Gender Roles In The Kite Runner

Sitting by a warm cozy fire, surrounded by a caring family, a knock comes from the front door. The father opens the door only to witness what no person in Afghanistan should, members of the Taliban. They barge their way into the house and start firing bullets just for the fun of it. There’s nothing anyone can do. As a father, one cannot speak up nor can one try to fight back, for if that person did, he and his family, would be lying in the middle of the street with a bullet in the back of their heads. In the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini highlights how Afghan culture shapes the identity of Amir and other Afghan people, using the Taliban as a superstructure force. Within the novel, both Marxism and Gender Theory are displayed; sometimes …show more content…
Within the culture women have little to no say in their lives. The fathers of the women say whom they can and cannot marry. Soraya had run off with a boyfriend and when she came home, she exclaims, “ He handed me a pair of scissors and calmly told me to cut off all my hair. He watched while I did it” (Hosseini 179). Within the culture women aren’t allowed to sneak off with men, especially without their fathers consent. Because of men having such a strong grip on the women, women feel powerless in the Afghan community and ultimately are viewed as lesser people because of this treatment. The superstructure force of the Taliban were even worse on women shaping them into lesser people rather than equals:
When the Taliban took Kabul, they immediately forbade girls to go to school. Moreover, women were barred from working outside the home, precipitating a crisis in healthcare and education. Women were also prohibited from leaving their home without a male relative—those that did so risked being beaten, even shot, by officers of the ‘ministry for the protection of virtue and prevention of vice.’ A woman caught wearing fingernail polish may have had her fingertips chopped off. All this, according to the Taliban, was to safeguard women and their honor. (Hayes, Brunner, & Rowen

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