So What Can Women Do?

The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini

In The Kite Runner, Hosseini makes the views of women in Afghanistan quite clear. Women are not acknowledged hardly at all compared to men. When Baba and Amir are trying to escape away from Kabul, their covered bus comes across a Russian guard. The bus driver has worked out an arrangement for their bus to pass by without any troubles. However, the Russian guard says the bus may only pass if the Russian gets to have alone time with one of the women in the bus. Women were viewed as material possessions or some type of currency. The bus driver says that sexual relations are the soldier's "price for letting us pass"(Hosseini, 115). This shows that the bus driver may disapprove of these actions, but he is more concerned with the bus being allowed to pass. The woman "burst into tears" (Hosseini, 115) when she heard what the Russian soldier expected of her. The women clearly did not approve of the treatment they received from the men.