The Underground Girls of Kabul Read Free

up, she says: “You know my youngest is also a girl, yes? We dress her like a boy.”
    I glance in the direction of Mehran, who has been skidding around the periphery as we have talked. She has hopped into another chair and is talking to the plastic figurine again.
    “They gossip about my family. When you have no sons, it is a big missing, and everyone feels sad for you.”
    Azita says this as if it is a simple explanation.
    Having at least one son is mandatory for good standing and reputation here. A family is not only incomplete without one; in a country lacking rule of law, it is also seen as weak and vulnerable. So it is incumbent upon every married woman to quickly bear a son–it is her absolute purpose in life, and if she does not fulfill it, there is clearly something wrong with her in the eyes of others. She could be dismissed as a
dokhtar zai
, or “she who only brings daughters.” Still, this is not as grave an insult as what an entirely childless woman could be called—a
sanda
or
khoshk
, meaning “dry” in Dari. But a woman who cannot birth a son in a patrilineal culture is—in the eyes of society and often herself—fundamentally flawed.
    Theliteracy rate is no more than 10 percent in most areas, and many unfounded truths swirl around without being challenged. Among them is the commonly held belief that a woman can
choose
the sex of her unborn baby simply by making up her mind about it. As a consequence, a woman’s inability to bear sons does not elicit muchsympathy. Instead, she is condemned both by society and her own husband as someone who has just not desired a son strongly enough. Women, too, often resort to blaming their own bodies and weak minds for failing to deliver sons.
    The character flaws often add up about such a woman in the eyes of others: She is surely difficult and obnoxious. Perhaps even evil. The fact that the
father
actually determines the sex of a child, as the male sperm carries the chromosome makeup for each child and determines whether a boy or a girl will be born, is unknown to most.
    For Azita, the lack of a son stood to impede all she was trying to accomplish as a politician. When she arrived with her family in Kabul in 2005, sneers and suspicion about her lack of a son soon inevitably extended to her abilities as a lawmaker and a public figure. Her visitors would offer their condolences when they learned about her four daughters. She found herself being cast as an incomplete woman. Fellow parliamentarians, constituents, and her own extended family were unsympathetic: How could she be trusted to accomplish anything at all in politics when she could not even give her husband a son? Without a boy to show off to the constant stream of visiting political power brokers, her husband also grew increasingly embarrassed.
    Azita and her husband approached their youngest daughter with a proposition: “Do you want to look like a boy and dress like a boy, and do more fun things like boys do, like bicycling, soccer, and cricket? And would you like to be like your father?”
    She absolutely did. It was a splendid offer.
    All it took was a haircut, a pair of pants from the bazaar, and a denim shirt with “superstar” printed on the back. In a single afternoon, the family went from having four daughters to being blessed with three little girls and a spiky-haired boy. Their youngest would no longer answer to
Mahnoush
, meaning “moonlight,” but to the boy’s name
Mehran
. To the outside world—and especially to Azita’s constituents back in Badghis—the family was finally complete.
    Some, of course, knew the truth. But they, too, congratulatedAzita. Having a made-up son was better than none, and people complimented her on her ingenuity. When Azita traveled back to her province—a more conservative place than Kabul—she took Mehran with her. In the company of her six-year-old son, she found she was met with more approval.
    The switch also satisfied Azita’s husband. Tongues would