marginalized populations

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. It first started out as things I disliked, other than the heat. But I think there is maybe more to say.
While talking to women I hear a lot of stories about cultural practices, about how women are not allowed to walk outside, about husbands forbidding them from going out during the day, even if with girlfriends. I walk around the city all the time, granted, I am only in the center. I try to keep it modest and while my shoulders (and sometimes my cleavage) could be more concealed, my knee caps are always covered. Regardless, I get cat-called all the time. Actually, cat-calls are not really cat-calls, they’re more like clicking noises that men make at you, a noise which is similar to what I imagine is a noise one uses to make the mule walk faster. Cops on the street, turn away from checking the documents of whatever poor soul they just pulled over in their ‘routine’ traffic stops to make noises at me. Cops! I gave up on covering my shoulders precisely because it did not matter. Men stop on the street just to stare. Straight up, stop dead on the street. Passer-bys frequently share their thoughts and tell me I look like a princess. Today, I got my first ‘nice tits!” comment from some jerk walking in the opposite direction. It only took two whole weeks!
I met this british doctor here. For the last 5 years he has been biking (!) across asia, all sorts of asia—eastern, southeastern, and now central. He started out working in volunteer clinics, but then became something of an ethnographer, working with marginalized populations: lepers, MSM, PLHIV. Someone thought he should connect with me, we connected, and I shared my migrant women and helped translate for him when he asked them questions about migrant life. He wanted to hook up with local organizations working with HIV positive people in Tajikistan. While brainstorming how to get to marginalized population of Tajikistan, Jonbek mentioned that women, in reality, are also marginalized in Tajikistan.
So what have I learned? Everyone, well, maybe besides like 2 women I interviewed had arranged marriages. The majority of them did not meet their husbands until their wedding day. Women fear not being able to bear children because their husbands may leave them. They are forced to bear children when they do not want to. They are forced to stay inside the house, they are not allowed to work or study. Not all of them, of course, but some. Enough to make one think.
If you happen to find the courage and strength to leave, as a divorced woman you can rarely remarry. And being divorced means being financially unsupported and fully screwed. Leaving your husband’s and his family’s house, means going back to your own parents, who may not let you back in. best case scenario is that you have some sort of higher degree and can work, best case scenario is also tht your husband forever has turned you away from men and marriage. Worse case scenario you become a second wife. According to one of my participants, it is better to be a second wife, far better than being 3rd or 4th.
But frequently there is no work, not here. At night, the street sweepers come out. The street sweepers are women, who with giant brooms literally sweep the streets of the city. They sweep at night to 1) avoid the heat, 2) avoid the dust from passing cars, 3) because they have families they have to take care of during the day. You can hear their brooms at night, like sound machines in rhythmic sweeps, back and forth. This is the job you can get as a woman. And being a street sweeper is not as bad as being a weeder. Weeders are also women who come out at night or early morning. Weeders squat around the city’s flower beds (there are many), and by hand, pull out weeds. They usually cover their faces, not because of modesty but to keep the dust out, because they are, after all, squatting in the dust. That is another job you can get as a woman, slightly worse than sweeping, when your husband is not there to support you.
After all, the tajik word for prostitute is ‘widow’.