This book, by the Swedish journalist Jenny Nordberg, explores the lives of the bacha posh in Afghanistan. A little known and even lesser acknowledged group, they are essentially girls who dress and behave and pass themselves off as boys until puberty. This is done for various reasons. In such a firmly patriarchal society, families that have borne no boys are considered failures at best, abominations at worst. Through it all, only the men, their fathers and (potential) husbands have the real power.
Ms. Nordberg tells the story of Azita, a member of parliament who passes off her youngest daughter as a boy; Zahra, who is vehemently resisting her parents attempts to turn her back into a girl; Shahed, an undercover female cop who remains in disguise as a man as an adult; and Shakria, who lived as a man for 20 years but is now a married mother of three.
“The way I have come to see it now is that the bacha posh is a missing piece in the history of women.
….So can a story of concession and resistance, of tragedy and hope, exist at the same time?
For women, it always has.”
Obviously well researched, this was an absorbing and thought provoking read, taking me deep into a culture so foreign to my own. There were any times that I’d cry out in dismay or revulsion at what I read, or I’d have to put the book down and do something else entirely until I could calm down. Worth it, though.
