Previous Studies WOMEN’S ATTITUDES TOWARDS GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN KHALED HOSSEINI’S A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS.

Discrimination on the basis of gender takes many forms and they happen in many fields of life. A scholar named Fakih 2012:12-13 divides gender discrimination into five faces. They are marginalization, subordination, stereotype, violence and work load. Yet, although women face discrimination in a same patriarchal society, they have different attitudes in facing it. Some women show negative attitudes by accepting, being silent and not fighting against the discrimination and some others show positive attitudes by struggling against the discrimination. Due to the framework above, the researcher uses Hosseini‟s A Thousand Splendid Suns which portrays the different attitudes of women towards the discrimination they face. Concerning the idea of gender discrimination and the different attitudes of women towards it, the researcher employs feminist literary criticism to analyze A Thousand Splendid Suns. Feminist literary criticism has started to question the differences between women, including how race, class, ethnicity, and age intersect with gender in a patriarchal society. Thus, the theory can help the researcher to answer the research questions, i.e. 1 what kinds of gender discrimination are faced by women in Hosseini‟s A Thousand Splendid Suns and 2 what the attitudes of women towards gender discrimination they face. Figure 1. The Framework of Thinking of the research Women‟s Attitudes towards Gender Discrimination A Thousand Splendid Suns 1. What kinds of gender discrimination are faced by women? 2. What are the attitudes of women towards gender discrimination? Feminist Literary Criticism Patriarchy Accepting Influencing factors:

1. Becoming the Object of

Patriarchal ideology

2. Experiencing

Educational Deprivation

3. Believing in

Women‟s Powerlessness Forms: 1. Having No Resistance 2. Becoming Self- Destructive 3. Wreaking the Other Powerless People Struggling against Influencing factors: 1. Having Consciousness 2. Getting Education 3. Being Bond in Sisterhood Forms: 1. Using Education 2. Working Together in Sisterhood 3. Using physical Strength Gender Discrimination Work Load Marginalization Stereotype Violence Subordination Attitudes 45 CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD

A. The Research Design

This study is a descriptive qualitative research. Creswell 2007:37 states that qualitative research is a research which begins with assumptions, a worldview, the possible use of a theoretical lens, and the study of research problems inquiring into the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem. The multiple data sources of this research are words or images Creswell, 2007:38. The result of the analyzing process was also presented in the form of words, clauses and sentences instead of numerical data. In this study, the researcher uses content analysis as the method to analyze the data. According to Krippendorff 2003:18, content analysis is a research technique for making replicable and valid inference from texts or other meaningful matter to the contexts of their uses. Mayring 2000:5 also states that qualitative content analysis is an approach of empirical, methodological controlled analysis of texts within their context of communication, following content analytical rules and step by step models, without rash quantification. The object of qualitative content analysis can be all sort of recorded communication transcripts of interviews, discourses, protocols of observations, video tapes, documents ... Mayring, 200:4.