Kite Runner- Gender Roles?

Last week in class, we had our first literature circles regarding the novels we are reading. The novel that I am reading is The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, but another author caught my eye when looking over the list of authors a few weeks back. This author was Khaled Hosseini, the author of A Thousand Splendid Suns and Kite Runner. The reason he caught my eye was because I have just recently seen the movie Kite Runner and it was one of the most emotional movies I have ever seen, not just because of the events that occur in the movie, but also because the plot is likely real and has likely happened to some person before. This thought itself is extremely sad. After watching the movie and soaking in the sadness and letting it go, I had this great idea, why not look at the movie form a gender lens. I mean, some kids in class have to look A Thousand Splendid Suns, another one of Hosseini's books through a gender lens, so why not attempt to look at Kite Runner in the same perspective. There aren't very many women present in the actual movie, but figured it was worth an attempt anyways.
Although there were very few women present in the movie, the ones that were, even in death, seemed to have a big impact on the characters. Even in the beginning of the movie when Amir, the main character, complains that his father hates him because his birth resulted in the death of his mother, the importance of the mother figure is highlighted. It seems to have caused strained relations between the father and the child. Also, Amir's wife took on more of the role of a modern women because she was one. Besides this, there is much irony present in that the males in the movie take the place of women and men when looking at the movie from a traditional gender lens. The men are the providers, as they usually are in Muslim societies, and this is shown by Amir's father who works and gets money for Amir even when he is in America and has to deal with the language barrier. But, the traditional Victorian role of women as people who stay at home and watch the children and cook meals and clean the house is also taken by men. In the story, Hassan and other Hazari's who seem to be looked down upon for some reason, are the people that cook and clean the house. The relationship between Hassan and Amir also has some depth, but does not really have to do with anything about gender roles besides the deep everlasting friendship that they had even though they went their separate ways in the world. The irony might have been used by the author in order to show how weak some men were viewed in the society or to show that the society was male dominated so that even women's jobs were taken by men. Other than this, there just wasn't much else to be seen from a gender lens regarding the movie. Then again, I am looking at it with some amateur eyes, but I tried.