After a few years, conditions changed; she become a widow while still living with her in-laws, and joined the university. She studied part-time and kept her teaching job. She said: "I am happy about having a job outside the house. It somehow lightens the burden on me - the worries, the sad memories, the loneliness. ... It takes me away from the home, that atmosphere which is so lonely, so depressing. Also it enables me to learn how to interact socially." Nasrin was not complaining about living with her in-laws, she assured me, but about a system which had not given her an alternative.

Nasrin's story is one of success for those who fight for education. There are probably many others who have failed somewhere along the journey. Nasrin's message to other women is that, "One should always be determined. Look at me, I got what I wanted with my own determination." It cannot be denied, however, that there are likely many women with the same desire and determination without any access to schools.

In the provinces, there have been only secondary schools for girls. Many finished 8th grade and went home to wait to go to high school, but the day never came. Their parents would not let them go to the city and there was no girls' school nearby. The time when girls move from elementary to secondary school usually coincides with their puberty, a time when by custom they were expected to be separated from the public sphere. Many conservative families would not allow their daughters to go to school after 8th grade, even if the school was physically and economically accessible.

Parwin

Two of the study women were the first literate people in their families. Parwin's story is another example of a woman's struggle between two conflicting sets of values: those of her family and relatives, and those of her own and her peer group in the cities. She wanted to accommodate her family's expectations as much as she wanted to meet modern expectations.

After Parwin finished the 8th grade, her father and brothers did not want her to enter the 9th grade. They said, "it is a shame to the family to let an adult girl go to school. You learned how to read and write, what else do you want?" As Parwin explained, reading and writing were justifiable skills and were even encouraged by her parents and her community. Reading and writing were a Senna - what the Prophet had suggested through his statements and behaviour (4). Parwin's relatives thought that while learning to read and write was worth the effort and the years that girls were kept away from the house and the housework, young women were supposed to be involved with domestic work and to stay away from public sight.

Parwin was stopped from continuing her education by her family at almost every level. At the end of 6th grade they tried to stop her from entering the secondary level (7-9 grades), and at the end of 9th grade they tried to stop her from entering the high school (10-12 grades.) When she was in 6th grade, her father threatened that she would not be allowed to go to school without wearing the Chadari. Parwin felt that the economic reward of her education was overshadowed by the cultural obligations of keeping girls unseen and within the home. She remembered arguments with her father, and his response: "We don't need your little money, whatever you may bring."

However, like Nasrin, Parwin did not give up. She sat for the university exam without telling anyone and she asked some friends to try to influence her father and brothers. She said: "My father was upset and said, 'my daughter has never listened to me and now she has betrayed me'. But I went ahead and enrolled in university. He wouldn't talk to me for a while. Of course it was hard for me, but what could I do? As it was, I didn't get my first choice; I wanted to become an engineer, but they [the government] abolished the school because it was affiliated with an American school, so I went to my second choice, medicine. Now I am happy. My father doesn't show it, but I know he is also happy. And I am happier for other girls of my community. I fought the prejudice against girls' education, and I think, now, I have left the doors open to the girls in my family to pursue their wishes."