellent scholarship on a real practice can be so muddied by its progenitor. And a shame that the widespread corruption and neo-colonialism in Afghanistan means that after twenty years of occupation by the United States, at the time of writing this review, the Afghan people are pretty much right back where they started: with the Taliban in charge. Born out of necessity and not "tradition," the bacha posh surely aren't going anywhere. But now their visibility is all but assured to get worse, not better.

[Tannaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

در سر تا سر این دنیای پهناور، بَچَه‌باشی، بهتر است.

[Sharman Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I grow up, I want to be an investigative journalist. It's hard not to admire the work of this author, spending time in a difficult place like Afghanistan and discovering a cultural practice (young girls passing for boys) that no other Westerner seems to have noticed. Nordberg does a good job setting up the historical and social context for this practice and telling the stories of these Afghan women and girls. Certainly this confirms how much gender is culturally constructed. And that's kind of wonderful. There's a real sorrow, of course, in reading about how women are treated in Afghanistan--statistically one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. You don't end this book feeling very happy. I think it's a good thing that this is not why I read books.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

They dress like boys, act like boys and have the same rights as boys. A ”bacha posh” is a girl in Afghanistan that from an early age are brought up as a boy, and thereby changes her gender identity.

The parents have many reasons for this. There's pressure to have sons, to give their daughters another perspective and self-confidence, and superstition - if a girl is dressed like a boy, the next baby will be a son. Regardless of the reason, these girls get more liberty. Until puberty.

Azita, a politician and former member of the parlament, was a bacha posh and is now dressing her daughter as a son. Mehran holds her father's hand, is allowed to eat with him at the table, has eye contact and gets respect from other men. She learns to speak her opinion and look people in the eyes. She lives in a different world from her sisters. In Afghanistan, where bacha, child, means boy and dokhtar, the other, means girl, the possibilities for women are few. According to UN and other organisations for human rights, nine out of ten women are abused by their husbands in some way. This sounds extreme. 40% of the girls are married before they turn 18. Afghanistan is, according to the author, the worst country in the world to have a baby. The life expectancy for women is 44 years, many of which consists of pregnancies. Again, incomprehensible. The bacha posh phenomena is an indication of a patriarchy that forces women to take the role as men to survive.

This isn't just a book about women's conditions. It's also a book about courage. There are many terrorist attacks and kidnappings in Afghanistan, and the people in the parlament are armed. Azita's collegues have invested in the opium trade and have accepted money from people with agendas. They afford high security. She refuses to be corrupt. That is a common characteristic for every bacha posh in the book. They are very head strong and determined. And they all refuse to play by the gender rules. We get to meat many bacha poshes. The 16 year old Zahra, the warrior Shahed and the martial arts teacher Nader are some of them.

The book gives birth to questions about gender identity and gender differences. According to the men interviewed, women are vulnerable and caring. According to the women, to be a woman means absence of freedom. A greater context is whether or not a person is born into a gender identity. The bacha poshes that Nordberg meets are convinced it is formed by the environment.

This is not unique for Afghanistan. The concept of gender is considered relevant in most parts of the world. To show a baby's gender by dressing it in blue or pink was invented in the US as a sell trick in the 1940's. Before that, babies were dressed in white. Rules for clothing has always been a tool to maintain the patriarchate order, according to Nordberg. In France, the law to forbide women wearing pants, was formally abolished as late as 2013. Bacha posh is a universal phenomena. They seem to arise in segregated and uncertain places. They existed as early as the middle ages, in many places in the west, including North America and Sweden, according to the author. In Sweden, an orphan named Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar dressed like a man, went into the army and fought the Russians to provide for her sisters and escape a forced marriage.

Jenny Nordberg tries to understand without coloring her words. She gives the reader a piece of the puzzle that might make it easier to view the complexity of the structure. Her book indicates that it's the people with economic power that hold the key. When Azita became the supporter of the family, her husband stopped abusing her. Nordberg thinks that men have to realize that women are not a threat, and that a daughter or wife with education and a job, are a benefit for the family and society as a whole. The organisations that try to improve the situation for women by speaking to women should instead turn to the men, since the ultimate power lies with them.

Nordberg explains that women rights have become an issue for the elite, and associated with the west, something nationalistic and islamistic people feel they have to distance themselves from. Another problem is that when the foreigners are withdrawing from the country, the elite, that sympathized with them, also leave. The people left are conservative and therefore it's difficult to improve the situation. The books also indicates that it's more difficult to improve women's conditions during uncertainty and war. When Azita was young, she wanted to continue her education and had dreams, but was forced to marry an analfabetic cusin in the countryside. The price was 1000 dollar and some property. Azitas father is an academic and liberal, and his dreams during the communist era were shattered by the talibans, and the family had to flee. He wanted Azita to be able to achieve her goals in life, but considering the dangerous time, he felt he had to marry her off to protect her. She wasn't a traditional woman and her father had to convince her husband to allow her to work. Later, Azita became a politician. This indicates that war is preventing human rights, and that a place has to be peaceful to become more equal.

The book is professionally written. The statements are backed up by facts. Everything from UN and other organisations for human rights, to theories by Sigmund Freud and world leading research on gender identity. But, in the end, what makes this book really special, it's the wonderful prose. As a reader, you are transferred into Afghanistan and becomes the little girl, the teenager, the daughter, the wife, the politician, the warrior and the taekwondo teacher. They all have something in common. Everyday is a battle.

Jenny Nordberg has an extraordinary passion for he subject. She burns for these women's rights.

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Complexa, densa si foarte bine documentata. O recomand tuturor celor care vor sa afle mai multe despre societatea afgana.

[Johanna Hammarström · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book awoke so many feelings, it made me so angry, sad and irritated. A feeling of hopelessness fills me trough the read - women's situation in Afghanistan is literally a nightmare which is caused by other peoples need for power and money.

Reading this book the standpoint is that change has to come from within the people. Outside help seems to work sometimes but in all seems to just make things worse.

But I do think books like this are so important. To spread the stories of actual people living in this system and help educate about what is going on within the country.

[Molly · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a book in search of a good editor. It could have been told in far fewer words! It got tiresome after about 150 pages.