The transition from centrally planned to free
market economy has left many men in Central
Asia out of work, with accompanying depression,
alcoholism, and drug addiction that aggravate the
problem. A disproportionate burden of domestic
and community-based unpaid work placed on
women and the high pressures placed on men as
breadwinners turn families into sources of stress
and tension, posing a serious threat to women.
Studies conducted with the support of international
agencies over the last decade show that domestic
violence is common in the region, as the subservient
role of women in the traditional environment
makes them particularly vulnerable. Women’s sui-
cide may take a form of self-immolation. This act of
desperation is typical of sedentary rural areas. In
Uzbekistan, the first ever officially announced fig-
ure of female self-immolation was as high as 270 in
1986/7 (Alimova 1991). Due to lack of informa-
tion, it is not possible to provide current figures,
but according to some estimates the dynamics
show an increase over the last decade.Bibliography
D. Alimova, Women’s issues in Central Asia. A history
of studies and current problems [in Russian], Tashkent
1991.
M. Bikjanova, Family in kolkhozes of Uzbekistan[in Rus-
sian], Tashkent 1959.
D. Kandiyoti, Women and social policy, in K. Griffin
(ed.), Social policy and economic transformation in
Uzbekistan, Tashkent 1995, 129–47.
S. Poliakov, Everyday Islam. Religion and tradition in
rural Central Asia, New York 1992.
M. Tokhtakhodjaeva, Between the slogans of commu-
nism and the laws of Islam, Tashkent 2000.
UNICEF, Societies in transition. A situation analysis of
the status of children and women in the Central Asian
republics and Kazakhstan 2000, Almaty 2000.
——,Women in transition, Florence 1999.Dono AbdurazakovaIran and AfghanistanImportant variables are the local gender philoso-
phy and ideology; class, linked to modernization;
and different labor demands in urban and rural life.
Popular gender ideology, supported (but not cre-
ated) by Islam, endows men with bodily and moral
strength and leadership qualities and women with
frailty, empathy, and a natural inclination toward
nurturing, care of husband, children, and house. In
traditional families girls acquire appropriate skills
as apprentice helpers to women in their father’s or
in-laws’ house. Domestic labor is organized less by
skills than social position: senior women (head
women in Afghanistan) delegate work to junior238 household division of labor
women and girls. The more cooperative young,
healthy women there are in a household, the better
for all. A daughterless mother is pitied for her lack
of help. Girls learn to work early; boys have no
obligations in the house save to obey and serve
elder men. Although belittled, women’s work cre-
ates self worth and a small power base for women.
The more traditional a household is, the more
will men and women be interdependent labor-wise,
but unequally so: men demand services from women
and children rather than render them. The male
household head has to provide all means, including
the house, by which the women can fulfill their
duties; he has to keep the house repaired, supervise
the household generally and represent it to the out-
side, and discipline/educate children, especially
sons. Men are not responsible for housework and
avoid it as demeaning, although most can cook
simple dishes and prestige food such as kebab and
can take care of children temporarily. Modern
young men occasionally wash, even iron, their own
clothes. A widow heading a household will likely
take on male responsibilities (management, bread-
winning, male chores) in addition to her female
duties while a widower will remarry soon to get
housework done. Shopping is a male responsibility,
especially if it involves travel, but with great varia-
tions by location and class: in Afghanistan today
women are less likely to be seen in the street for any
purpose than in Iran; a middle-class woman is more
likely to insist on choosing her clothes herself than
a poor and uneducated one; rural and lower-class
women have some cash for small purchases from
itinerant vendors; among nomads women work in
the open.
Household chores reflect the socioeconomic
standing of the household. In wealthy, large houses,
social obligations make time-consuming prepara-
tions of a variety of foods and the upkeep of clothes
and furnishings a full-time chore for many hands
while in poor households, baking or buying bread
and some vegetables, hauling water, sweeping floors,
brewing tea, cooking a simple dish, and washing
pots and clothes constitute housekeeping. Most
Iranian middle-class households now have indoor
plumbing, a gas range, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner,
meat grinder, rice cooker, and television set. Men
buy appliances (often in fulfillment of marriage
contracts) and keep them repaired; women use
them. Men buy, drive, and maintain cars, but in
Iran an increasing number of women drive as well.
In Afghanistan household amenities are rare, espe-
cially in rural areas, and more women thus have to
fetch water, wash, and cook unaided. Everywhere,
women manage kinship networks. In middle-class