“When one gender is so unwanted, so despised, and so suppressed in a place where daughters are expressly unwanted, perhaps both the body and the mind of a growing human can be expected to revolt against becoming a woman. And… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share Image
“Afghanistan, believed by anthropologists to be one of the original historical meeting places between the East and the West, has in fact seen and often tolerated most known religions as well as an influx of believers in such faiths as Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity. Even with the advent and dominance of Islam, other religions were still practiced freely by… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share
“I hear her smiling when she describes her outfit: “I made myself fashionable. And diplomatic. They all took my picture. The BBC, Voice of America, and Tolo TV. I had the turquoise scarf—the one you saw the other day. You know it. And the black jacket.” She pauses. “And a lot of makeup. Big makeup.” I breathe in deeply. I… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share
“In Afghanistan, not much is for certain other than an open sky and eventual death. In between the two is family.” — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share Image
“Since many donor countries required development projects—from agriculture to politics—to consider specifically how the lives of Afghan women were to be improved, Kabul had turned into a place brimming with “gender experts”—a term encompassing many of the foreign-born aid workers, sociologists, consultants, and researchers with degrees in everything from conflict resolution to feminist theory.” — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share
“The harem could not be supervised by men because they posed a potential threat to the women’s chastity and the king’s bloodline. These women… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share Image
“Nancy had neither seen nor heard of girls who dressed as boys and could think of no documentation on the topic through all her time in Afghanistan, dating back to the country’s last king, who was ousted in 1973. But she was “not the least bit surprised” by my story of one little girl being brought up as a boy.… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share
“Tell me,” I ask Siddiqua, “what is the secret to being married for so long?” She looks at me like I am clueless. “It’s… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share Image
“She could be dismissed as a dokhtar zai, or “she who only brings daughters.” Still, this is not as grave an insult as what… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share Image
“Those hundreds of “gender projects” funded by aid money might have been more effective if they had also included men. The fact that Westerners… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share Image
“In Pashto, Afghanistan’s second official language, there is even a deprecating name for a man who has no sons: He is a meraat, referring… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share Image
“It is not just a human rights argument, it is the Warren Buffett argument and the Christine Lagarde argument: Countries that want to develop… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share Image
“Louis Duprée described this contradiction in his work on Afghanistan: “Islam, in essence, is not a backward, anti-progressive, anti-modern religion, although many of its… — Jenny Nordberg Copy Share Image
