Central AsiaAlthough the development of gender socializa-
tion throughout Central Asia shares a common his-
tory, the Soviet period created fundamental changes.
Currently this process is expressed through socio-
economic, cultural, and political differences among
Central Asian republics.
Throughout Central Asia the concept that women
belong to men is ubiquitous: their social status is
acquired through father, brother, husband, and son
(Tokhtakhodjaeva 2001). Socialization is geared to
gender roles: for the woman, the role of wife,
mother, and housewife; for the man, provider and
head of household.
The family is the main agent of socialization,
especially for Muslim women; even in the Soviet
period, women, essentially excluded from the pub-
lic sphere, lived mainly within the home and family
(Pal’vanova 1982). In the traditional Central Asian
family children, male and female, understand their
gender identity at a very early age. The birth of a
boy is joyfully celebrated by everyone (Andreev
1953). Girls are rarely accorded such attention.
The parents, especially fathers, openly express
emotional attachment to their young sons, even
through play emphasizing the boy’s gender signifi-
cance (Kisliakov 1969). Fathers are significantly
less attentive to female children. Mothers prepare
girls to take care of themselves and to take on their
allocated obligations. At the age of five and six
years girls take care of younger siblings. From ear-
liest childhood girls are taught to tolerate depriva-
tion and limitations in food, sleep, and comforts. A
capricious girl is not tolerated, while the family
accepts capricious and demanding boys. Mothers
and grandmothers promote these attitudes. Using
her own experience a mother prepares her daughter
for her subsequent difficult life as a wife in the hus-
band’s home, where she will be subservient to the
husband and his relatives (Sharipova 2002). The
strictly hierarchical relationship between bride and
mother-in-law is a frequent source of family con-
flict, especially in recent times, when young wives
(even in rural areas) are better informed about their
rights and have a better developed sense of their
own worth than women of the older generation.
Observing the father’s power in the family’s daily
life, boys recognize their superiority over girls; they
Gender Socialization
know that they have the right to punish them if they
deviate from the norms of their gender status. Boys
are encouraged to activity, to self-defense, to
aggressiveness. They spend a great deal of time out-
side the home in the company of men.
Both family and community exercise strict con-
trol over girls’ behavior. Girls know that they must
serve other family members, especially the males.
They must be modest, obedient, and fear all men:
male kin may punish them for disobedience and
strange men may cast aspersions on their honor and
good name. A girl’s good name is the capital that
defines her worth in the family and the community.
That good name includes not only preserving her
virginity until marriage, but modesty in clothing
and speech, and not showing herself in social spaces
with unrelated men. Control over girls’ and
women’s sexual behavior is a fundamental element
in Central Asian gender socialization. Traditional
norms encourage asexuality in women of all ages.
Expressing sexuality in any form is considered
deviant behavior (Sharipova 2002). However, in
the post-Soviet period preserving virginity until
marriage is more or less a formality. Both premari-
tal and extramarital sex are practiced, especially in
the big cities and regions influenced by polyethnic
culture (Tabyshalieva 1998).
Gender segregation is especially rigid in the
plains of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmen villages,
and the southern areas of Kazakhstan and Kyr-
gyzstan. In the mountainous areas of Tajikistan
gender segregation is less rigid than in the plains
and women are more independent, since the house-
hold is in women’s hands (Andreev 1953). In the
cities of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan where poly-
ethnic groups predominate, traditional norms and
the Sharì≠a are more of a formality (Tabyshalieva
1998).
The role of education in the socialization of
Central Asian Muslim women was important in the
Soviet period. Formal education for all and obliga-
tory work for women outside the home led to the
formation of a female social group within class:
worker, peasant, intelligentsia. The intelligentsia
encouraged education for girls that was geared to
professions differentiated by gender. Thus, teaching
and medical work were considered appropriate for
women, commensurate with their roles of mother,
wife, housekeeper. Soviet modernization gave rise