I decided to step out of the box on my usual genre of books. The book I chose to read is called :The Underground Girls of Kabul".by Jenny Nordberg I am not a big fan of reporter account based books. But, I was pleasantly surprised on how quickly I became drawn into this book.
This book delves deep into the roles that women play in Afghanistan life after the reform for women programs are started by both Russia and the United States. While Ms. Nordberg is interviewing Azita, one of Afghanistan's few female council members, she discovers a secret life that befalls some girls in the country.
Even though women were now being educated in Afghanistan, still in Afghan culture it is said that a family without sons is very weak and the parents are basically shunned by their peers. So, some of those like Azita who gave birth to no sons would dress and raise one of their daughters as a son in order to be viewed as a strong family. After discovering that Azita's son Mehran is actually a girl, Nordberg tries to find out more about this gender bending process.
I'm not going to spoil the exact details of the book, but I can say that the information that Nordberg finds out is definitely very interesting. This book really gives the reader a good picture of the struggles of the women in Afghanistan, including the reason why some women choose to stay disguised as men after their adolescence. I would recommend this bok to anyone with interest in the Middle East and its cultures.
If anyone is intereste din reading this book, it can be found here.
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