[applause] [inaudible conversations] book tv is on facebook. Like us to get publishing news, scheduling updates, behindthescenes pictures and video, author information and to talk directly with authors during our live program. Next an interview with journalist jenny norbert. The Publishing Industry annual trade show held at the Javits Convention center in new york city. Joining us on book tv, i am also an investigative reporter. How long have you been a journalist . Ive been here since 2002. A Pulitzer Prize winner. An investigation into the american state reverence system for the New York Times. This newspaper that she worked for. Is it comparable to the New York Times . We would like to think so. The wall street journal may be. The conservative version of the National Newspaper if there is such a thing. Often have you been to afghanistan . I came here for the first time in 2009. I came late. Since then, have been back every year. Last summer 2009. Afghanistan that attracted to . I think i first came with the idea that ive wanted to understand blue or the way the second big war of my generation. Also mall was going on. I wanted to understand what was happening and why there was the story of fundamentalist, especially against women. That is what i set out to do. In afghanistan it is considered to be the worst place honors to be a woman. Also the most dangerous. And why is that . Why have women no rights almost direct leave the house and go to worker drive cars. Why is there such abuse . An enormous prevalence of Domestic Abuse i wanted to just figure out what was going on in our time right under our noses. Before we get into the book what was your personal experience . As a reporter . Well, it is an absolute advantage to be a woman in a very conservative country. You get access to both parts of the population. Access to men as a foreigner and you have access to women a male reporter would have difficulty speaking to women complete secluded. As a woman you can go between the two genders which gives you an enormous advantage. As of foreign entity. That also allows you to come. Your experience in afghanistan. Who are these girls . As i think of them they are part of a secret sect right under the surface. Actually being brought up as a place. These girls have so little value there. Up a charity. Gender segregation. Being born a girl is often seen as a disappointment to the family. There will carry on the family name. He think of our own history the far back, foremothers and four fathers, sons were very, very important. You dont have any sense in the family the family is considered weak call all marble. The families and you dont have any sense, there will many times take a girl and cut of there. Let her out into the world more than the world would normally be allowed to do. What is the term used for them . If the chilly means dressed up as a boy. One of the official languages. I found this out. I spoke to an afghan about this. It turned out that there was actually a term. That is when i realized. Is that how you discovered this process . Discovered this practice originally by interviewing a female parliamentarian on the topic of women and what it was like. And i came she invited me into air family and enter house. And she was in another room i spoke to her daughters. The two oldest boys said to me, its really a girl. And then i it was like, okay. Maybe we have a language issue of. But then i thought to myself, what i they talking about. Has six year old child who came in with a whole different body language and attitude, short, spiky hair shooting a toy gun me and presenting himself at that time as a boy. I was too afraid to ask the mother about this. I did not know what to do. This is completely a bullet to me. I did not say anything for quite a while. I did all interview. We spoke for a long time. Finally she said i have, you know, i have four daughters in i think then that she was ready to tell me the story of her family. Just her youngest daughter as son. No one knows there is no Statistics Agency very little. I tried to ask them. Million dollar projects. To figure out the culture. They could not really help me. At to find them myself. Had to become the expert. To answer your question, what we like to say, what i concluded is it is not uncommon according to afghans i spoke to. It cuts right across and social education, geography. Every family that once the sun will consider doing this. One push. The teachers on all about it doctors will often know about it. Neighbors will have an idea. The way i described, dont ask dont tell. Every f. Carroll knows someone. They will know how a friend or colleague or someone they went to school with. Everyone will be familiar. But it is a culture of the society, minding your own business. You know, staying out of the others affairs. So they are there. There are right in front of our to most people they would just be boys on the street. The last generation having a son or daughter who was a year in the states. Exactly like that. That is a very good analogy. Also if you take that even further and think about what it means. When one gender is so suppressed and so despised and so on wanted some of our own history with the sexuality, religion, ethnicity, race kamal of those things, when you cant add up to one and say that that is worth less than the other there will always beat clued try and, you know, just pretend to be something that they are not or someone that they are not out of necessity. Sometimes to resist pleased to say that i need to be a part of society. I need to i am not of the preferred kind. These young girls, do they have any say . According to my research know. These are children. How many times can you really speak about free will and choice when it comes to small children. Many of them are made into a place from that point when they are born. The fourth or fifth girl born in a family, that is how we are designated, as the family son. Segregated and whether gender are so separated they dont really know what goes on on the other side. So they dont even know how to speak to women. They dont know how to hit like a woman, behave like a woman or carry themselves. So its like they essentially have to train themselves to become women, become the gender that they have never known. And in that they dont have much say. Some of them resist very strong and some of them succeed, very few i believe. But in most cases thats when the curtain comes down pretty much. Thats when the world is closed again. Who is the little girl . The teenager. She is a 15 yearold girl, she was 15 when i met her, and she had gone into puberty as a young boy, growing up as the family son since the age of two, three, and the mother wasnt exactly sure. And she has, you know, shes very conflicted. She has all of the mannerisms of a young man. She looks like a dashing tom cruise type of look, young man with shiny hair and, you know, wearing jacksons wearing jackets with boxy shoulders with a hunched over look. She becoming a young woman physically, but she is resisting her parents attempt to, you know, bring her into the fold and become a woman essentially. And i followed her for a few years trying to resist her parents and how they try and make her more feminine essentially. But she said, why would i want to be woman here when i see how women are treated in afghanistan . Why would i want to do that . Whereas another woman said, im free now. Why would you want to go to prison . Jenny nordberg, howd how didu gain the trust of these families and girls to talk to them . It took a long time. I worked with very good people in afghanistan. Thats the only way to do it. Theres no phonebook even to find these families and these girls, and the bacha posh. Little by little and through connections and taking the time and patience and being very respectful. You cant just barge into peoples homes and expect them to share their innermost secrets. I met and interviewed many more of them, you know, then are in the book right now, but several of them had never told this story before. They were living as women now