I read the Hidden Face of Eve as the Naked Face of the Arab Woman when I was a teenager in the mid-90’s (It was translated to Persian only once in 1981 with a foreword by Nawal El Saadawi to her “Iranian sisters,” where he praised their struggle against Imperialism). Reading it once again in English did not bring me the same feelings of shock and fear that I experienced years ago. Although by reading her story of circumcision some of the old emotions awaked in me, the rest of the book was the repetition of the “facts” that I have heard thousand of times since then. There was not any thing new or impressive for me this time as it was in those years. This time I am afraid to say that I was bored.
March 3, 2010
January 16, 2010
My birthday
On January, 1979, my family was celebrating two occasions simultaneously : Shah’s escaping Iran and my first birthday anniversary. Albeit, I should add that they aren’t celebrating the first one any more. It doesn’t mean that they’re unhappy of 1979 Iranian Revolution, which overthrew a despotic regime, but they aren’t satisfied by what happened afterwards; the rise of an Islamic Republic.
January 5, 2010
Wrong and right images
There is a lot to say about what’s happening in my country nowadays. I am still very confused by the post-elecion crisis which is now entering its seventh month.
The world is astonished by the presence of Iranian women in the frontline of the struggle. I believe that large part of such surprise is because of the pervasive wrong images of Iranian/Middle Eastern/Muslim women among the Westerners. The stereotypical pictures which depicts these women rarely present in public sphere let alone being in the frontline of a political struggle.
But as the history has illustrated, Iranian women have been part of the major political resistances since the beginning of the twentieth century .They participated in 1906 Constitutional Revolution besides their male counterparts. And, later on in 1979 Revolution, which overthrew the despotic regime of Mohammad Reza Shah, they showed their bravery once again. Albeit, the Islamic government in its first step toward the Islamization of the country denied their basic rights and inflicted hejab on their bodies.
During the last thirty years, women were struggling in favor of their cause severely. They have faced imprisonment, torture, and death during their struggles, but still there are very active in their path to reach democracy. Although, it is hard to tell that the current movement in Iran has any feminist/women’s rights demands, the reality is that their role in it cannot be ignored.
August 18, 2009
All the president’s women: Women in Ahmadinejad’s cabinet
Ahmadinejad has nominated two women as new ministers for the health, and the welfare and social security: Fatemeh Ajorlou and Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi. Both of them are members of conservative front in the parliament as well as the supporters of Ahmadinejad. There were among those hard-liners who spoke, last year, in favor of Ahmadinejad’s family law bill which was going to make it easier for men to marry second wife. They have been defending gender segregation in public sphere such as universities, public transportations, parks, and etc. They believe women’s first priority dutis are to serve their husbands and to raise children. However one could ask them what they are doing in politics instead of committing their “priorities.”
After all the mess Ahmadinejad made by his fraud election, it seems that he has decided, once again, to pose a popular gesture by introducing two women for his cabinet. He might think that the hard pressure on women’s rights activists in the first term of his presidency, and the brutality the activists faced in post-election period can be forgotten with such a show off.
It worths to mention that these two women have not peresented any kind of differences with misogynous hardliner men in the way they think and talk about women’s issues and women’s status in the society. Ahmadinjad has chosen them to show that he is the first president in the Islamic Republic who dared to introduce women as the ministers, in addition to have someones in his cabinet that assure him they will not object any of his decisions. Ahmadinejad knows that these two women back any of his anti-women bills as they did for his family law bill; the bill that Iranian women’s rights activists could stop its ratification in the parliament.
Albeit, some might argue that the presence of women in Ahamdinejad’s cabinet would be positive in the way that it will make it easier for the future presidents to have women as the ministers in their state, the women that hopefully might be committed to women’s rights and welfare.
it is back
After a hard try and with the help of my bro, this weblog is back. Lets see if I can update it regularly.
Women and post-election crisis in Iran
These are my recent articles relevant to women’s presence in post-election crisis in Iran:
Iranian Women in the Frontline: My martyr sister, I will get your vote back
Another Senseless Arrest
June 27, 2009
Iranian bloggers’ statement about the Presidential elections and the subsequent events
Statement by a group of Iranian bloggers about the Presidential elections and the subsequent events
1) We, a group of Iranian bloggers, strongly condemn the violent and repressive confrontation of Iranian government against Iranian people’s legitimate and peaceful demonstrations and ask government officials to comply with Article 27 of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Constitution which emphasizes “Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam.”
2) We consider the violations in the presidential elections, and their sad consequences a big blow to the democratic principles of the Islamic Republic regime, and observing the mounting evidence of fraud presented by the candidates and others, we believe that election fraud is obvious and we ask for a new election.
3) Actions such as deporting foreign reporters, arresting local journalists, censorship of the news and misrepresenting the facts, cutting off the SMS network and filtering of the internet cannot silence the voices of Iranian people as no darkness and suffocation can go on forever. We invite the Iranian government to honest and friendly interaction with its people and we hope to witness the narrowing of the huge gap between people and the government.
A part of the large community of Iranian bloggers
June 26, 2009
February 8, 2009
(mis)represention of Iranian women
Every day I come across various books,articles,documentaries about Iranian women and Iranian young girls. Mostly written and produced by the foreigners or second generation Iranians who’ve just visited Iran and have not had the chance to live there. Some of the them are really superficial and could not figure out what really is happening in depth of the society. There are plenty of generalizations, mostly according to the experiences and life styles of the a small group of Iranian society.
They are representing us (Iranian women and youngsters), in some cases, very different of what we really are. Since they are master in language, they have more chance to be in the position of representing.
What bothers me is that I really could not find myself through these works.
Comments Off
May 16, 2008
History of talks of sexuality
I have started to write a brief history of women’s effort to talk about their sexuality, sexual desire and sexual demands in my Persian weblog.
As I told in my last post, Iranian female weblogers have already started to talk about their bodies and their sexual appetites.
I think writing about historical background of these demands would be useful to learn more about what happened during these years which led to what we are seeing today
The historical back ground of the issues usually is ignored by the people but I think it is very important to know it and therefore to find out the bases of some of the social problems and social obstacles.
First part that I have explained is the Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s onwards.
If you have any idea, you are very welcome.
April 18, 2008
Iranian women talks about their body and sexual desire
It is a hot subject, nowadays, on Iranian women’s weblogs. Talking about their body, their body desires, their sexual rights and their joy of sex.
These women say that it is their right to talk about their desirable sexual relationship;It is important to love their body;it is much more important to push back the patriarchal discourse about sex and sexuality which is the dominant discourse in Iran.
I am happy to see that women started to break these taboos, at least in their weblogs and websites. However, they are a lot of people who are against such kind of issues. They call these women pervert and call their act, promiscuity. It is intolerable for them to hear a woman talking about her sex and her sexual desire.
They call them whore,because they think that they can shut them up by humiliating them. But the reality is that these women began to talk about their sexual rights as a basic right that they should gain. They want to show that they are not any more ashamed of their body;that they have right to enjoy their sexual relationship.They demand their partner to listen to them and to know what they like and what they don’t like.
In Iran, there is not any education about sexuality,not officially nor unofficially. The family do not like to talk about these matters with their children.Government prefers not to talk about it, to keep the society “pure”.These are dangerous topics to talk about in a traditional and Islamic country, but the female weblogers want to talk about it.
Any sexual relationship out of marriage is crime and would face sever punishments, but the reality is that there are a lot of Iranian boys and girls who have sexual relationship before marriage.
Some of these Iranian female weblogers who write about sex in their websites are single, however most of them write with pseudo-name, but some, like myself, write with their real name.
They are some teenagers who have written in their weblogs that they are learning so much of these writings and discussions and it makes a hope. The hope that next generation is more aware of its rights than mine.
I am happy that as an activist can see such results.