who are isolated from family and childhood friends,
as marriage generally means living with the new
husband’s family. Especially in rural areas, where
not even the illusion of privacy exists, friendships
with equally powerless young neighborhood women
are crucial in maintaining sanity. Urban life by
comparison is somewhat more liberal and anony-
mous. Town women have more opportunities to
meet in the context of the workplace and social out-
ings that cross class and age barriers. Hence, their
opportunities to build friendships are enhanced
when compared to those of rural women.
Women in post-Soviet space still experience the
double burden of being part of the paid labor force
as well as being responsible for all domestic chores.
Although it appears that there is a revival of pre-
Soviet social norms that limit women’s role in pub-
lic positions, the political leadership at least still
appears to further women’s political engagement.
Whether this is mere window dressing to attract
Western investment, or represents any deep felt
conviction that women ought to have a voice in
public and international discourse is open to
debate. The fact remains that women in govern-
ment positions occupy positions of relative power-
lessness when compared to their male counterparts.
Here again, the role of friendship ought to be inves-
tigated. Could women with strong bonds with
others in similar situations create a climate of egal-
itarianism on an official level that could eventually
trickle down to the private sphere and domestic dis-
courses? Relevant research remains to be done in
this regard.Bibliography
F. du P. Gray, Soviet women. Walking the tightrope, New
York 1989.
P. A. Michaels, Kazak women. Living heritage of a unique
past, in H. L. Bodman and N. Tohidi (eds.), Women in
Muslim societies. Diversity within unity, Boulder,
Colo. 1998, 187–202.
J. Nazpary, Post-Soviet chaos. Violence and dispossession
in Kazakhstan, London 2002.
S. P. Poliakov, Everyday Islam. Religion and tradition in
rural Central Asia, trans. A. Olcott, ed. and intro.
M. B. Olcott, Armonk, N.Y. 1991.
M. H. Ruffin and D. Waugh (eds.), Civil society in Central
Asia, Seattle 1999.
S. Tadjbaksh, Between Lenin and Allah. Women and ide-
ology in Tajikistan, in H. L. Bodman and N. Tohidi
(eds.), Women in Muslim societies. Diversity within
unity, Boulder, Colo. 1998, 163–86.
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H. L. Bodman and N. Tohidi (eds.), Women in Muslim
societies. Diversity within unity, Boulder, Colo. 1998,
137–62.Andrea Giacomuzzi192 friendship
Iran and AfghanistanFriendship plays a significant part in the lives of
Iranians and Afghans, who do not generally value
solitude or privacy, but enjoy forming and main-
taining acquaintance and companionship. Women
show warmth and affection to their female relatives
and friends. Because Iranian and Afghan families
often maintain tight ties and most females are gen-
erally restricted from movement outside kin circles,
the closest friendships are often with mother, sis-
ters, cousins, or aunts.
For females, friends offered support and reprieve
from sometimes oppressive husbands or in-laws.
Poorer or rural women might be able to confide
their stories of mistreatment to neighbors, weep,
and receive sympathy. In less well-off and tradi-
tional families, males could go out and find friends
and activities outside their family and relatives.
Especially before large-scale schooling of girls,
females faced more severe limitations on develop-
ing friendships outside family, female relatives, and
neighbors. Class, finances, and level of seclusion
affected a female’s ability to spend time interacting
with others. Women in the socially conservative
Pukhtun ethnic group, who form the majority of
Afghanistan’s population, usually were not able to
leave their courtyards or small kin groups and faced
barriers to forming friendships outside these circles.
Urban and better off rural women in Iran, with its
higher standard of living and much larger popula-
tion, enjoyed a social life of interacting with other
women. Rural women looked forward to wed-
dings, visits to the cemetery on Thursday after-
noons, and even mourning rituals, as opportunities
for talking with other women. Better off women
often engaged in rounds of visits and gatherings
during which they could converse and keep up
friendships. Iranian and urban Afghan women
could participate in religious rituals at home, attend
segregated life cycle rituals, or perform pilgrimage
at shrines together.
Because of the informal and personalistic nature
of society, when women mobilized to attain aims,
they generally worked with their friends. Some
urban Iranian women cooperated with their female
friends in supporting the Constitutional Revolution
and developing newspapers, journals, and schooling
for females in the earlier part of the twentieth century.
Early marriage and moving away to the home of
a husband generally disrupted young female friend-
ships. Obligations to husband, children, household,
and in-laws, as well as expectations of modesty left
little time or opportunity for a young wife to keep