The Kite Runner Women Essay

Women in Afghanistan continue to face discrimination to this day. Throughout the novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini illustrates the way women in an Afghan society and culture are treated. In the 1990s when the Taliban took over Afghanistan, women had very little access to work, education, and healthcare. In the year of 2023 women face violence, they can not work, and still have no access to healthcare. Women are forced into marriages, do not make decisions for themselves, and have little freedom. Through Amir’s perspective in Afghanistan culture, and the gender and feminist critical lens through the view of a man, exhibit the difference men and women are treated in a society. To commence, according to the UN Women, 60-80% of marriages

Amir knows how quickly gossip can spread and the consequences of it for Soraya “this was teetering dangerously on the verge of gossip material… and she would bear the brunt of that poison, not [him]—[he] was fully aware of the Afghan double standard that favored [his] gender” (Hosseini 146). Society is so quick to judge a woman more quickly than a man, because of what society expects from a woman versus what they accept from a man. Soraya knows first hand how rumors and gossip can follow a person around for the rest of their lives, and Amir recognizes that as a man he has more freedom from the expectations of society. Society accepts the double standard that decides what is appropriate for a woman and what is acceptable for a man. To continue, another example of the double standard in Afghan culture is how men’s opinions or actions are accepted by society because society gives them the authority to. On Amir and Baba’s trip to America, there is a woman in the truck with them. The soldier had a compromise to let the group pass, he requested for, “a half hour with the lady in the back of the truck” (Hosseini 115). No one questions this request, except for Baba, even for the fact that he humiliates the women and takes advantage of everyone's amenability in this situation. If Baba did not step up, and the women did not comply with the soldier’s request, there would have been problems for

Men can make mistakes, say inappropriate things, and view people less or different from them; however, they will not have to experience the wrath of humanity. Soraya’s small mistake from her past continued to haunt her until she found a suitable suitor, and even then people continued to judge her, “‘I tell you that boy did well not to marry his cousin’” (Hosseini 178). The two women talk about the unpureness of Soraya because of when she ran away with a man four years ago. Later, on the ride home Soraya breaks down in the car over the unfairness of her situation, she says, “‘their sons go out… and get their girlfriends pregnant, they have kids out of wedlock and no one says a… thing… I make one mistake… and I have to have my face rubbed in it for the rest of my life” (Hosseini 179). The double standard allows men to have so much freedom without facing any consequences from society. In a situation like Soraya’s, she will never be able to forget about her mistake. She has a respectable husband and a new life, but people still continue to remind her “three thousand miles away and [she is] still hearing them” (Hosseini 179). No matter the effort that Soraya and her family attempt to move past it, people will continue to remind them. The community shunned Soraya for years, and her family feared no suitable husbands for her. In their culture, it is better for a girl to have an abusive-toxic husband,