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Afghanistan’s “Bacha Posh”: Gender-Crossing in Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell
- Author(s):
- Amel Abbady (see profile)
- Date:
- 2022
- Group(s):
- CLCS Southeast Asian and Southeast Asian Diasporic, LLC 20th- and 21st-Century American, LLC South Asian and South Asian Diasporic, TC Sexuality Studies, TC Women’s and Gender Studies
- Subject(s):
- Cross-dressing in literature, Cross-dressing--Psychological aspects, Cross-dressing--Religious aspects--Islam, Gender identity, Women authors, Afghan
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Nadia Hashimi, Bacha Posh, Aghan women, Cross-dressing, Gender-crossing, Gender reversal
- Permanent URL:
- https://doi.org/10.17613/2tfm-kx54
- Abstract:
- This article explores the tradition of Bacha Posh in Afghan culture as depicted in Afghan-American Nadia Hashimiʼs debut novel The Pearl that Broke its Shell (2014). In this novel, Hashimi shows how Afghan girls are obliged to cross-dress and live dual lives as boys for several years to lay claim for their rights to education and freedom of movement. Unlike the ʻtransvestitesʼ in Western culture whose cross-dressing is read mostly as a marker of transsexual and/or gay identity, the tradition of bacha posh in Afghanistan is recognized and practiced by society as a long-established cultural. Drawing on the complex interplay between cross-dressing, transgender identity, and Judith Butlerʼs theory of gender performativity, this article argues that Afghan culture, though deeply misogynistic, destigmatizes the act of cross-dressing by coding the bacha posh tradition, not as a transgression of gender norms but as a legitimate cultural practice. By institutionalizing cross-dressing, Afghan culture changes, though in all probability unintentionally, the categorization of cross-dressing from a stigmatizing deviant act to an effective survival strategy.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 8 months ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
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