For a student of sociology, the film provides a critique of how we Americans may see 'coming of age' as a young woman or a young man in our own contemporary society. For Americans, gender is often about personal choice-choosing to dress in a way that expresses our sexuality, or does not express our sexuality. Our choices about how we express are gender revolve around finding a life partner, and what traits our society considers male or female in appearance, and to what degree we embody these traits. However, in a religiously oriented society like Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, one's gender or denying one's gender is more about finding a means to support one's self and one's family, and avoid suffering, starvation, and privation. Women are not allowed to make a living without the presence of a male

The film paints a portrait of an entire society gone awry. The ideals are so oppressive that even people who should resist them are forced to embody them. The young Osama is mocked for seeming 'queer' because she know so little of boys her age that she does not know how to seem masculine. The girls' own mother is coercive to her child and puts her at risk, although only after society has similarly coerced her and deprived her of her own means of making a living. The society is so rigid, oppressive, and totalitarian in its mindset it even coerces ordinary people to take on its viewpoints and enforce its regime when these mechanisms of enforcement work against their own interests, as I in the case of the mullah's wives. Although the lessons of the film deal explicitly with modern Afghanistan, its sociological lessons are applicable to any number of other, female-oppressing regimes of our historical past and present.

in their household in Afghanistan, and this creates a society where women are forced to lie and conceal their femininity just to survive.

Throughout the movie, Osama is always trying to keep the Taliban from finding out her true identity. But eventually, her real sex is discovered. Because she violates the legal and gender-based codes of her society, this is a criminal offense. The judge forces the young girl to marry. She becomes one of many wives of a much older mullah. Although she is married, the status that originally protected her mother, Osama is now even less protected than before, under the thumb of this man. All of the wives of the mullah are effectual prisoners.

The film tells the tale of a young girl and her mother who lose their jobs when the Taliban closes the hospital where they work. The Taliban forbids women to work. This shows how societies that deny women their rights affect women's ability to make a living, not merely become equals with men in their occupations. The rule of the Taliban affec

Some common words found in the essay are:
Bin Laden, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Taliban Afghanistan, , Originally Western, wives mullah, film osama, one's gender, soldiers attack, film's title, forces girl, women allowed, rule taliban, girl mother,
Approximate Word count = 1315
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)