About those pesky "women's rights" in Iran
These days, there's a lot of talk in the American media about the issue of women's rights in Iran. Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker even wrote a column in yesterday's Post bemoaning the plight of Iranian women. And even on this board, there was a thread about women's hardships in places like Iran.
But have any of you actually seen, or interacted with, Iranian women? In my experience, they are some of the strongest, feistiest, most outspoken, most businesslike women in the world, who put their docile and family-oriented American sisters to shame.
Consider: the only reason Mr. Moussavi (the accidental opposition leader) was able to gain any kind of fame, or following, was due to his wife--the famous professor, artist, and personality Zahra Rahnavard, who overshadowed him for years:
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He was out of public life for two decades, a soft-spoken architect who loves to watch movies at home and was overshadowed for years by his distinguished wife, Zahra Rahnavard, a professor and artist.
(SOURCE 1)
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[Moussavi has] a magnificently feisty and much more liberal wife, Zahra Rahnavard ... Dr Rahnavard broke with tradition by actively campaigning for her husband. She held a press conference to denounce Mr Ahmadinejad as a liar, misogynist and betrayer of revolutionary values. She wears colourful clothes, and fights for women’s rights. She is everything her husband is not – bold, outspoken, radical and a forceful public performer. Mr Mousavi emerged as the preferred candidate ... partly because of his wife.
(SOURCE 2)
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Now to those of us who have seen the movie "Persepolis," shown in movie theaters throughout the country last year, this certainly rings true. "Persepolis" is the story of an Iranian girl who came of age during the Iranian Revolution, and it portrays an extremely vocal, feisty, and strong Iranian woman in charge of her life and getting a good education (Moussavi's daughter is a nuclear physicist).
I'm really having trouble reconciling the matriarchical, "strong-woman" facts of Iranian life with soundbites about "women's rights" coming from the American media and politicians. Can someone clarify what's going on? It's pretty amazing that we in America form opinions about other cultures which can be so misinformed and misleading.
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"The favorite American pastime is not baseball, it's moral crusades."
Last edited by HardTranceProd on Jun-18-2009 at 14:47
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