الفهرس 
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Abstract
This thesis aims to illustrate the victimization of women in third world countries. It examines how postcolonial feminist theory is primarily concerned with the representation of third world women in once colonized countries and western locations. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate how post-colonial feminism articulates a critique on western feminists who universalize and homogenize the experience of women by focusing solely on the experience of western women without taking into consideration the circumstances surrounding third world women concerning social class, racial, cultural, geopolitical conditions and settings of the colonized territories. The thesis also sheds light on the experiences of third world women who suffer from double colonization since third world women simultaneously experience the oppression of colonialism and patriarchy. Third world woman has to resist colonial domination not only as a colonized subject, but as a woman.
Third world feminists condemn western feminists for imposing western norms on colonized regions in the light of eurocentrism. This thesis depicts how western feminists fail to acknowledge the differences between white women and third world women. The researcher also illustrates how postcolonial feminism criticizes western eurocentrism which sought to establish itself as the only legitimate feminism. This thesis depicts how postcolonial feminists object to the representation of third world women as passive, silenced, voiceless victims who suffer from restrictive culture and patriarchal oppression. Whereas, white women are represented as modern, educated and empowered. Post-colonial feminists heavily assert that western feminists represent third world women as victims who must be rescued by their western saviors as a justification to their underlined hegemonic intentions. Postcolonial feminists castigate the distortion of third world women’s experience, and inscribe the inferiority of the colonized people in order to exercise total control over them.
This thesis crystallizes postcolonial feminists’ attempts to focus on the experiences of subalterns and their context of colonial production. As well as postcolonial feminists assert that the failure of female subalterns to speak is not the production of their inability to articulate themselves, but it is the failure of transaction between the speaker and the listener. They are silenced by western feminists from colonizer countries who misrepresent their colonized counterparts by imposing silence on them, and they act as oppressors of their sisters. As they imposed white feminist models on colonized women, and therefore they worked as an oppressor. This thesis also manifests how the researcher sheds light on postcolonial feminists’ critiques to judge third world women by western standards. The researcher also depicts how postcolonial feminists sought to deconstruct the idea of first world woman as subject versus third world woman as object.
In this thesis, the researcher examines the criticism of postcolonial feminists to the white feminists’ concept of sisterhood since it implies a false sense of common experiences as ”if all women are oppressed by a monolithic, conspiring sort of patriarchal dominance” (Tyagi 49). This thesis also aims to reflect the aspiration of third world feminists to insert third world women back into their historical and cultural context. It also analyzes the role of western feminists in the oppression of third world women by overlooking questions of race, sex, class, and ignoring the social, historical and cultural contexts while voicing colonized women. The researcher also sheds light on the reasons of oppressing third world women which are tackled by post-colonial feminist theory with reference to Khaled Hosseini’s and Nadia Hashimi’s novels, the researcher also analyzes these features from the perspectives of some critics like Chandra Mohanty, Gayatri Spivak, Annia Loomba, Uma Narayan, Rosemary Marangoly George and Lata Mani.
To attain the objectives of the proposed study, the researcher raises feminist issues to analyze and understand the reasons and features of women’s victimization in third world countries. The researcher also proposed that western feminists fail to recognize the conditions of women in third world countries. In “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse”, Chandra Talpade Mohanty states that western feminists failed to help women in third world countries because they neglect the cultural, traditional, historical and economic conditions which lead to the oppression of third world women. Mohanty states that all women across different classes and cultures share the same experience of oppression. She also asserts that in feminist analysis women are considered to be a singular group and all of them are powerless, exploited and sexually harassed. Mohanty also adds that Gayatri Spivak is the first one to point out to third world women in her article “Can the Subaltern Speak” (Spivak 1).
This thesis also examines the status of Afghan women who live in a third world country. The thesis also depicts Afghan women’s status in the society which should be based on the traditional, cultural, geopolitical, religious, ethnic conditions and class structures which define the requirements for women in a way that enhances patriarchal ideology. Examining the effect of these institutions on Afghan women’s lives is an attempt to prevent ethnocentric assumptions of western feminism to homogenize women’s experiences as a universal group. This thesis highlights the position of women in Afghanistan which has been traditionally inferior to men. The position of Afghan women has varied according to sociocultural norms, geopolitical, and ethnic conditions. Women are treated as slaves, properties to their husbands and fathers. The most valued characteristic of Afghan woman is silence and obedience. The thesis shows how the patriarchal ideology in Afghan community marginalizes and exploits women.
This thesis aims at defining the concept of victimization, and why it is closely related to women in third world countries. The thesis also depicts the historical and sociocultural reasons, features of women’s victimization in Afghanistan as a third world country, and it crystallizes different means of resistance to patriarchal oppression. The present study also shows how Khaled Hosseini and Nadia Hashimi give voice to silenced and victimized women in Afghanistan who suffer from oppression all over different decades. The study also sheds light on many examples of submissive Afghan women, and it deplores different means of resistance to eradicate patriarchal oppression.
This thesis examines the factors involved in oppressing Afghan women. One main factor is the political institution. Afghanistan witnessed the colonial power, successive monarchies and transition of power such as the invasion of the Soviet Union, Taliban’s fundamentalist rule and the invasion of the United States which resulted in the oppression and victimization of Afghan women all over different historical epochs. The researcher demonstrates how political life in Afghanistan contributes heavily to put female in a subordinate position in Afghanistan .The thesis also depicts patriarchal and sociocultural norms as the second main factor which highly contributes to the victimization of women. Traditions, customs, and sociocultural norms depict Afghan females as inferior to men in different aspects of social life. The thesis also shows how religion, tradition and culture are interwoven in restricting women’s power.
This thesis traces the widespread violence, subordination, and marginalization that damage Afghan women’s lives which became a common thing in Afghan customs, traditions, and social practices as well as Afghan women do not have freedom or chances to struggle against patriarchal traditions and norms that place them in a subordinate position in the society. The researcher elucidates the features of women’s victimization in Afghan society such as violence, subordination and marginalization which are rooted in a set of common patriarchal restrictions that hinder women to join public life in Afghanistan.
The researcher crystallizes how subordinated Afghan women are always seen as passive, voiceless and silenced, and how they try to fight against oppression in Afghan society through different means of resistance. Sisterhood is manifested in the thesis as one of the most important means of resistance to women’s oppression. The researcher also stresses the importance of education as one of the means of resistance as well as landais poetry is also crystallized as one of the means of resistance of silenced Afghan women to raise their voice and encourage them to stop being silenced.
In this thesis, the researcher also explores bacha posh and seeking refugee as means of resistance in Afghan patriarchal society. The researcher traces the lives of Afghan women who disguised and dressed as boys to resist patriarchy. The thesis sheds light on Afghan women who fled away from Afghanistan in search for a new identity and a better life as a kind of resistance to patriarchal and colonial power.
According to the aforementioned lines, Khaled Hosseini is one of many Afghan – American writers who try to give voice to voiceless and silenced Afghan women through his novels. Khaled Hosseini was born in Afghanistan on the 4th of March 1965. He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. When Hosseini was eleven years old, his family moved to France to escape from political instability before Soviet’s invasion to Afghanistan. His family applied for asylum in the United States, then he became later on an American citizen. Hosseini did not return to Afghanistan until 2001 at the age of 36 because his family could not return to Afghanistan easily especially when the People’s Democratic Party (PDPA) of Afghanistan seized power. His family decided to seek asylum in the USA after the beginning of the soviet – Afghan war. Hosseini earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1993, and he completed his internal medicine in Los Angeles in 1997. He practiced medicine for over ten years, until a year and a half after the release of The kite Runner. He began writing The kite Runner in 2001, The kite Runner was praised for its powerful storytelling. Hosseini’s second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) was inspired by his visit to Afghanistan in 2003. Then he wrote And The Mountains Echoed in 2013 which adopts the story of a brother and sister separated when the sister is given up for adoption because of their family’s poverty. Hosseini wrote his short story Sea Prayer (2018) in which he shed light on the highly publicized death of a three years old Syrian refugee who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in 2015. He depicts in the book the life of a father and a son wait to depart from war torn Syria. In his debut novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini sheds light on the situation of Afghan women within historical context of Afghanistan. He explores in his novel A Thousand splendid Suns the plight of Afghan women behind the walls of Afghanistan during several invasions in the country. The title of the novel is taken from a poem written about Kabul by the 17th century Afghan poet Saib Etabrizi. Khaled Hosseini exposes the political, cultural, social and religious structures of Afghanistan which degrade and devalue Afghan women (Philip 792).
Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns depicts the social, cultural, and political structures that support violence endured by female characters in the novel. A Thousand Splendid Suns portrays the resistance of Afghan women against the patriarchal male dominated society in Afghanistan, and the victimization or oppression imposed upon them through their culture, lifestyle, norms and principles of their community. Hosseini writes his novel to reflect the conflicts and struggles that female characters face when they try to find their place in Afghanistan’s patriarchal culture to achieve their subaltern voice.
Hosseini’s Novel And The Mountains Echoed (2013) asserts that male authors can fight for the rights of women as the novel displays unique female characters which voices out feminism, and reflects how women are oppressed in Afghan society. And the Mountains Echoed is a feminist fiction which crystallizes the reasons behind women’s silence in Afghan society. Hosseini depicts in his novel how women remain silent, and how silence is imposed upon them in Afghanistan’s patriarchal society. The novel also depicts some female characters who overcome patriarchal oppression through different means of resistance. The novel does not only display the marginalization of women and the victims of oppression, but it also sheds light on the characters who fight for feminism.
Nadia Hashimi is another Afghan American writer who raises feminist issues through her novels, and she follows the same cultural flavor of Khaled Hosseini. Hashimi was born on the 12th of December 1977. She was born at New York to Afghan parents. Her parents immigrated to the United States in the early 70’s. Her parents intended to return to Afghanistan, but the Soviet Union’s invasion hinders them to return to Afghanistan. Hashimi began her medical career in 2008 in the children’s National Medical center in Washington, D.C. Like Khaled Hosseini, Nadia Hashimi depicts the plight of Afghan women who are treated as mere puppets in Afghan patriarchal society through her debut Novels. In 2014, Hashimi released her debut novel The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, then she releases her second novel When the Moon is Low in 2015. In 2016, she releases her third Novel A House Without Windows (2016).
In The Pearl that Broke Its Shell (2014), Hashimi depicts the plight of Afghan women who suffer in Afghanistan’s patriarchal society. Hashimi also sheds light on bacha posh which is considered to be one of the means of struggle for freedom in male dominated societies. In her novel, Hashimi highlights how Afghan women are victims of male domination, ignorance, self-immolation, restrictions over mobilization, deprivation of education, murder, beating, psychological violence, early and forced marriage. The researcher illustrates Hashimi’s attempts to give voice to the subalterns through the manifestation of bacha posh as one of the means of resistance (Menon 1918). The thesis highlights the status of Afghan women under Taliban’s rule in When the Moon is Low (2015), and their conditions at the refugee camps as well as their schemes to flee away from oppression in search for a new identity and a better future as a kind of resistance to patriarchal oppression.
Khaled Hosseini and Nadia Hashimi display in their novels assumptions which are contradicted to the theoretical framework of western feminism. They depict in their novels many examples of Afghan women who search for their own identity and future. Both of them portrayed Afghan women as subalterns who suffer from double domination from the colonizers and the patriarchal system. Both Khaled Hosseini and Nadia Hashimi focus on Afghan women as subalterns, and they try to give Afghan women voice through the adoption of different means of resistance. The thesis is divided into three chapters and a conclusion.
Chapter one; “Introductory Chapter”; offers an outline and introduces the theoretical framework of the thesis. The key concern of this chapter is to trace the history of postcolonial feminism and to elucidate how it differs from western feminism. Asserting the differences between the experiences of third world women and the western ones is the guiding theme for many postcolonial feminists. Besides, a brief survey of the reasons beyond the evolution of feminism with its objective in resisting the androcentric cultures is presented in this chapter.
Chapter two; ”Reasons and Features of Afghan Woman’s Victimization”, is devoted to analyze the reasons and features of victimizing Afghan women. Hosseini and Hashimi question the sociocultural values as well as the political constitutions that oppress women and frame women’s roles assigned by both the male dominated and postcolonial ideologies. The chapter also explores how Hashimi and Hosseini elucidate political and sociocultural reasons which highly oppress Afghan women. The chapter also delineates different forms of victimizing Afghan women. As well as it crystallizes how some aspects of cultural ideology and political context turn out to have a traumatic effect on Afghan women’s lives in Hashimi’s and Hosseini’s novels. The chapter also illustrates Hosseini’s two debut Novels, A Thousand Splendid Suns, And the Mountains Echoed as well as it examines Hashimi’s two famous novels; When the Moon is Low and The Pearl that Broke its Shell.
Chapter three; ”Submission and Resistance to Victimization” focuses on many examples of Afghan women who accept victimization due to their submissive nature, believing in women’s powerlessness, illiteracy and lack of knowledge. This chapter sheds light on the factors that shape women’s submissiveness to victimization and the influence of patriarchal ideology on those weak women. On the other hand, the chapter illustrates different means of resistance to patriarchal oppression in both Hashimi’s and Hosseini’s debut novels as Hosseini elucidates sisterhood, landais poetry and importance of education as the means of resistance to the victimization of Afghan women, whereas Hashimi depicts bacha posh and seeking refugee as other means of resistance against double victimization of women in Afghanistan.
The findings of the three chapters are summed up in the conclusion of the thesis. It elucidates the sociocultural reasons and factors which heavily contribute to the victimization of Afghan women. As well as it illustrates the features of Afghan women’s victimization. For this reason, resistance has become the only technique to give voice to the subalterns to defend their identities against oppressive conditions in Afghanistan as a third world country.