Comments on: Gender-Bending in Afghanistan

By: CB

CB — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:06:01 +0000

It’s about maximizing the whole society’s fertility. The cross-dressing just provides that margin of flexibility to allow families in unfortunate circumstances to survive.

We have much the same going on in the US, or did, for many years, where a “career woman” was mostly childless, kind of an honorary man, and set apart from ordinary housewife-women.

And, a lot of time, that honorary man status was temporary; a career woman would often get married, have children, and become just another woman.

People in this decade seem to have forgotten how recent that was… even in the ’80s in the Middle of Nowhere, OK, I knew that Career Women like my aunt played by different rules than women like my mom.

By: veggiewood

veggiewood — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 04:08:41 +0000

There was a film made called Osama that kind of touches on this. Warning – it left my crying somewhat hysterically.

By: eilish

eilish — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 06:57:33 +0000

At first, I was horrified by the misogyny.
In the article, the little bacha pos of the MP’s family slaps her sister, and her mother ruefully comments on how successfully she has taken on the male role.
Then I started to think about the level of acceptance for the bacha pos within the community. The girls don’t decide for themselves to swap gender roles,it comes from their families: and the people in their local neighbourhoods accept that the family has a boy child called Mehran, and not a girl child called Manoush.
Is this a very pragmatic way to undermine the prevailing attitudes, and give girls training in self-assertion?

By: SarahMC

SarahMC — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 02:53:02 +0000

The only explanation that makes any sense to me is that the families that would do this are those that do not believe in the segregation & strict gender roles but abide by them anyway because their communities do. Maybe they would send their girls out to do "boy stuff" but they are too afraid to without presenting them as boys (and tricking the community).

By: Elena

Elena — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 01:09:54 +0000

In that culture, girlhood doesn’t mean what it means here. It’s more like childhood=boyhood, girlhood=stifling prison, worthlessness.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:45:11 +0000

It’s funny, because I read this story this morning too trying to think about the fluidity of gender and sexuality and trying not to impose my own Western knee-jerk reaction on this, but as I went through it, it became so clear that this wasn’t about fluidity at all. The gender roles are as reified as could be, in this situation; the difference is that people allow their daughters to play with them, but then at some point retract permission. I felt so bad for the one who said she wished she’d been born male. What if she really is a trans person, now condemned to adopt the “wrong” gender? Yikes.

By: FashionablyEvil

FashionablyEvil — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:34:30 +0000

I was going to say that the logical next step would be to recognize that if girls successfully do what boys do, then why are there all these restrictions on girls? But I guess it’s possible to look at the male trappings of the performance as the dominant indicator, rather than the character and skills of the girls themselves.

By: JetGirl

JetGirl — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:08:12 +0000

The hypocrisy is just amazing. They will tie themselves into pretzels just to uphold the status quo, even if it’s unhealthy and impractical for all involved.
And lest we get too smug over here in the United States, may I recommend the blog No Longer Quivering? The women there tell stories of horrific abuse at the hands of patriarchal Christian cults. It’s happening now, it’s growing, and it’s horrifying.

By: Aunti Disestablishmentarian

Aunti Disestablishmentarian — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:38:57 +0000

There was a similar tradition in Croatia/Serbia where sonless parents passed a daughter as a son. They were called Virdzina– Virgins. They remained “male” for life, though, inheriting the family name and property, and keeping the family “honor”.

An excellent drama about a young girl in this situation was made in 1991 by the same name. Impossible to find in the states, though. Booo.

By: PhDork

PhDork — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:31:21 +0000

I read this story this morning and was thinking about posting it, because the cognitive dissonance (a woman in the article refers to it as “creative thinking” or some such) is just boggling.

The note about the girl asked to dress/act as a boy by being offered “more fun and freedoms”? It kills me. That women recognize and (have to) accept such inequity, and that the inequity promotes poverty and suffering, and that tends to make people fearful and conservative, which entrenches inequities…

Patriarchy hurts everyone, people. Even, ultimately, the Patriarchs.