A Pointed Finger

The statement “A man’s accusing finger always finds a woman,” can be seen throughout the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. On various occasions the men and society blame the women for things that go on and they must endure much injustice in patriarchal Afghan society. For example Rasheed always finds a way to put the blame of situations on his wives, especially Mariam. When Mariam could not bear Rasheed a son, he blamed her for all the miscarriages and grew resentful toward her. Also in the events that led up to Rasheed’s death, Mariam knew if she had chosen to run away with the family then the Taliban would have tracked her down and placed the blame on her, no matter the motive and defense of her action of murdering her husband. Women had more limitations and rules then men surrounding crimes so even if Laila had defended Mariam’s crime, she still would have been convicted along with the possibility of Laila being convicted as well.  If a man accused a woman then she was essentially already convicted from the start. 

            In today’s society it is sad to say that this statement is relevant in some situations. There are many instances regarding rape, when a woman is blamed for the crime, because she was wearing promiscuous clothing, or putting herself out there. There is one example from a court in New Delhi, India where a lawyer representing three men accused of gang-raping a student aboard a bus in India, blamed the victim for the attack (who was a woman), saying "respected" women in India are not raped. This example shows one of many examples when women are blamed for events that are out of their control. This shows that at times women can be objectified to unfair blame and circumstances.