Summary: The Underground Girls Of Kabul

“In Afghanistan, where society is ruled almost entirely by men, the birth of a son is cause for celebration and the arrival of a daughter is often mourned as a failure.”
In the world Afghan females live in, their gender has no real rights or freedom. Women in that society are taught growing up to stay in their place, which is completely and utterly inferior to their male counterparts, to keep their bodies covered completely as it may have them perceived as an improper woman or to be a harlot, to aspire to marriage etc. When it comes to marriage, the majority of them are still forced, honor killings are not unusual and any involvement of the justice system in rape cases usually means that only the victim goes to jail and is charged with adultery or having premarital sex. She will not go to jail marries her rapist which is often done by force as well. Often times, women burn themselves …show more content…
The Underground Girls of Kabul is a vivid tale of multiple females who are or who are raising a bacha posh, a third kind of child. A bacha posh means “dressed up like a boy” in Dari. Dari is a language commonly spoken in Afghanistan, the setting of this book. The Underground Girls of Kabul is extremely interesting because these are real accounts of women in Afghanistan. Jenny Nordberg, a reporter and also the author of the book wrote this book of extremely emotional true stories of different females living the bacha posh life. The book unfolds around by female characters who bring this happening to life. Firstly, there is Azita, a female parliamentarian whose youngest daughter is chosen to pose as her only son. Zahra, the tomboy teenager who struggles with puberty and resists her parents’ attempts to turn her into a woman. Shukria, who was forced to marry and have three children after living for twenty years as a man and lastly, Shahed, an Afghan special forces soldier, still in disguise as an adult