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Gendered Cities: Kabul in A Thousand Splendid Suns , by Khaled Hosseini Ramona Bran University of the West Timisoara Faculty of Sociology and Psychology

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Page 1: Gendered Cities

Gendered Cities: Kabul in A Thousand Splendid Suns, by

Khaled Hosseini

Ramona BranUniversity of the West Timisoara

Faculty of Sociology and Psychology

Page 2: Gendered Cities

“One cannot count the moons that shimmer on her roofsOr the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls”

Ode to Kabul by Saeb-e-Tabrizi

Page 3: Gendered Cities

Women of Afghanistan:

● wives and mothers

● restricted to the home

● no / low education

Page 4: Gendered Cities

Wives

• … of the same man

• Rasheed is 40 when he marries Mariam, 60 when he marries Laila

• Jamil has 3 wives and a lover (Mariam’s mother)

Page 5: Gendered Cities

Polygamy

Page 6: Gendered Cities

• Maximum number of 4 wives

• The husband should not discriminate among them

BUT

• Muhammad: 9 wives (Aisha was his favourite)

• Rasheed: 2 wives (Laila is his favourite, if only for a short while)

Page 7: Gendered Cities

Child brides

“A girl should have her first period in her husband’s house, not in her father’s house” (Afghan proverb)

Page 8: Gendered Cities

• Aisha is 9

• Mariam is 15 (marriage arranged by her father)

• Laila is 14 (orphaned, is forced by circumstances)

● Rasheed believes marrying Laila is “right down charitable”

Page 9: Gendered Cities

Mothers

• …of boys preferably

• Rasheed had had a boy from a previous marriage

• Mariam – 7 miscarriages (apparently failed in her “career” as a mother)

• Laila – 2 children (Aziza and Zalmai, the boy)

Page 10: Gendered Cities

The home

Women forbidden to go OUTSIDE unaccompanied

-Flogged if caught-Imprisoned (and then beaten by their fathers) if they tried to runaway

Women secluded INSIDE their homes

-Doing all the chores-Rearing the children-Being abused

Page 11: Gendered Cities

Domestic violence

Rasheed beats both his wives fiercely

-makes Mariam chew pebbles-Laila loses a few teeth after being battered

-both are kept for 3 days in separate rooms, without light,water or food

Page 12: Gendered Cities

• “cooperation” between the wives (try to run away)

• Mariam: - befriends Laila - succeeds as a “mother” to Aziza

- kills Rasheed when he was suffocating Laila

- is sentenced to death

● Laila: - runs to Pakistan with Tariq and the children

Page 13: Gendered Cities

For any questions…

[email protected]

Page 14: Gendered Cities

Thank you!

All the photos were taken from flickrcc (under Creative Commons License)