The Underground Girls of Kabul (45 page)

1
research by Dr. Alfred Kinsey and others
See Theodore M. Brown and Elizabeth Fee, “Alfred C. Kinsey: A Pioneer of Sex Research,”
American Journal of Public Health
(June 2003),
ncbi.​nlm.​nih.​gov
.

2
how a woman’s uterus could be surgically removed
See Ehrenreich and English’s
For Her Own Good
.

3
only “paltry” references to lesbianism
The quote is from page 97 in chapter 5, “Woman-Woman Love in Islamic Societies,” by Stephen O. Murray, in Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe,
Islamic
Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature
(New York: New York University Press, 1997). Murray also quotes the passage from Muslim geographer and cartographer Sharif al-Idrisi, who lived in the twelfth century, page 99.

4
“Very powerful warlords and regional commanders”
For a fuller context of Coomaraswamy’s remark, see “New UN–Afghan Pact Will Help Curb Recruitment, Sexual Abuse of Children,” UN News Centre, February 3, 2011. Also see “An Unwanted Truth? Focusing the G8: Shining a Spotlight on Sexual Violence Against Children in Conflict,” Warchild UK, April 2013,
cdn.​warchild.​org.​uk
. In this report, the British NGO Warchild UK, which focuses on providing assistance to children in areas of conflict, said of
bacha bazi:
“The issue remains one of virtual silence and inaction, however, due to the acutely taboo nature of the subject and complicity of senior figures of authority.”

5
the number of boys sexually abused
John Frederick for UNICEF, “Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Boys in South Asia and a Review of Research Findings, Legislation, Policy and Programme Responses,” April 2010,
unicef-​irc.​org
. See also a Save the Children report from 2003: “Mapping of Psychosocial Support for Girls and Boys Affected by Child Sexual Abuse in Four Countries in South and Central Asia,”
sca.​save​the​children.​se
, which states: “Men are seen as needing ‘sexual release,’ the lack of which can even result in poor health. On the other hand, the ideal construction of the female is asexual before marriage, and sexually passive after. There are traditional precedents for ‘accepted’ child abuse. Reports of men using young boys for sexual gratification are well-known and talked about. Traditionally, ‘keeping’ good-looking boys adds status and prestige to the man, and adds to his image (self or imposed) of virility. Under the Taliban, a strict ban on homosexuality made more overt aspects of practise go underground. However, the practise of boys under 18 being brought to parties for entertainment is reported to still be taking place in some rural areas and in and around Kandahar.”

6
“The first sexual experiences”
Charles Lindholm,
Generosity and Jealousy: The Swat Pukhtun of Northern Pakistan
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 225.

7
Author Hamid Zaher recounts
Hamid Zaher,
It Is Your Enemy Who Is Dock-tailed: A Memoir
(iUniverse, 2012), originally written in Farsi in 2009, Kindle Edition.

8
defined three different forms of love
Helen Fisher, “The Nature of Romantic Love”—commentary in
Journal of NIH Research
, April 1994,
helenfisher.​com
.

1
Forty-five-year-old Amir Bibi in Khost
For Bibi’s interview, see Terese Christiansson,
De är kvinnorna med makt i Afghanistan
, Expressen, December 4, 2010,
expressen.​se
.

2
In a study of medieval Europe
Valerie R. Hotchkiss,
Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe
(New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), p. 13.

3
Lotte C. van de Pol and Rudolf M. Dekker
Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. van de Pol,
The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe
(London: Macmillan Press, 1989).

4
orphan Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar
The information on Stålhammar is at the National Swedish Army museum’s website,
sfhm.​se
.

5
Briton Hannah Snell famously served
See Julie Wheelwright,
Amazons and Military Maids: Women Who Dressed as Men in Pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
(San Francisco: Pandora/Harper Collins, 1989).

6
German women were also found
See Dekker and van de Pol,
The Tradition of Female Transvestism
, p. 96.

7
among the conquistadors in South America
Ibid. See also Wheelwright,
Amazons and Military Maids
.

8
British anthropologist Antonia Young tracked down women
Antonia Young’s
Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins
(Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000) reads in large parts like a book on Afghanistan today, even though the two countries are twenty-six hundred miles and an Arab peninsula apart. Information on Albanian virgins cited in this section is from her book as well as an interview.

See also Rene Gremaux, “Mannish Women of the Balkan Mountains,”
theol.​eldoc.​ub.​rug.​nl
, from 1989.

Gremaux also contributed the chapter “Woman Becomes Man in the Balkans” to the book
Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History
, edited by Gilbert Herdt (Zone Books, 1993). He writes of these women: “Belonging to an intermediate gender category may have caused much inconvenience to the individual’s psyche, yet being betwixt and between also opened new perspectives and brought about opportunitites.”

For a recent documentation of Albanian virgins, see Pepa Hristova,
Sworn Virgins
(Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag, 2013).

9
Albanian laws stemming from the fifteenth century
See Young,
Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins
.

1
children still freeze to death
See Rod Nordland, “Driven Away by a War, Now Stalked by Winter’s Cold,”
New York Times
, February 3, 2012,
nytimes.​com
.

2
his 1990 study
Manhood in the Making
David D. Gilmore,
Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

3
a “natural” aggression in sons
Joshua S. Goldstein,
War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

4
women today make up 15 percent of troops
The ACLU press release “ACLU Challenges Ongoing Exclusion of Women from Combat Positions,” October 31, 2013,
www.​aclu.​org
, reads: “Women make up more than 14 percent of the 1.4 million active military personnel, yet are still excluded from over 200,000 positions despite the repeal of the 1994 combat exclusion policy in January.”

1
a longstanding Hindu tradition of
sadhin
See Serena Nanda,
Gender Diversity
(Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2000), p. 40.

2
“It’s normal around here”
See Anees Jung,
Beyond the Courtyard
(New York: Viking by Penguin Books India, 2003), p. 125.

3
women dressing as men for purposes
See Andrea B. Rugh,
Reveal and Conceal: Dress in Contemporary Egypt, Contemporary Issues in the Middle East
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986).

4
religious authorities in Malaysia
“Malaysia Bans Tomboys Saying Girls with Short Hair Who Act Like Boys ‘Violate Islam,’ ”
Daily Mail
, October 24, 2008,
dailymail.​co.​uk
.

5
call themselves
boyah
Lorenz Nigst and José Sánchez García, “Boyat in the Gulf: Identity, Contestation and Social Control,” Universities of Vienna and Barcelona, Middle East Critique, Spring 2010. See also Shereen El Feki,
Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World
(New York: Pantheon, 2013). El Feki visits a rehabilitation center, and what she is told by a psychologist at the center echoes the story in Afghanistan, in that most teenage girls she counseled who had been brought up as boys didn’t consider themselves troubled or needing a cure. “They feel it’s their freedom; they don’t feel it’s wrong,” a psychologist is quoted as saying.

1
In the 1970s, Louis Duprée wrote
See Louis Duprée,
Afghanistan
(Oxford University Press, 1973, sixth impression, 2010) p. 104.

2
Around 1,400 years before Jesus was born
See Mary Boyce,
Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices
, first published in 1979 by Routledge; and Jenny Rose,
Zoroastrianism: An Introduction
(London: I. B. Tauris, 2011).

3
“almost any stone thrown in Afghanistan”
See Louis Duprée’s
Afghanistan
, p. 104.

4
recorded these same beliefs
Lindholm writes, on page 166 of his book
Generosity and Jealousy:
“Swatis share with other Pakistanis and South Asians a firm belief that food, drink and even people are either ‘hot’ or ‘cold.’ The logic by which these divisions are made are by no means clear, and sometimes people disagree on whether a particular unusual food is ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ but there is widespread agreement about the major parameters of the system.”

5
a primer for how boys and girls
Chapter 16 of the
Avesta
, “The Bundahishn (‘Creation’), or Knowledge from the Zand,” can be found in English translation at
avesta.​org
.

6
The Persian epic
See Djalal Khaleghi Motlagh,
Women in the Shāhnāmeh: Their History and Social Status Within the Framework of Ancient and Medieval Sources
, ed. by Nahid Pirnazar, trans. from German by Brigitte Neuenschwander (Santa Ana, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2012), p. 42.

7
the same rainbow myth of gender-changing
See Raymond L. Lee and Alistair B. Fraser,
The Rainbow Bridge: Rainbows in Art, Myth and Science
(Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001).

8
Norse mythology from the Middle Ages
See Helga Kress, “Taming the Shrew: The Rise of Patriarchy and the Subordination of the Feminine in Old Norse Literature,” in
Cold Counsel: Women in Old Norse Literature and Mythology: A Collection of Essays
, ed. by Sarah M. Anderson with Karen Swenson (New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 90.

9
a common Indo-European origin
Viktor Rydberg wrote about this in “Fädernas Gudasaga” of 1923.

10
the earliest recorded prayers of Zoroaster’s
Mary Boyce,
Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices
(Routledge, 1979), p 17.

1
embroiled in a heated national conflict
Rod Nordland, “Candidates for Parliament Protest Afghan Elections,”
New York Times
, November 7, 2010,
nytimes.​com
, tells the story of the fraught election procedure: “Nationwide, the election commission invalidated 1.33 million or nearly a fourth of the 5.74 million votes recorded, according to an official fact sheet.”

2
bloodiest year yet of the war
Comparative numbers are found in Susan G. Chesser, “Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians,” Congressional Research Service, December 6, 2012,
www.​fas.​org
. American casualties in 2002: 49, wounded: 74, American casualties in 2011: 404, wounded: 5,204. The report also mentions that “up to 11,864 civilians were killed in Afghanistan from 2007, when the United Nations began reporting statistics, to the end of 2011.” In 2011, the civilian casualty toll was 3,021 killed and 4,507 injured—the highest numbers since UN reporting began in 2007.

3
President Obama’s two-year “surge”
Peter Baker, “How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan,”
New York Times
, December 5, 2009, describes the thinking behind Obama’s decision to temporarily send more troops into Afghanistan.

4
$700 billion and counting to American taxpayers
Anthony H. Cordesman, “The US Cost of the Afghan War: FY2002–FY2013, Cost in Military Operating Expenditures and Aid, and Prospects for ‘Transition,’ ” May 15, 2012,
csis.​org
.

5
“This time it was the United States”
The quote comparing the U.S. involvement to the Soviet Union’s is on page 290 of Sherard Cowper-Coles,
Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign
(Harper Press, 2011).

6
ignored by all but human rights organizations
Several groups have warned about the dangers for women of any negotiated political deal with the extremists, including the Afghan-led Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization, in its 2012 report “Afghan Women After the Taliban: Will History Repeat Itself?,”
ahrdo.​org
. They write: “The current US and Afghan government-backed process of negotiating with extremist groups, and especially the Taliban, promises to increase the vulnerability of women in Afghanistan in the medium- to long-term. Any political deal with these forces means the selling out of women’s hard-gained achievements in the last ten years while most likely incurring unbearable cost for Afghan women.”