The Role of Women in Islamic Countries

All around the world today, women of all ethnicities, ages, and backgrounds are experiencing mistreatment and injustice everyday. Specifically, women in Islamic countries including: Afghanistan and Iraq, are struggling for justice and acceptance. In these countries, women are vanquished of their rights and freedoms. Completing everyday tasks like attending school and having a job are uncommon amongst women in the Middle East (Kazemi). Gender equality is an unspoken ideal. There and all over the world, men are perceived as superior over women. This idea originates from the countries' main religious text, the Qu'ran.  Men are granted more freedoms and opportunities due to the simple reason that they are male (Kazemi). This concept occurs in all age groups. Major rights obtained only by males in the Middle East include: employment, property rights, and education.

In Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, children who are born as girls are dressed up, raised, and treated as if they were boys (Nordberg). A cultural practice, referred to as “Bacha posh”, in which some families without sons will pick a daughter to live and behave as a boy. This enables the child to behave more freely: attending school, escorting her sisters in public, and working (Kazemi). Bacha posh also allows the family to avoid the social stigma associated of not having any male children. In Jenny Nordberg’s novel, The Underground Girls Of Kabul, she discusses the harsh reality of the these young girls practicing Bacha posh. The psychological and emotional effects on these young girls is unimaginable. Effects including identity issues, low self-esteem, and sense of normalcy (Nordberg). The absence of gender equality is an issue occurring today.

In the image above: What appears to be a young boy and two girls, isn't entirely true. The young "boy" on the left isn't genetically a male. Formally known as Mehran (previous to transition), went through the cultural practice of Bacha posh (Nordberg).

Sources:

Kazemi, Farhad. "Gender, Islam, And Politics." Social Research 67.2 (2000): 453-474.       Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.

Nordberg, Jenny. The Underground Girls of Kabul. Broadway Books, 2014. The

    Underground Girls of Kabul: in Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan

    is a book that documents the bacha posh of Afghanistan. It is written by

    journalist and foreign correspondent Jenny Nordberg and was published on

    September 16 of 2014.