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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     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    https://doi.org/10.1080/00497878.2021.2023531
    Publisher:
    Taylor and Francis
    Pub. Date:
    January 2022
    Journal:
    Women\'s Studies
    Volume:
    51
    Issue:
    2
    Page Range:
    242 - 253
    ISSN:
    1547-7045
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    8 months ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved

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