Women and the Politics of Dress in the Islamic Republic of Iran Shirin

(Re)Fashioning the Body Politic: Women and the Politics of Dress in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Shirin Abdmolaei

A Thesis

The Department

Sociology and Anthropology

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Social and Cultural Anthropology) at Concordia University Montréal, Québec, Canada

August 2013

CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY School of Graduate Studies

This is to certify that the thesis prepared

By: Shirin Abdmolaei Entitled: “(Re)Fashioning the Body Politic: Women and the Politics of Dress in the Islamic Republic of Iran” and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts (Social and Cultural Anthropology) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality.

Signed by the final Examining Committee:

______Chair Meir Amor ______Examiner Marc Lafrance ______Examiner Setrag Manoukian ______Supervisor Homa Hoodfar

Approved by ______Chair of Sociology and Anthropology

______2013 ______Dean of Faculty

ABSTRACT

(Re)Fashioning the Body Politic:

Women and the Politics of Dress in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Shirin Abdmolaei

As dress has been acknowledged as a powerful tool to discipline the body, validate and exemplify the nation’s identity, and maintain control over the citizen-populace, the enforcement of dress codes on the citizenry by multiple governments throughout Iran’s past century has worked to undertake various political ventures. However, each regime has persistently been more focused on the clothed bodies of Iranian women, which has subjected women to extensive regulation and control. In a country where women are currently subjected to the Islamic Regime’s dress codes, the enforcement of Islamic dress has been a crucial part of the regime’s policy towards women. Integral to the regime’s project and vital to the maintenance of their power, the imposition of dress codes has worked to determine women’s opportunities and privileges while preventing them from obtaining rights over their own bodies, sexualities and identities. As much as the state has used Islamic dress to their ideological advantage, though, women too have realized the symbolic significance of clothing. This thesis examines what I call ‘alternative dress.’ Neither Western nor conventionally Islamic, urban Iranian women have begun adorning themselves in a myriad of colours and styles as an everyday form of nonverbal resistance and subversion to the state’s excessive hold over them. Probing into the politics of dress in Iran, this thesis explores the significance of alternative dress as a critical ideological challenge to not only state-constructed discourses of femininity, but to the state’s entire political venture. This study, based on personal observations, library and internet research, and interviews examines how Iranian women are using the very bodies and the same aesthetic materials as the Islamic Regime to reclaim the bodies and assert the selves which the state has worked so vigorously to control and define.

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Acknowledgements

It would not have been possible to have completed this thesis without the support of those who have fortunately been part of my life.

Firstly, I would like to thank my family: my incredible parents, for the unconditional love they have given me throughout my life, as well as my big brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins for their love and encouragement.

I would also like to thank my friends for their kind and reassuring support, laughs and love throughout the years.

To Dr. Homa Hoodfar, who meant more than a supervisor to me. She was a mentor who pushed me to aim higher, assured me in times of doubt and was a consistent support system throughout the duration of my degree. For her patience and kindness, as well as her unsurpassed knowledge, Homa has been invaluable to me both academically and personally, and for this I am forever grateful.

To my committee members, Dr. Marc Lafrance and Dr. Setrag Manoukian, thank you for your suggestions, comments and kind remarks regarding my work.

I was lucky enough to have been part of a great cohort of students to experience this ride of an MA degree with, and thank you all for not only making my experience as a graduate student at Concordia what it was, but your friendships have been the reason as to why my time in Montréal has been a great one.

This thesis is dedicated to my maman and baba, whose sacrifices have been their children’s gains.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ix GLOSSARY xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: DRESSING IRANIAN WOMEN Introduction 1 Dressing and Undressing Mother Iran 3 (Re)Fashioning the Body Politic 6 Addressing Fashion’s Critics: Why Dress Matters 10 Research Questions 15 Chapter Breakdown 16 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY Why Iran? 18 Iran, 2011 18 Undertaking the Study Research Participants 20 The Interview Process 22 Other Sources and Methods of Data Collection 23 Pros and Cons of Doing Anthropology “At Home” 26 In-Between an Insider and Outsider 28 CHAPTER 3: DRESSING THE NATION; FASHIONING THE SELF Introduction 30 Clothing and Political Projects 30 Case of Turkey, Italy and China 31 Clothing, Gender, the Body and Sexuality 34 Dress Reform in the West 35 Dress, the Individual and Identity 40 Resisting Through the Dressed Body 41 Public Veiling Fashions in the Middle East and North Africa 45 Conclusion 49

CHAPTER 4: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN IRANIAN WOMAN Introduction 51 Qajar Period 53 Constitutional Revolution (1906-1911) 55 Women and Modernization during the Pahlavi Era (1925-1941) 59 Dress Reform 61 Unveiling 62 The Modern Woman in Modern Iranian Society 69 Women’s Social and Political Activities (1925-1941) 70 Women, Modernity and Mohammad Reza Shah (1941-1979) 71 Women’s Social and Political Activities (1941-1979) 75 1979 Iranian Revolution 80 Conclusion 85

CHAPTER 5: WEARING IDEOLOGY: CONSTRUCTING THE NEW MUSLIM WOMAN Introduction 87 Re-Veiling Iranian Women 89 Disciplining the Islamic Nation 96 Weakening Women’s Rights Public and Private Spheres 100 Education 102 Sexuality 103 Conclusion 107 CHAPTER 6: WOMEN IN POST-REVOLUTION IRAN Introduction 108 Accessing the Global World Satellite, Internet and Consumerism 109 Changing Gender Relations 111 Globalization and Women 113 Changes in Women’s Public Appearances 115

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Education 117 Women’s Demands in the Islamic Republic 120 Conclusion 123 CHAPTER 7: UNDER THE GAZE AND UNDER CONTROL Introduction 125 Religious Education 126 Good Woman/Bad Woman 132 Sexual Harassment 136 Moral Policing 140 Denying and Defining Women’s Sexuality 147 Conclusion 149 CHAPTER 8: BECOMING VISIBLE Introduction 150 The Fashioned Body Goes Public 151 Identity and Individualism 156 Private Dressing 159 Public Dressing 161 Confidence 166 Contesting Male Authority 167 The Islamic Republic Attack the Fashionable 170 Resisting Through the Fashioned Body 175 Conclusion 178 CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSION 180 REFERENCES 188

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Fashionable, yet modest dress in Tehran 8 & 1.2

Figure 1.3 Tehran elegance 9

Figure 1.4 Women in alternative dress celebrate the presidency of Rouhani 13

Figure 4.1 Qajar Women of the Haram 55

Figure 4.2 Reza Shah among tribal women in modern dress 66

Figure 4.3 Baha’i women in Tehran, 1950 70

Figure 4.4 Men and women dancing to rock n roll, early 1960s 72

Figure 4.5 Miss Iran in the Miss Universe Pageant, 1967 72

Figure 4.6 Students at the University of Tehran 73

Figure 4.7 Men and women (veiled and unveiled) demonstrating together, 1979 84

Figure 5.1 Mass demonstration of women marching against the imposition of the veil in Tehran 91

Figure 5.2 Women demonstrating in Tehran 91

Figure 5.3 Sign displays proper dress codes for women 94

Figure 5.4 Chador-clad women passing Khomeini’s image in Tehran 98

Figure 5.5 Sign: ‘A woman modestly dressed is a pearl in its shell” 105

Figure 5.6 Sign: ‘Hijab is grace’ 105

Figure 6.1 Men and women dining together in Darband, Tehran 112

Figure 6.2 Young men and women at a restaurant 113

Figure 7.1 School girls take off veil to mock public hijab sign 131

Figure 7.2 ‘Alternative dressed girls bring on their own sexual harassment’ 136

Figure 7.3 Woman confronted by morality police 142

Figure 7.4 Woman being pulled away by the morality police 143

Figure 7.5 Physical fight breaks out between morality police and women 143

Figure 8.1 Store mannequins in Iran 152

Figure 8.2 Fashionable woman in Isfahan 154

Figure 8.3 Street Fashion in Tehran 155

Figure 8.4 Hipsters in Tehran 155

Figure 8.5 Skulls in Tehran 158

Figure 8.6 Fashionable outfit and accessories 171

Figure 8.7 “Fashion: Those who suffer from weak self-esteem” 172

Figure 8.8 “Psychologists say” 172

Figure 8.9 ‘Brainless badly veiled women’ 172

Figure 8.10 Alternatively dressed women mock hijab propaganda sign 178

GLOSSARY

Basiji: Basiji men and women actively monitor the activities and clothing of citizens, in both public and private spaces in Iran. Bad-hijabi: Refers to women who do not comply with proper Islamic dress codes as dictated by the Islamic Regime. Chador: A style of Islamic dress worn by Muslim women. The chador is a large piece of dark-coloured material which wraps around the head and body. Only the face and hands are left exposed. Hijab: A style of Islamic dress which covers the head of a woman, with the exception of her face. (Hijab will be used interchangeably with ‘veil’, the latter being the Western term for hijab.) Herasat: Moral security at universities. Islamic Regime: In this context, refers to the ruling government in Iran. Khomiteh: Islamic police in Iran. Magneh: Head covering worn by women. Manteaux: A long coat or dress shirt which consists of long-sleeves that is supposed to reach below women’s knees. Usually they are loose-fitted, but women have radically transformed the manteaux in Iran. Morality police: English term for Basiji. Shari’a: Islamic law. Unveiling: Refers to the event under Reza Pahlavi in which women had to discard the hijab/veil (Will be used interchangeably with de-veiling).

Chapter 1

Introduction: Dressing Iranian Women

Don’t dress to kill; dress to survive - Karl Lagerfeld

Introduction

Acclaimed nineteenth century writer Anatole France said that of all the books he would choose to read a hundred years after his death, he would simply take a fashion magazine.

He claimed that it is through the materials divested upon the dressed bodies of women which could tell him ‘more about humanity than all the philosophers, novelists, preachers and scientists’ ever could (See Bradley 1954). Yet, the study of dress and fashion is still often considered insignificant and frivolous; meaningless material which fails to provide anything of value other than simply covering the body, or objectifying the body. On the contrary, however, dress is a powerful tool of nonverbal communication which provides us with an essential means through which we can examine a culture, a society and individual persons throughout the world. As all peoples, historical and contemporary, use materials to adorn the body, whatever the form may be, the study of the dressed body provides us with a critical lens in which to probe into the dynamic nature of humanity.

It is through the dressed body where ones desires and values are expressed, where ideologies, beliefs and morals are visually evident, where class differences are embedded, and where power is noticeably imposed and exercised. The individual can be transformed through clothing to shape the self while communicating and expressing to others who they are and how they wish to be perceived. As symbolic devices, materials such as the veil convey religious and spiritual beliefs in public settings in non-verbal

manners, while others can express their political affiliations. In other cases, dress is used to enforce a social order, maintain and control the citizenry, regulate and shape sexuality, discipline the body, and represent the national and sociopolitical ideology of the state. Dress is also appropriated by individuals and groups in order to resist and subvert categories, ideologies, and power; paving way for agency to be exercised through the dressed body. Dress can thus be an experience of the body and self, a public statement, and a means of control.

To speak of dress is to speak about bodies. In its unequivocal and literal attachment to the body, dress is undoubtedly a discourse about the body; it is “produced, promoted and worn by bodies” (Entwistle 2000:1). As it is shaped by cultural and social forces (Douglas 1973; Mauss 1973), the body is a site in which culture acts upon individuals in order to transform them into subjects (Foucault 1979). Warwick and

Cavallaro (1998: 6) regard the body as a “fluid object of representation and analysis,” arguing that the body is the “melting-pot where discourses of power and sexuality, authority and desire, mix and collude.” As bodies are affected by power relations embedded within a particular society, community or religious faction, the dressed body can be recognized as sites of struggle between various societal forces (Arthur 1999).

As a fundamental instrument in the regulation over the body, the dressed body is unquestionably a site of ideological challenge and contestation within the dynamics of power. As Synnott (1993:4) contends, “the body is both an individual creation, physically and phenomenologically, and a cultural product; it is personal and also state property.”

Foucault’s (1979) assertions about power and its hold on the body offers us a means by which to consider how dress, as a political tool and ideological discourse, can thus be appropriated to discipline the body. Entwistle (2000:21) states that Foucault’s discussion of power “can be applied to dress in order to consider the ways in which the body acquires meaning and is acted upon by social forces, and how these forces are implicated

in the operation of power.” But any study of the body, Turner (1984: 3) argues, calls for a consideration of social control, in particular, the control of women’s bodies by men in the institution of patriarchy. Dress, when imposed by powerful actors such as the state, can be used to regulate the feminine body by both denying and shaping women’s sexualities and rights to their own bodies; controlling not only the outer appearance but their internal self as well. This then invites Vivienne Wee’s (2012:42) question, “Do women exist as human beings with rights over their own bodies or do they exist only as bodies subjected to the dictates, pleasures and agendas of others?”

Dressing and Undressing Mother Iran

This thesis is about bodies; about the dressed bodies of individual Iranian women who have been coerced to literally wear ideology.1 A politically and socially charged issue, women’s dressed bodies are where the Iranian nation’s identity and morality is suggested to rest, where the patriarchal culture’s authority is made explicit and evident, and where female subordination appears. Arguably, an Iranian woman’s dressed body has never really belonged to her as it has incessantly been a site of religious, political and ideological contestation throughout Iran’s past 150 year history (Hoodfar 1999; Moallem

2005; Najmabadi 1993; Paidar 1995; Sansarian 1982). The twentieth century alone watched as Islam and the state regulated her body to the veil; modernity and secularization later unraveled her forcefully to make her visible; and religious fundamentalism re-veiled her for the protection of the nation. As a major symbolic and political resource, the Iranian woman’s body and its association to dress has been appropriated and utilized by regimes throughout the past century to assert the ever- changing sociopolitical landscape of Iran.

1 ‘Wearing ideology’ has been taken from the title of Brian McVeigh’s book, Wearing Ideology (2000) 3

Due to increasing contact with the West beginning in the late nineteenth century, it was the veiled Iranian woman who depicted Iran as a backwards, traditional society

(Najmabadi 2005; Sedghi 2007; Yabooi 2012). Her chador-clad body, which covered her in black drapes from top to bottom, stood as the antithesis to the modern, white

European woman who enjoyed freedom of movement, socialization with men in public spaces, was intelligent, educated, and perhaps most importantly, visible. Thus, the veiled, concealed and secluded Iranian woman came to symbolize and stand for the entire nation’s overall non-progressiveness. As Iranian women were relegated to the home, segregated from men in public and private spaces, illiterate and bounded by the confines of tradition, the veil gained notoriety. The hijab had become the [male and female] reformist’s enemy; a piece of material which, despite hundreds of years of religious and cultural use, had to be discarded for the progress of the Iranian nation to commence (Amin 2002; Moallem 2005).

Hailed as women’s “liberation,” the forced, and often violent, unveiling of women in 1936 by the Pahlavi regime came to represent Iran as a modern state (Amin 2002;

Najmabadi 1993, 2005; Paidar 1995; Sedeghi 2007). Initially, de-veiling meant that women would be able to attend educational institutions and be employed in the civil sector. Women, especially from the urban upper and middle class strata, enjoyed and benefited from the privileges which accompanied modernization, affording them access to higher education and participation in the labour force. However, de-veiling had less to do with women’s own personal liberation but was instead done so in the name of national progress to attain political ends (Hoodfar 1997; Paidar 1995). The state, managed to take hold of women’s bodies and external appearances, positing a limited, state-constructed discourse of femininity while marginalizing others (Hoodfar 1997).

However, in the weeks following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, one of the most dramatic events of twentieth century Iran, the political leadership ascendant to power re-

veiled women under the Islamic Republic. Coercively veiled in dark, neutral colours, women’s Islamic-clothed bodies were intended to be a reflection of a homogenized, disciplined Islamic whole where independent bodies, and minds, ceased to exist.

Enforced and defined by men, the re-veiled bodies of Iranian women, regardless of their objection and resistance, were to “purify” and “detoxify” the nation of its assumed corrupt and immoral Western past, where the spread of ‘perverse’ behaviour and

‘seditious’ thoughts and actions resonated. Veiled Iranian women were now to be the epitome of pure, righteous Muslim beings: obedient to the man’s will, sexually submissive and docile (Sedghi 2007; Afary 2009; Moallem 2005).

The imposition of dress codes, especially on women, can be understood as both an act of power and a disciplining mechanism. Although it is not limited to Iran, but evident in many other cases such as France, China, and Turkey, when dressed is forced from powerful actors such as the state, it works to annul the individual body (Arig 2007; Chen

2001; Fisher 1979; O’Neil 2010; Ribeiro 1988). In doing so, the body becomes subjected to the political establishment which has enforced itself upon the construction and regulation of that body, expecting the dressed subject to conform to the ideologies which are invested in the attire. When imposing dress codes on a subject to meet political endeavors, we can understand clothing as playing a critical role in the dynamics of discipline as it is one way in which the body can become compliant (Crane 2000;

Graybill and Arthur 1999).

In the context of Iran, not only has dress been imposed by multiple patriarchal governments, both secular and Islamic, to validate and exemplify the nation’s identity, but dress was meant to refashion attitudes, behaviours and norms of the citizenry to emulate the political ventures of each administration. With the rise and fall of various regimes, women’s dressed bodies have been used as the basis for Iran’s constant battle

between tradition and modernity, religion and secularism, local and global. More importantly, Iranian women’s bodies have been the battleground for opposing patriarchal forces to fight over their appearances, sexualities and definitions.

(Re)Fashioning the Body Politic

In a country where women are currently subjected to the Islamic Regime’s veil,2 enforced

Islamic attire has determined their opportunities, rights and privileges. Underneath the dark, neutral colours of Islamic dress, its imposition has forcefully controlled, restricted and given definition to their womanhood and body while subjecting them to the control of men. However, a social phenomenon has gradually occurred and has become increasingly evident in the last ten years, where colour and style has slowly emerged upon the dressed bodies of Iranian women from the banality and uniformity of the black veil. Strands of coloured and highlighted hair have reappeared from beneath the hijab.

The manteaux has gone from loose material to showing bodily curves. Pants have become tighter, shoes have become higher, and faces donned in lipstick, blush and eyeliner, prominent. After decades of control, are Iranian women finally asserting the power to construct their own dressed bodies?

The upsurge of women’s (re)fashioned bodies around Iran’s urban centres would have been unthinkable in the politically restrictive milieu which spanned the first decade of the Islamic Republic. Today, however, despite the “moral” policing of state-appointed surveillance and police forces (as well as male and civilian onlookers) who observe, harass, physically attack, verbally abuse, fine and arrest women for wearing clothes which fail to follow state dress codes, many women, however, continue to push the limits

2 Being that the Islamic Regime has enforced Islamic dress for its own political means, I would like to make it clear that I am not generalizing nor critiquing the use of the veil as a personal and individual choice outside of Iran, and more specifically in Western contexts. This is why I say the ‘Islamic Regime’s veil’ in order to make this point clear. 6

of state ideology and control despite potential dangers (Sadeghi 2009; Mahdavi 2007,

2009). It is so because, as will be discussed in this thesis, her fashioned body is a compelling testimony of struggle for her own autonomy.

This thesis thus aims to examine what I call ‘alternative dress,’ (it will be interchangeably used with ‘alternative fashion’) which refers to colourful clothing, the use of accessories, make-up and nail polish, as well as other styles and appearances which do not conform to the state’s dress codes, worn by women who assert themselves in visible public spaces. I use alternative dress to cover a broad range of styles which disassociate from the regime’s dress codes, thus it does not necessarily refer to high-class fashion. However, this is not a study of fashion in Iran per se, but rather an analysis of dress as a site in which to examine and contextualize issues effecting women’s lives, their individual and collective struggles for bodily, individual and sexual independence, and for some, their womanhood. I will discuss an indigenous movement that has borrowed aesthetic ideas from traditional Persian and ethnic costumes and recent Western styles with the goal of not only subverting state policies, but also asserting their own agency and the chance to define themselves within the Iranian social and political context.

As will be discussed in this thesis, alternative dress must be considered alongside the changes made to Iranian women’s lives in the past decades, where they have defied state restrictions to gain greater access to higher education and the labour force. Coupled with their access to communication technologies such as internet and satellite to connect with the global world outside of Iran’s borders, women’s alternative dress has emerged alongside the sociopolitical shifts which have occurred in Iran, contributing to a reshaping of not only gender relations, but women’s own self-consciousness. Thus, as women don alternative dress and position themselves in the visible realm of the public

sphere, a space which Iranian women have struggled to access,3 they posit an alternative discourse of femininity which disrupts the state-foisted, idealized Muslim womanhood which the regime has worked so vigorously to create since the establishment of the

Islamic Republic. As the Islamic Regime has targeted women’s bodies as its ‘ideological battleground,’4 women, too, are laying down their claims to their own bodies by neither fitting into the Islamic model of the regime nor into the current stereotype of supposedly

Western women who want to be sexual objects of the male gaze. They are asserting themselves as modern fashionable and sexual persons by introducing and refining new fashions while observing a degree of modesty, all the while separating their bodies from the collective whole in order to assert their distinct individual selves.

Figure 1.1 (Source: The Tehran Times5) and Figure 1.2 (Source: Humans of Tehran6)

Fashionable, yet modest dress in Tehran streets of Tehran

3 Throughout the past century women have been struggled to access the public domain, but more vigorously during the last thirty years of the Islamic Regime (Hoodfar 2012). 4 ‘Ideological battleground’ has been taken from Mahdi (2008: 67) 5 To see more photos from the Tehran Times, see http://thetehrantimes.tumblr.com/ 8

Figure 1.3 Tehran elegance (Source: The Tehran Times)

Women, dress and bodies are contentious in Iran, and they are matters which affect nearly every aspect of women’s lives, from their roles as feminine beings in both family and society, to their education, and their professional opportunities. It has been within the confines of the Islamic Regime’s veil, precisely, in which her body continues to be controlled, where her sexuality and behaviour is regulated, and where her morality is suggested to reside. The way in which she dresses constitutes who is and who is not a

‘good Muslim woman,’ while any slippage of hair, any visible bodily curve, or any colour donning her face can subject her to being a woman of bad faith, a deviant, a ‘loose’

6 To see more photos from Humans of Tehran, see https://www.facebook.com/Humans OfTehran 9

woman. Her entire public (and private7) life seems to be intertwined and reflected on her dressed body; the body in which all of its theorizations, discourses and arguments have been devised by male power holders.

Because the enforcement of mandatory Islamic clothing is critical to the maintenance of patriarchal and state control over women’s lives and bodies (Talatoof

2011), by examining alternative dress in Iran, it offers us a critical consideration of a multitude of issues pertaining to women in Iran. The refashioning of the body can reveal to us a creative yet politically meaningful utilization of the dressed body to challenge the state’s definition and discourse pertaining to women.

Addressing Fashion’s Critics: Why Dress Matters

In discussing the significance of women’s dress with members of the Iranian left and intellectuals, some quickly dismissed the issue on the basis of dress being a consumer item, and thus denounced alternative dress as a class issue, while others claimed that women who wished to beautify themselves in Iran do so only to attract men. Now while both comments are plausible concerns to raise, we should not let our theoretical backgrounds which deem consumerist items such as fashion as rich and bourgeois, arrogant, trivial material, obscure clothes’ significance.

Nor should we regard fashion as simply a tool women use to beautify themselves because they are passive; subjecting themselves to the male gaze only to fulfill a ‘false female identity’ which only reinforces the institution of patriarchy (Hallows 2000: 140).

Fashion has been seen through several Western feminist critiques as oppressive and exploitative; not emancipatory but enslavement (See Friedan 1963; Wolfe 1991). As

Tarrant and Jolles (2012: 3) assert, “Women who dress fashionably are charged for being

7 For the women of this study at least, their private lives were less restricted than the Islamic Regime hoped for. Most of the women came from secular families, they experienced a relative sense of freedom in their private lives. 10

duped by patriarchy into wearing provocative, self-objectifying outfits and mistaking this for empowerment.” While such a general statement directed to an entire population of women is simply ignorant, more importantly however, we cannot apply the same critique to another society, because the meaning of objects and items change as they are recontextualized in different places which have experienced different social, cultural, economic, religious and political situations (Miller 1994).8 As Appadurai (1986) contends, things have social value, and their values change as they move between

‘regimes of value.’ What fashion means depends heavily on the context in which the dressed body is positioned and for what intentions and interests it serves (Tarrant and

Jolles 2012: 1-2).9 We have to be mindful of why and how people wear the clothes they do before jumping to any generalizations (Hallow 2000:137). Thus, we cannot employ the same critique of female passive subjection to beautification to the Iranian context, especially when the government has denied Iranian women the right to even choose that option to begin with.10

Moreover, dress has had a long history for being a source and weapon in Western women’s struggles for their rights, which Western critiques of women’s fashion have forgotten. As we will see in chapter three, women in Britain and the United States, and to a lesser degree in France, engaged in alternative modes of dress throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as critical to the advancement of their sociopolitical rights (Crane 2000; Freedman 1986; Kriebel 1998; Presley 1998; Torrens 1997). Euro-

American dress, like Islamic dress imposed by the Islamic Regime, reflected what was considered to be appropriate behaviours, societal positions and sexualities for women.

8 I bring up this point due to a comment I received about my work on alternative dress at a conference in Toronto, where in which a woman suggested that women donning alternative dress in Iran are ‘resisting one form of patriarchy only to subject themselves to another form of patriarchy.’ 9 We know quite a deal about the importance of dress as a political and ideological tool in the French Revolution (Ribeiro 1988) and quite a bit has been written on communist China’s dress code particular during the Cultural Revolution (Chen 2001; Fisher 1979). 10 Since the mid-1990s, however, feminists have argued for a more expansive vision of beauty and fashion rather than completely rejecting it as oppressive for women (Tarrant and Jolles 2012: 21) 11

However, as women continuously pushed the boundaries of dress (i.e. wearing pants) through centuries of struggles and challenges, they managed to continuously transform the meaning of womanhood and femininity to suit their own definitions and changing perceptions of equality and full citizenship. This in turn transformed the conventions of their society and helped to advance women’s sociopolitical and economic positions. It is inarguable at this point that Euro-American women’s rights and changes to their social and political realities reflected, and went hand-in-hand with, the changes made to their dressed bodies (Crane 2000; Freedman 1986; Kriebel 1998; Presley 1998; Torrens 1997).

Some critics11 have dismissed women’s alternative dress in Iran because of the social class of the actors. While it is true that, for the most part, alternative dress is still an urban and modernist-middle class phenomenon, in Iran, however, educated and cultured modernists (though not necessarily Westernized) have always been at the forefront of redefining women’s social and legal rights in the country, both historically and currently.12 And as the 2009 uprisings following the disputed presidential election which afforded a second term to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the recent election of moderate Hassan Rouhani in June 2013 showed us, women, with their hair flowing out from underneath their hijab’s and colourful clothing donning their bodies, protested and cheered alongside thousands of others on the streets. Women in alternative dress were positioned in these events as public actors, reacting to the sociopolitical climate of the country. Such images thus depicted that women in such dress are not the ‘upper-class arrogant,’ materialistic and non-politically concerned people that were once generalized and professed.13

11 I am referring to the critiques received at the conference I attended. (See footnote 10) 12 However, I have heard through conversations with Iranian women that working-class youth in Iran also engage in alternative dress. Thus, alternative dress is not necessarily high-class; it is a style and appearance which diverges from the dress codes of the Islamic Republic. 13 A critic of women’s alternative dress stated that such dress was “upper-class arrogance” (direct quote). 12

Nevertheless, the matter should not be concerned with the social class of the actor; it should be about the measures taken to subvert the norm, whatever the action may be.

To reject women’s use of alternative dress and call it “upper-class arrogance,” when in fact it is a symbolically subversive tool as well as a personal form of resistance (although

I do not claim that every woman donning alternative dress does so with the aims of intentionally making a subversive message), is simply a rejection and denial of women’s agency as they attempt to reclaim their bodies and individual selves in a society which has denied them of such.

Figure 1.4 Women in alternative dress celebrate the presidency of Rouhani, June 2013 (Source: Humans of Tehran)

Moreover, a ‘reclamation discourse’ rests clearly upon the alternatively dressed bodies of Iranian women. As Pitts (1998: 68) contends, ‘reclamation discourse’ offers us a means in which to consider “women’s norm-breaking body practices as against bodily subordination and victimization.”14 Going in line with Davis (1997: 33), women’s alternative bodily practices suggests that they are “using their feminine body as a site for action and protest rather than as an object of discipline and normalization.”

Undoubtedly, women engaging in alternative fashion, intentionally or not, are partaking in a phenomenon which is transforming Iran’s social and cultural values and conventions through their very bodies.

Thus, we need to consider the significant and paramount meanings that women are divesting upon their dressed bodies; the body which has been defined, controlled, and essentially, owned by the state. Women are, undeniably, reclaiming their bodies and selves, to whatever extent, by the mere act of dressing in styles which do not follow the regime’s as they assert themselves in the public realm. By recontextualizing, redefining, and refashioning the dress codes of the Islamic Regime, women are asserting new meanings to old symbols, positing a space for a new and potentially subversive use of a material item for a new feminine identity of their own construction. Critics of women’s alternative fashion in Iran thus fail to notice how dress, within such a contentious context such as Iran, has major political implications.

Furthermore, although such an action may not appear as a significant form of resistance in a traditional sense, we have to consider the politically oppressive environment in which Iranian women live. Women’s initiatives, like their counterparts across the Middle East and North Africa, are often more subtle and symbolic rather than openly overt and pronounced (Bayat 2010; Hoodfar and Ghoreishian 2012; Skalli 2006).

14 Although Pitt’s work looks at body modifications through the grotesque, her point on ‘reclamation discourse’ is an important concept to apply to the dressed body in the context of Iran as well. 14

Thus, if we care about women’s rights in Iran, we have to be mindful of the multitude of ways in which women are using varying paths to subvert the state’s excessive hold and control over them. By critically thinking about alternative dress, potential changes may eventually unfold in social and legal terms as well.

While I do not argue nor claim that alternative dress will be the ultimate and final weapon in Iranian women’s battle over which they can finally have control over their own bodies and obtain their rights as equal persons, to disregard fashion in the political context of Iran is counterproductive. Failing to consider the use of alternative dress only undermines women’s everyday actions to subvert a system and reshape an instrument which has been used to control and further subordinate them.

I therefore hope my research will help to advance this area of resistance, in which many more Iranian women are involved in than most other areas of political activism and participation in the country. Although I do not claim to provide a complete picture of all Iranian women engaged in alternative dress, my goal is to simply begin to question and seriously consider the role that alternative dress is playing within the context of women’s social and political realities in Iran, which scholars on Iran have thus far failed to do intensively. By exploring the imperative use of dress by the Islamic Republic, we can then come to grasp how women are using their bodies and the same aesthetic materials to recoup the persons and reclaim the bodies which the Islamic Regime has worked so strenuously to regulate and define.

Research Questions

The leading research question of this thesis is: In light of state-imposed discourses about femininity in Iran, what does the adorning of alternative dress mean for women who are

(re)fashioning their bodies? To explore this, other questions are necessary to examine:

For what reasons did multiple Iranian governments take up dress to meet political

endeavors? What is it about women’s bodies and sexualities that make its visibility and concealment so important to the state? In what ways does dress work to regulate and control Iranian women? How do dress and aesthetics act as forms of nonverbal communication to challenge state-constructed conceptions of women? How is alternative dress being used by women to subvert the picture of a single hegemonic representation of women (rather than a pluralist reality of Iranian society)? How is dress being used by women to assert and reflect their own identities and individual agency? Why is the public use of alternative dress an ideological challenge and threat to the Islamic Regime?

Chapter Breakdown

Chapter two presents the methodology used for this thesis. Chapter three begins with a literature overview of the study of dress and its historical and contemporary significance to nation-states, individual and collective identities and actions, and its use as a means of resistance and subversion. Chapter four will contextualize the role of women’s bodies and dress in Iran, beginning from the mid-nineteenth century. It will examine how reformists, and later the Pahlavi regime, turned to women’s dressed bodies as sites for the nation’s progress and development, which in-turn enforced a particular discourse of feminine identity to put forth the image of a modern Iran. It will also discuss some of the ways in which women used their bodies and to resist the state. Chapter five provides a historical overview regarding the advent on the Islamic Republic and its mission to re-

Islamize Iranian women (as well as the nation); where Islamic dress was enforced as a central policy and key tool of the regimes hold over women. Chapter six provides a brief overview of the sociopolitical changes which occurred in Iran in the 1990s, which opened up access to the global arena, allowed for women to attend higher education and join the labour force. It will provide a basis to understanding not only how alternative dress emerged in Iran, but how its emergence has followed, and went in line with, the changes

made to urban women’s collective realities and consciousness. Chapter seven explores the matter of women’s sexuality and its relationship to dress by examining the varying institutions and surveillance forces which attempt to impose and reinforce a restrictive conception of Muslim femininity and sexuality. This chapter also examines the implications of dressing in alternative dress and the tensions around women’s clothing in

Iran. As a continuation of the previous chapter, chapter eight examines women’s assertions of individuality, agency, womanhood, independence and finally, resistance through alternative dress. Considering the contentious nature of the public sphere, this chapter will discuss the critical role that alternative dress is playing in contemporary Iran as women wear clothing which ultimately defies the Islamic Regime’s ‘Ideal Muslim

Women’ and their ideological discourse. Chapter nine concludes this study.

Chapter Two Methodology

Why Iran?

My family abruptly fled Iran when I was less than a year old in 1990. Having grown up in

Canada with a very limited understanding of contemporary Iranian society, my image of the country was constructed by my family’s stories of a repressive life in the Islamic

Republic and hostile depictions that bombarded the media particularly since 9/11. With a lack of Iranian friends as well as failure to have close ties with the Iranian diaspora situated in Toronto, a distance remained between myself and my Iranian heritage.

Although my parents were fervent about teaching my brothers and I the Farsi language, as well as keeping Persian traditions and celebrations within the home, my interest in

Iran would come to me at a much later point in life. In the mix and mingle of negotiating adolescent and teenage identity in predominantly white, monolithic communities, getting in touch with my ethnic identity was less than a priority. It was not until I began studying anthropology at York University in 2007 that, for the first time, I was able to make sense of myself and all the issues that I had faced up until that point. Anthropology gave me a whole different perspective on not only the world around me, but myself as well. It would take me nearly 21 years to want to travel back to the nation of my birth to fill the gap that I had been missing throughout all those years.

Iran, 2011

My trip to Iran in 2011 was characterized by both excitement and fear. Thoughts of what would happen if my veil accidentally slipped off, if my clothes were not modest enough, if

I laughed in public or spoke to a man was generally on my mind within the weeks prior

to my return. My conflicting feelings intensified in the last remaining minutes before my arrival into Tehran.

After assuring the passengers that our flight would be landing shortly, the pilot reminded travelers of the Islamic Republic’s mandatory dress codes, informing female passengers to dress appropriately before departing the aircraft. The shuffling and moving of bodies quickly commenced following the directive. Before changing into my own

Islamic attire which I had stashed in my carry-on, I was distracted by a young woman who sat across the aisle. She quickly and promptly transformed herself within minutes.

The clothes which donned her body in a myriad of colours were slowly replaced with darker shades. Her arms which had remained visibly bare for the duration of the flight had been covered, and her flowing hair came under the shield of a veil. My excitement of returning to Iran was overshadowed by anxiety as my own transformation of appearance began. The black dress-shirt which fell just above my knees and the dark grey veil which rested upon my head quickly took effect on my overall state. Being dressed in such a combination of colours was depressing, but they were the non-provocative colours which the Islamic Republic expected, and I was not going to commit an offense against the law within my first few minutes in the country. The tight veil which tied around my neck furthered the uncomfortable and nervous state that I was progressively merging into.

I remember noticing the atmosphere of the flight having been radically altered as my eyes caught the rest of the passengers. A whole new set of women appeared to have replaced the ones who had first filled the seats around me. The chic, Western style clothing that had been adorned earlier by many had suddenly disappeared. Women’s bodies had been covered, and the back of heads which were seated in the aisles in front of me, replaced with clothe. A different tone resonated throughout the last few moments before landing at Imam Khomeini International Airport. 19

The next day, however, a completely different picture of Iran played in front of me. A bright glow radiated off the clothed bodies of young women as I walked along the urban streets of Tehran. Women boldly accentuated their bodies as they adorned themselves in a mix of global and Iranian fashions. Their clothes were tight and colorful, and their tops barely reached below their bottoms. Their hair, coloured, highlighted and styled, remained wholly visible as the veil acted merely as an accessory. In their high heel shoes, all the faces that had passed me were decorated with lipstick, eyeliner and blush.

Where were the modest, docile Islamic women that I had always assumed?

It was a result of my trip to Iran that a study of (what I would later coin) ‘alternative dress’ came to be a subject of curiosity for me. Accepted to Concordia University for the

Winter 2011/2012 academic school year, I was directed under the supervision of Dr.

Homa Hoodfar, a prominent Iranian scholar in the area of women’s studies in Iran as well as across the Middle East and North Africa. It was through many long discussions and mentoring of Dr. Hoodfar that my thesis went from being a mere study of a dress and aesthetics to a study about a matter deeply embedded in the core of women’s rights, as well as various forms of contestation and resistance, in the context of political and social oppression in Iran.

Undertaking the Study

Research Participants

While I had initially planned to undertake conventional anthropological fieldwork, that is, travel to Iran to conduct my research, time, the deteriorating political environment of

Iran, and the shutting down of the Canadian Embassy in Tehran in 2012 made it non- feasible. Although my fieldwork plan had to be revised, there were fortunately other 20

means of getting in touch with participants and collecting data. Due to the large Iranian diaspora situated outside of Iran, I was able to interview 28 women in total, spanning

Toronto, Montréal, and Berlin. I also interviewed two women currently living in Tehran.

Although I had planned to interview a number of women currently residing in

Iran, restrictions posed its impossibility. Due to rumors of government wire-tapping’s of telephones, I avoided using the phone as a means of interviewing in order to protect the safety of the women I spoke with. Hoping to undertake the interviews easily on ‘OoVoo’, a safe and popular internet chat system in Iran, I faced even more difficulties. While on previous occasions ooVoo usually worked without problems while I spoke to relatives in

Iran, the months leading up to the politically tense presidential election of June 2013 made such access difficult. Within minutes of connecting with an interviewee on OoVoo, the internet connection would quickly get lost, screen images would freeze, and sometimes calling back just simply failed. Thus, after two very difficult interviews to obtain (the participants were 42 and 44 years old), I gave up on interviewing women in

Tehran. Due to government restrictions on Skype and Facetime, no other means of internet chat systems were able to be used. The difficulties of contacting Iranians to speak freely is obvious in view of state regulations.

Thus, the rest of my 26 interviews were conducted with Iranian women living outside of Iran. In Toronto I interviewed 6 women who were living in Iran during the

Revolution of 1979. Although I did not initially intend on interviewing women who lived in Iran during this period, my curiosity arose after my mother’s friends were over at our home for dinner one night. Having read up on the revolution and the imposition of the veil, I was curious to know how they felt once the hijab had become mandatory state policy. I was eager to find out how they perceived themselves, their bodies, their womanhood, and their lives once Islamic dress had been enforced on them after a life of relative bodily aesthetic freedom. Two additional interviews were also undertaken 21

among older Iranian women in Toronto. All the interviews were conducted in Farsi, but their comments have been translated into English. Their comments are presented in chapter five.

The other 20 women interviewed for this thesis were born under the Islamic

Republic, and all recruited through a ‘snow-ball effect’. I was lucky to know a few

Iranians who got me in contact with their Iranians friends, and once interviews were undertaken with these participants, some participants also got me in contact with their friends as well.

Between the ages of 23 to 35, 15 of the participants moved to Montréal to pursue either a Masters or a PhD. The other participants comprised of a woman who had moved to Montréal to pursue a career while another had accompanied her husband who was undertaking his studies in the city, while another moved to the city to live with her sister.

Furthermore, I had interviewed a young woman in Berlin who was also undertaking her master’s degree in Germany. In addition, I interviewed a woman in Toronto, who had recently moved to the city after getting married to her Iranian-Canadian husband. These

20 participants had left Iran less than 6 years earlier (most had been living abroad for about 1-2 years).

The Interview Process

Interviewing was the most prominent and significant method of collecting information and research for me. As a personal form of research, interviewing offered participants the opportunity to provide their own opinions, thoughts, experiences, as well as emotions on the matters of alternative dress and women’s issues in Iran. While I asked questions from an interview guide, most of the interviews were semi-structured. My questions and our conversations generally touched on women’s socialization of religious

education as children, and how they responded to the notion of the ‘good Islamic woman.’ Moreover, I was curious to know how they felt about being under surveillance of the morality police; why they continued to wear alternative dress if they could face consequences; how they felt about their bodies and sexualities in Islamic attire, alternative dress, and now living abroad. However, questions were not limited to the questions that I had planned to ask. As comments by women posed different concerns for me to reflect on, I was prompted to ask further questions about previously unconsidered subjects. Thus, each interview offered a space for an ease and freedom in question and answer.

I conducted the interviews with participants residing in Montréal and Toronto at local cafés while I conducted the interview with the respondent in Berlin via Skype. Each interview lasted between 45 minutes to well over two hours. All interviews with participants in Montréal, Berlin and Tehran were recorded expect for three, who preferred not to have the interview recorded. Interviews with older Iranian women were not recorded (simply because it was not planned). I resorted to taking notes in the cases where interviews were not recorded. Additionally, all women signed a consent form agreeing to the terms and conditions of being part of this thesis, despite the fact that

Iranians are generally reluctant to sign documents such as consent forms, given the nature of Iran’s politically oppressive state. Had I conducted these interviews in Iran, I would have had to get their consent orally, which is what I did with the participants in

Tehran and Berlin.

Other Sources and Methods of Data Collection

As noted, my trip to Iran and interviews with older and younger Iranians provided much of the data for this study. Aside from these, however, I also used other means to collect

information for this thesis. Other than intensive library and online academic articles, the internet provided much invaluable information.

One of the benefits of doing intensive fieldwork is to engage in one of the discipline’s most central methods of data collection: participation observation.

Considering the circumstances, my participation observation was based on images and memories from my own trip, as well as through the internet. Through pictures and

YouTube videos, I was able to locate women adorned in alternative dress on the streets as well as in fashion shows in Iran. There are large numbers of articles and online videos from international reporters covering the current issue of Iranian fashion and its challenges to the state, while international fashion journalists have also reported on the fashion scene, offering a medium in which to experience the situation and hear brief accounts on the matter.15 The Tehran Times, from which many of the pictures appearing in this thesis are taken, is a tumblr blog devoted entirely to women’s fashion on the urban streets of Iran.16 Other videos and news articles provide accounts of women’s violent and confrontational encounters with the morality police.17 Additionally, artists inside and outside of Iran have employed issues of women’s clothing and women’s bodily rights as subjects of discussion, providing further creative means in which I was able to study the situation of dress and women without having to rely on in-country, traditional fieldwork.

15 Sina Tehranchi. (2008, September 18). Iran (Tehran) fashion show [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj7waDSssI

CurrentVideosNews. (2013, May 14). Traditional Iranian Fashion Couture [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEOTExWK_Z8

16 http://thetehrantimes.tumblr.com/ 17 Sherlock72. (2010, July 7). Iranian woman attacked by Islamic morality police [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YedsjmAKVwQ 24

Aside from dress, my research is heavily a study of the body as well, and the literature on the subject of women’s bodies in Iran (academic papers as well as journalistic and personal accounts) proved to be of value to my work. Moreover, as noted above, there are Iranian artists living in diaspora who have engaged in artistic expression as well as campaigns which cover and reiterate the matter of freedom pertaining to women’s bodily and sexual rights. Such videos have included nude Iranian women stressing the matter of ‘my body, my choice,’ part of the Nude Revolutionary Campaign, while the feminist organization, Femen, has also recruited Iranian women as part of their campaign against religious fundamentalism’s control over women’s bodies.18 Thus, while firsthand participant observation was not possible, engaging in virtual participant observation instead benefited my study and descriptive aspect of my thesis, contributing to a visual representation of the contemporary fashion scene and the Iranian body politic from various points of views and through vast resources.

In addition, considering the repressiveness of the Iranian government which has aimed to control and keep close surveillance over Iranian citizens, the internet has also been a significantly important avenue and means in which Iranian women and youth, especially, not only interact and connect with the global world, but appropriate such virtual spaces in hopes to freely express themselves, their opinions, views and critiques while keeping their anonymity. The emergence of blogging culture has developed rapidly since its introduction in the early 2000s. Although the subject matter of blogging spans various issues, it has been particularly important for women and youth, where it has become an outlet for which they have been able to freely discuss taboo and restricted

18 Moradi, Reza. (2012, March 7). Nude Photo Revolutionary Calendar [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OafFpdjEAaE

Also see ‘Maryam Namazi’ on FreethoughtBlogs.com

Banota katkota. (2013, March 5). FEMEN Iranian Women Activists in Sweden [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l9eMNs1p_c

subject matters. Today, Iran is the third largest blogging nation in the world (See Alavi

2004; Basmenji 2005; Sadr 2012).

For women, blogging has been a venue in which they have been able to freely talk about human rights and equality, including bodily rights. Additionally, using the internet as a means in which to follow global fashion trends, there has also been pervasive discussion over women’s mandatory dress codes through blogging (See Alavi 2004; Sadr

2012). While the government has attempted to censor specific social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube, Iranians have strategically manipulated ways in which to access these sites anyway, which have been invaluable to the collection of data for this thesis.

Pros and Cons of Doing Anthropology “At Home”

Although my interviews were intellectually satisfying, there was something missing.

After nearly six years of studying anthropology and reading stories of anthropologists immersing themselves in the culture and lives of their subjects, I unfortunately had to miss out on this. Of course, I travelled to Iran for a month only two years earlier, where I observed women, went shopping, hung out at youth hangouts, attended ‘underground’ parties and essentially saw the world (although in a much more limited way) which the women I interviewed lived in. However, the absence of me going to such places and experiencing everyday life with Iranian women unfortunately took away from my experience as an anthropologist while it also took away from the descriptive richness that this study could have provided. Moreover, while each women I interviewed was very kind and responsive, the lack of personal connection and rapport between the participants and myself also made the collection of the data feel as though it was more of an interview process or a conversation.

Nonetheless, interviewing women who lived abroad also had its benefits. Because participants were now free from a restrictive government and regulation of their dressed bodies, they were able to freely discuss matters pertaining to their experiences in Iran.

Aside from this, however, I had to also consider the fact that such women, in comparison to the few Iranian women I interviewed in Tehran, were able to posit certain viewpoints and discuss particular matters due to the fact that they now lived in Canada and

Germany, and have no intentions to move back to Iran to live. It would be difficult to dissociate their comments about how they felt as women, their rights and their lives from their lived experiences in a radically different socio-political context in which they now reside.

In other ways, statements from Iranian women living outside of Iran also provided for further topics to be considered and subject matters to contemplate. For example, some women discussed how Iranian women’s dressed bodies are still matters of concern amongst the Iranian diaspora abroad, thus socialization under the Islamic

Regime and Iranian culture still continues to affect the ways in which women’s bodies appear, even outside of the country. While this thesis did not have the space to discuss such matters, women’s comments nonetheless did posit further issues to be explored.

However, it is still my hope that I can one day return to Iran and explore the issue of alternative dress from the inside, and on a larger scale, particularly since the recent presidential elections (June 2013) has brought a more moderate president to power. This may indicate an opening and a somewhat less restrictive political context.

Regardless, as the world becomes more and more interconnected through migration and internet and communication technologies, anthropology undoubtedly has to change along with it to offer a much more diverse manner of data collection. The

prominence of doing anthropology locally has been common for decades and the necessity to go abroad and do extensive research has become less and less.

In-Between an Insider and Outsider

Although by origin I am 100% Iranian, socially and culturally, however, I am not. Having lived in Canada for practically my whole life, I had always attained this space between being Iranian and Canadian; not fully an insider when it came to Iran, but not entirely an outsider either.

While conventionally anthropologists have studied communities culturally and geographically different from their own, I entered into a space between insider and outsider when it came to conducting interviews with Iranian women. Maintaining in inside/outside position was an interesting dichotomy. In many ways, being an Iranian gave me the advantage of meeting Iranian women more easily, perhaps even making them feel more comfortable to meet and talk with a complete stranger about themselves and a politically repressive society. Moreover, some were curious to ask about my own upbringing in Canada while having an Iranian background. However, as conversations with women delved into experiences, stories, and realities of their lives in the Islamic

Republic, my ‘insider’ status quickly diminished. Having left Iran at such a young age (8 months old), I never had to deal with the experiences that participants had to experience,

I could not easily connect with their stories, and I could not relate to a life that they had lived. While I understood the language, shared a common ethnic heritage, and shared a native birth place with the women of this study, having grown up in Canada pushed me to an outsider status.

Nonetheless, maintaining this status between insider and outsider was beneficial to my research. On one hand I was Iranian enough to speak comfortably with women 28

and have women be willing to speak to me, while on the other hand, I was enough of an outsider that I did not let an ‘insider’ status wholly affect the research I was undertaking.

In many ways, undertaking this thesis was also an incredibly personal experience for me. After listening to over 20 stories told by women close to my own age, this study was not only a thesis about women in Iran, but also a study of a life that I could have lived had my family not left the country.

Chapter Three

Dressing the Nation; Fashioning the Self

Introduction

Whether East or West, religious or secular, democratic or authoritative, clothing has incessantly been intertwined with all aspects of a society, spanning from the social, economic, political and religious. This chapter provides a literature overview of dress, spanning from its use in the fortification of political projects, controlling bodies of the citizenry and regulating the sexualities of women. We will see how women’s bodies and sexualities have been regulated more closely than men in various political and social settings, acknowledging how dress has been an important tool of discipline and control.

Moreover, the following provides us with a consideration of the use of a dress as a critical symbolic tool of resistance and subversion, while it has also been appropriated by ordinary people to assert their individualism and reclaim the self.

While the dressed body has prompted much anthropological scholarship and inquiry (See Hansen 2004), I find that I must use a multidisciplinary approach to provide a detailed account of dress in various social and political contexts considering that other disciplines have contributed much more intensively to the study of clothing as a political institution versus a cultural one.

Clothing and Political Projects

The relationship between clothing and the state is nothing new, nor is it merely a coercive tool of repressive regimes or Islamic fundamentalist countries, as it is often proclaimed in the Western imaginary. As a symbolic socio-political resource, dress has been important to many nation-states, throughout history (Belfanti 2009; Chen 2001;

Crane 2000; Gokariksel and Secor 2010; Falasca-Zamponi 2002; Scott 2004; Moallem

2005; Najmabadi 2009; O’Neil 2010; Parkins 2002). Central to both domination and resistance, as Mahmoun (1998: 5) notes, to government leaders, “changing people’s outward appearance, whether by force of law or social pressure, was a means of changing people’s values.” Thus, dress and clothing regulations have continuously been used by governments in order to exert their power and dominance over those subject to them

(Entwistle 2000: 23).

In many ways, the body has been disciplined by dress to conform to a social and political ideal to illustrate a certain depiction of national identity and state ideology, while dress has simultaneously been used to shape the minds of the populace to conform to the state’s agenda. While there is extensive literature on the use of dress in the nation- building process of past regimes, which will be discussed soon, in recent times, two examples are worthy of mention. In both Québec and France, the implication of the ways in which women’s bodies appear in the public sphere, their hyper-visibility and non- visibility, have been fundamental to both places (See Conway 2012; Scott 2004). As

Québec and France intended to eliminate the veil of Muslim women from the visibility of the public sphere, they did so by reiterating the discourse of a unified nation in so to undertake a notion of secularism. What both cases demonstrated however was by eliminating overt differences of appearance, they aimed to make the citizen-populace not only the same in theory, but they were also ceasing the foreign threat of the ‘other.’ Thus, even today, clothing and appearance politics, especially in relation to women, remain central issues for the state.

Case of Turkey, Italy and China

Although my thesis is examining the case of Iran, it is important to consider and reflect on diverse historical and contemporary contexts in which dress has been enforced and

regulated by the state so to avoid the implicit or explicit assumptions of exceptionalism when literature deals with Middle Eastern societies, in particular Iran. Aside from this, though, historical cases provide us with a more tangible consideration of the implementation of dress codes on a nation-wide scale in order to regulate the bodies and minds of the citizenry, and assert the appearance of their ideological and political endeavors. It is through such examples in which we can fathom dress as a significantly symbolic and repressive mechanism of control across a variety of times and spaces.

Similar to the case of Iran which aimed to modernize the nation after increasing contact with the West in the early twentieth century, Kemal Atatürk also imagined a modern Turkey (O’Neil 2010: 68). After the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923,

Atatürk set forth a political project to modernize the nation, using Western dress as one of its political building-blocs. With Atatürk’s move towards a “civilized” nation, one of the first changes implemented was the Hat Law, put into effect in 1925, which required all government officials to wear a hat with a brim and Western-style suits (O’Neil 2010:

69). As Arig (2007: 50, 69) notes, what the introduction of hats intended to do was to create a unified nation by eliminating overt differences between the citizenry, since wearing different styles of hats represented diverse ethnic and religious communities

(and sometimes, a variety of professions). Moreover, because Islam represented

‘backwardness’, religious clothing such as the veil had to be removed from the public sphere in order for a secular state to emerge. Like Iran, the veil was acknowledged by the state as not only a symbol of backwardness, but oppression, thus women were encouraged to caste off their veils and don Western dress in the name of “emancipation.”

The veil was thus banned on the claims that it was to help women’s rights and advance their sociopolitical situations in Turkish society.

As an obstacle to modernization, Atatürk’s vigorous disassociation with Islam aimed to move towards a secular legal system, replacing Shari'a, abolishing Islamic

religious orders and closing all religious schools (Gokariksel and Secor 2010: 121; O’Neil

2010: 70). Atatürk’s vision of modernity through dress still continues today as restrictive dress codes for all levels of public society are still set in place, which will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter.

Clothing also played an integral part in forming and fortifying Mussolini's Italy in the 1930s. Falasca-Zamponi (2002) provides a discussion of the black shirt, which became a sign of fascist faith and obedience to Mussolini’s regime (2002: 151). Used to remake Italians into citizen-soldiers and new men, the black shirt signified the voiding of individual bodies. As the body was expected to no longer be a biological entity nor an individual’s own possession, but instead state property, identity was mediated by the donning of the black-shirt. The shirt was intended to discipline the wearer’s body; making them ready to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the nation. Falasca-Zamponi explains that “the case of the black shirt exemplified fascism's extreme belief in the power of aesthetics over ideology...the belief that in order for the regime to prevail and dominate politically, one did not need doctrinal teaching, but rather proficiency in wearing the black shirt” (2002: 151). By imposing and regulating the body dressed in the black shirt, Mussolini’s ‘aesthetic political project’ ‘fascitized’ the country and employed a new ideological order. As the black shirt dressed the external body, the internal, personal life of the Italian peoples simultaneously became subject to regulation; refashioned to achieve Mussolini's agenda.

The uniformity of appearance and the power of aesthetics was also integral to

Mao Zedong’s vision of China, starting in 1949. As the masses dressed in what is known as the Mao suit, which consisted of banal colours of navy blue, khaki green and grey, the homogeneity in appearance eliminated visible differences of class, status, gender and age

(See Chen 2001; Fisher 1979; Finnane 1996). As Chen (2001: 145) asserts, “a nodal point in the interplay between citizenship, the politics of nation-building and gender-

formation, clothing participated in the creation of socialist citizens to populate the new nation.” The Mao suit became a symbol of communist ideology and faith, and was adopted by both men and women, blurring the distinction between workers, soldiers, peasants and intellectuals (Roberts 1997: 22). The state’s Red Guards, similar to Iran’s morality police, enforced and monitored dress codes to ensure that the citizenry followed state dictates while attacking anything overtly Western or ‘bourgeois’ (Jakobson 1998:

67). However, after Mao’s death in 1976, there was a gradual relaxation of socialist attire.

Clothing, Gender, the Body and Sexuality

In the case of Turkey, Iran, and China, women’s bodies tied heavily into the state’s political projects. By expecting Turkish and Iranian women to don modern clothing, their dressed bodies were intended to suggest not only a modern nation, but a state- constructed version of feminine identity and sexuality. While China rid the country of

Western consumerism, their implementation of dress codes also worked to refashion women’s sexualities by restricting women from wearing makeup and jewellery (Finnane

1996:120), and expecting them to wear their hair short or bobbed (Fisher 1979). Yet regardless of the political, religious or ideological beliefs of a nation, the linkage between the body and sexuality have made women’s clothed bodies and appearances subject to much regulation and moral discourse. And this is not only limited to Islamist political system (often referred to as religious fundamentalism) which is often proclaimed in

Western thought, but evident throughout Western history and contemporary society as well. The following is a consideration of women’s bodies and sexualities, and its relationship to dress in the Western context.

Clothing is one of the most immediate and effective ways in which bodies are gendered (Barnes and Eicher 1992: 19; Entwistle 2000:141). It is through the dressed body in which a state’s ideological milieu (as well as cultural customs) produces and

regulates ‘appropriate’ gender behaviours and normative sexuality, evident through strict gender divisions of dress. In the West, for example, dresses, skirts and high heels have been assigned to the feminine body, while ties, dress-shirts and suits have been considered predominantly male fashion norms. Although fixed dress boundaries have mixed between the sexes in contemporary society (for example, women now wear jeans, suits and dress shirts while men wear tight pants and pink shirts) fashion in the West has been a rather contentious issue, especially for women, as it has reflected and changed alongside women’s quests for their bodily, sexual and individual rights.

Dress Reform in the West

Clothing and dress choices in ninetieth and twentieth century England and United States is a useful site to begin examining the relationship between marginal and hegemonic discourses pertaining to gender within a given society (Crane 2000: 99), especially since the changes in Western women’s fashion is arguably the most significant historical period for the study of dress, gender and citizenship (Parkins 2002: 13).

The social code of nineteenth century British and American history was founded on the distinct separation of men and women, evident through the imposition of specific and distinguishable styles of clothing for each gender (Banner 1983: 49). Victorian dress expressed a particular form of femininity which upheld the image of the ideal woman as modest, behaved, submissive and feminine (Banner 1983; Torrens 2000). Physically tormenting and restricting, such dress reflected and reinforced the normative view of women as dependent and compliant, and visibly and physically entrapped to the private sphere of domesticity. Increasingly, however, British and American women began to argue for reforms to clothing, acknowledging Victorian dress as an oppressive form of control over women’s abilities, opportunities and leisure activities which denied them their “political, social, and physical power” and limited their bodily movements in the

public sphere (Sennet 1976: 174). Reform dress thus appeared during the mid-1800s, most notably Amelia Bloomer and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s dress, known as the Bloomer dress, which consisted of a loosely belted tunic and Turkish pantaloons, and included trousers and short skirts (Crane 2000; Fischer 1997; Nelson 2000).19

Many women were met with severe criticism, ridicule and harassment for wearing reform dress in public. The trousers of the bloomer costume were deemed as a violation of strict gender distinctions and norms since, up to that point, trousers were only worn by men. This stirred up fears relating to masculinity, femininity and the division of labour amongst the conservative public (Torrens 1999:81; Kriebel 1998: 49).

Not only was the adoption of a ‘masculine’ clothing item considered an “attempt to usurp male authority” (McCrone 1988:221 in Crane 2000: 122), but "dividing the legs of respectable women with a layer of fabric seemed like a sexual sacrilege" (Hollander 1994:

53 in Torrens 1999:83). The traditionalist public considered the changes to women’s clothing as against the laws of God and the nation, suggesting that women were attempting to create a “new social order” (Kriebel 1998:47). In France, however, trousers were not legally permitted for women and the Bloomer dress was not accepted (Crane

2000).

Rejecting normative dress codes, public opposition also discredited the

Edwardian English Suffragette Movement and the Women’s Social and Political Union, labeling them as ‘unfeminine freaks’ who were not the “women and mothers of England”

(Crane 2000: 127). However, it is necessary to mention that the suffragette emphasis on fashionable femininity was intended to transmit the message that women needed to be recognized as political subjects because of their sexual differences, not in spite of it

(Parkins 2002: 105). The various colours that they wore in their rebellious political

19 Feminists Bloomer (editor for the feminist journal The Lily) and Cady brought dress reform to the attention of American society with the introduction of the Bloomer dress (Nelson 2000: 21). Dress reform was launched as a result, influencing Victorian society to begin considering women’s rights and its link to dress reform (Nelson 2000: 24). 36

actions signified the “construction of a new kind of political subject, the women-citizen”

(Parkins 2002: 106). As Parkins (2002: 120) argues, the dresses they wore should be understood as an element of feminist agency, which

[...] deliberately drew attention to the suffragette body in order to contest the legitimacy of the masculine political subject...The display of the fashionable suffragette body engaged in explicitly political actions offered a subversive repetition of conventional practices associated with modern femininity and this challenged normative definitions of citizenship and political agency as the provenance of men.

Many prominent women activists at the time, some who initially observed reformist dress but later discarded it, such as Susan B. Anthony in the United States, argued that women must achieve legal equality with men above all else. Dress reformers, however, argued that transforming women’s clothing was the most profound step needed to be taken in order for such an advancement to occur (Torrens 1997:198).

One of the most well-known dress reformers, Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War surgeon, began her advocacy for women’s rights with dress reform. She pushed societal expectations of women in their public appearance when, in the 1860s, she gave up dress reform and wore men’s trousers, coats, vests and top hats. Although she was arrested in

1866 for “disorderly conduct and appearing in male costume,” Walker refused to abide by patriarchal and traditional notions of femininity, and continued to wear men’s attire until her death in 1919 (Kriebel 1998:29-30). Thus, what many women’s rights advocates at the time failed to consider was that, as Kriebel (1998:49) argues, dress reformers were a major political and ideological threat. By donning alternative modes of dress and clothing styles conventionally reserved for men, dress reform women were taking initiatives to shape their lives in accordance to their own needs while declaring their independence from male approval and authority.

Moreover, as Torrens (1999: 77) asserts, nineteenth century dress reformers used the body as “a source and a site for argumentation” to support women’s rights and equality. What dress reform did was argue against a restrictive and repressive social ideology which restricted women to the confines of the home and out of public visibility and political representation. The dress reform movement thus called for a redefinition of the female body, which they believed was at the core of transforming their social and legal rights.

The turn of the twentieth century witnessed another evolution of women’s dress and their sociopolitical positions in society. Working in the labour force in larger numbers, women formed social and political unions, gained the right to vote, and an increasing amount of middle class women graduated from college. Reflecting the sociopolitical changes made to women’s lives, several dress styles for women emerged at this time. In the 1920s Coco Chanel created various fashions to reflect the comfortable, active, and free “modern woman,” appropriating male fashions such as ties, collars, long tailor-cut jackets, often noted as a sign of feminine emancipation (Roberts 1993: 667-8). Another famous style was of the flapper, which symbolized youth, energy, independence, and visibility. Their clothing covered less skin, was sensible and flirtatious, and crossed the boundaries of gender and femininity, as well as sexual and economic freedom (Kriebel

1998:13; 102; Van Cleave 2009: 5). Consequently, many were met with harsh criticism.

Flapper women were ridiculed in public for their ‘immodest’ dress choices, condemned for their low-cut dresses, short skirts and their disuse of the corset20 (Kreibel 1998:116).

Nonetheless, the image became iconic.

Having the opportunity to now enter into the ‘male sphere’ of the university, college students also embodied the New Woman image during this period. As Van Cleave

20 Such clothes were described as the clothing of prostitutes 38

(2009) shows, college women broke from tradition and wore short skirts, shorter hairstyles and makeup. They also chose to incorporate male stylistic elements, such as tailored suits and shirtwaists. Dating became common on campus and an appeal of sexual attraction was articulated through more fashionably attractive and sexualized appearances. Perhaps what is most important to take away from the changes to women’s clothing during this period was the way in which dress was utilized as a means to define the self, play with identity, and search for one’s sexuality, while refusing to be defined and tied to traditional concepts of womanhood and femininity. Such a change in dress had become symbols for new women, which alarmed the conservative public (Hall 1971:

487; Kriebel 1998: 118).

However, the post-war period brought along with it an ideology which expected women to ‘return to domesticity’ while keeping up with high standards of beauty and sexual attractiveness (Brickell 2002: 243). Christian Dior’s ‘New Look,’ which consisted of a shirtwaist and skirt that ended above the ankles, reinforced the ideals of conformity, femininity and domesticity of Western women. Emphasizing the bust and hips, the New

Look has been regarded by feminist historians, as well as Dior himself, as a postwar

‘refeminization’ of women (Maynard 1995 in Brickell 2002: 246). This image was reinforced by the media, American consumerism, and the myth of the nuclear family, in turn refortifying strict gender divisions.

Not all women conformed to the New Look, though, and many resisted the ideology which accompanied a limited definition of femininity, but there is a gap in historical documentation to further elaborate on this point. While the decades following this era saw a rise in a variety of different styles for women, including contestation around women’s dress and bodies, it is safe to end this overview after a considerable discussion. A Casell (1974 in Crane 2000: 126) states, the transformation of women’s dress styles “illustrates a process that proceeds and accompanies social change whereby

the meanings of symbols gradually adapt to changing definitions of social roles and structures.”

As changes in women’s clothing throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century

Western society show, women’s dress and women’s bodies have always been highly political, very much intertwined with discourses of gender and the politics of power

(Freedman 1986: 236), world-wide. Thus it is important to acknowledge that women, regardless of geographical location, have often been, and continue to be, construed and fixed by social, cultural, religious and political, patriarchal constructs which have determined the limits of their appearances, rights to their own bodies and societal positions through the use of dress. As Young (1990 in Torrens 1999: 86) argues, the most crucial lesson to be learned by analyzing dress reform in the West is the nature of social control, particularly in relation to women, and how clothing can, and continues to, work to regulate the feminine body. Hence, the history of Western women’s fashion and its continual evolution throughout time illustrates the key role that the dressed body continues to play as a site of debate and contention over the performance and articulation of gender and the meaning of femininity.

Dress, the Individual and Identity

According to Negrin (2008:17), one of the central features of clothes since nineteenth century Euro-America has been that clothing and appearances have been used to express individual identity rather than signifying membership to a specific social group or collective whole. As Entwistle (2000: 117) has contended, “Modernity opened up new possibilities for the creation of identity: it unfixed individuals from traditional communities, placing them in the ‘melting-pot’ of the city, and it extended the commodities available for purchase to an ever widening circle of people, thereby providing ‘raw material’ for the creation of new identities”. Due to the variety of lifestyles

available today, dress allows for people to distance themselves from tradition in order to make individual choices to create their own self-identity (Kawamura 2006: 785).

Concurrently, Giddens (1991) points out that while in pre-modern cultures appearances were standardized, in the modern era, specific uses of dress have been refashioned to suit the individual person. Fashion is seen to “reflect the personality of the wearer rather than simply signaling their social identity” (Negrin 2008:17; Also see Banim and Guy

2000; Giddens 1991). The body thus has become a self-reflexive project, integral to the sense of who we are and how we think about ourselves (Negrin 2008: 9).

Moreover, one of the reasons why clothing is a significant personal tool is because it provides us with the means to control the images of ourselves from others (Goffman

1961 in Bovone 2006: 371). Wilson (2003) argued that individuals who are in a struggle to resist the dominant culture are the ones who use dress more consciously in so to differentiate themselves and/or to express their identities while transmitting nonverbal messages. This is what Wilson has called “oppositional” dress (in Bovone 2006: 373;

Also see Williamson 2001). As we will see later in chapter seven, while the Islamic

Regime attempted to construct its own versions of women, both internally and externally through enforced Islamic dress, women too are using alternative dress to assert their own individual selves while positing an identity of their own choosing. Thus, while “dress clothes the body from the inside as a self-fashioning discourse” (Warwick and Cavallaro

1998: 15), it is through dress that we can understand how the body plays a critical role in mediating the relationship between self-identity and social identity (Couplan and Gwyn

2003: 73).

Resisting Through the Dressed Body

Resistance is a rather broad and loose notion. While it has been essentially defined as an

‘oppositional practice’ (Aggleton and Whitty 1985:62); ‘collective, directed actions taken

by a subordinate group towards a dominant one’ (Raby 2005: 151 in Kamete 2010: 56),

Brighenti (2011:58) argues that “The notion of resistance is, for social science and social theory, an extremely complex one, arguably a notion which, despite copious literature on empirical episodes, practices and histories of resistance, still remains insufficiently theorized.” Different authors and scholars have used the concept of resistance to define and describe various actions and behaviours of peoples from the individual to the collective, taking placing in a variety of settings and contexts. However, a clear definition of what resistance is has failed to be fully articulated (Hollander and Einwohner 2004:

534).

Raby (2005: 151) argues that resistance has to be located within a broader theoretical debate on issues of power and agency. It is through agency, which manifests as resistance, that oppressed peoples come to defy and react to their oppression. Power in the modernist perspective is defined in terms of a “binary between dominance and submission [where] power is something that is possessed by the dominant group and wielded against the subordinate” (Raby 2004:152). Resistance here can be articulated through various forms: overt action, individual or collective. Such a modernist perspective acknowledges the agency of those who resist as “the oppressed resisting the oppressors in order to “overcome or change some perceived effect of power” (Rose 2002:

385 in Kamete 2010:57).

Although commonly interchanged with resistance, subversion is the necessary concept to use when speaking of alternative dress in the context of Iran. As Crane (2000:

126) suggests, clothing is a form of nonverbal culture. Because nonverbal culture is more open to interpretation than verbal culture, those who transmit subversive messages through nonverbal culture can simply deny their subversive intents (while some may not even be aware of them). Applying this notion to the case of alternate styles of dress used by British women during dress reform, Crane argues that women, unconsciously or not,

were engaging in a ‘symbolic inversion’ which refashioned not only women’s bodies but femininity as well. Likewise, I consider alternative dress in Iran an act of symbolic subversion, considering than women’s subversive intentions are not totally made explicit by donning alternative dress. However, in the literature which follows, resistance and subversion are used interchangeably.

Dress and stylistic expression as a form of resistance has been a significant area of study in the social sciences since Hebdige’s (1979) study and theorization of sub-cultural style of youth movements. Hebdige deemed sub-cultural style as a re-appropriation of the normative cultural order by subordinated societal factions. Through his examination of punks in the 1970s, he asserts that a sub-cultural style was developed by the social malaise of urban British youth who suffered from class-inequity and societal marginalization. His work sheds light on the varying strategies which punks appropriated to deal with the social structures which affected their lives by appropriating certain material objects and signs to resist the social order (Hebdige 1988: 18). For example, stitching the British flag on their jackets was to signify their invisibility in the elitist, middle class milieu of England. Whether effective or not, sub-cultural style,

Hebdige (1979) argues, poses political challenges within power relations.

In other cases, the Black Panthers, a group of African American militants who formed during the 1960s, adopted a particular mode of self-presentation to promote their revolutionary agenda with aims to provide equality and freedom to African

Americans. Worn as a distinct uniform, all members observing it signified “a corporeal linkage between black body stylization and political resistance” (Cheddie 2010: 335). As

Cheddie (2010) discusses, their uniform was in dialogue with the realities of black

Americans: the adoption of work clothes, jeans and denim jackets were symbols of solidarity with the black rural working class while their dress shoes were similar to those

worn by black jazz musicians in the 1950s and 1960s. By carrying guns in public and wearing black jackets, their image became symbols of militancy; a nonverbal message of demanding equality in American society- not asking for it (2010: 335).

Still, the adoption of particular material items to make public and subversive statements pre-dates the above examples. Buckridge’s (2004) study of slaves in Jamaica shows that they appropriated European styles of dress, not to emulate their white masters, but to resist their status as slaves in subtle and disguised manners. Similarly, as

English women in the nineteenth century donned the suit-jacket, an item associated with masculinity and conventionally reserved for men, the suit-jacket was given a new meaning (Crane 2000: 126).

Both of the examples above, including the current case of alternative fashion in

Iran, could be categorized under what James Scott (1990) calls the “hidden transcript.”

While subjugated peoples do very well identify and acknowledge power relations, many, depending on their social location and context, must suppress or regulate their anger towards the dominant group, only to have their inner feelings of anger, opposition and resistance emerge through the “hidden transcript” in order to escape punishment. In other words, due to the restrictive and oppressive nature of certain governments, such as

Iran, people’s resistance and opposition has to be more subtle, disguised or offstage.

Thus the “hidden transcript” involves acts of resistance which are not visible or wholly obvious to the dominant class or the oppressors. However subtle or covert such acts may be, Scott argues, they are, nonetheless, a “silent partner of a loud form of public resistance” (1990: 199).

Langman’s (2008: 664) discussion of fashion as resistance suggests that using the body as a canvas of expression and resistance gives “meaningful identities and voices to those who might be invisible.” Thus, stylistic resistance is very much intertwined with the issue of visibility. Because marginalized groups are often the ones struggling most to

be seen, Brighenti (2010: 67) suggests that visibility is not only a tactical and strategic field, but “visibility constitutively oscillates between a fundamentally enabling pole, recognition, and a fundamentally constraining one, control: one needs to be seen in order to be recognized...” To be seen is what makes subversion through clothes as meaningful and powerful as it is. In the case of Iran, (and elsewhere) it is women’s access to the contentious public realm, and their alternatively dressed bodies in the visible public domain which poses a direct ideological threat and challenge to the Islamic

Regime.

Public Veiling Fashions in the Middle East and North Africa

The emergence of alternative forms of Islamic dress is not only a phenomenon emerging

Iran, but one that has spread drastically across the Middle East, as well as the world- wide Muslim context from Asia to Africa, as well as Europe and the Americas in the past decade, albeit for different purposes. Fashionable Islamic dress has become a critical marketplace for Islamic women who negotiate the borders of tradition and modernity in the ambivalent space of conservative Islam. Some have argued that the most prominent country in which Islamic fashion has developed is Turkey (Gokariksel 2009; Gokariksel and Secor 2010, 2012). Although Atatürk’s modernization scheme is still ongoing in

Turkey, its clothing restrictions have come under stark challenge and resistance in the last two decades, especially since the revival of Islam.

The shifting economic and political landscape of the country following the 1980 coup led to a primacy of Islam. In part encouraged by state policies as a counter balance to the Marxist and socialist tendencies, there was a growth of an ‘Islamization’ of the

Turkish economy, including Islamic banking, business associations, and workplace practices (Goktiksel and Secor 2010: 314). Gradually, conservative Islamic families moved to urban centers, gained social mobility and joined the middle and upper classes

(Tugal 2009; Howe 2000). During the heated period to ban the headscarf from public spaces and institutions in the 1980s (Gokariksel and Secor 2010: 122; Gokariksel and

Secor 2010: 315), opponents of the veil argued that it represented a direct threat to the public sphere (O’Neil 2010: 78). It was assumed by secular Turks that citizens should be loyal to the state- not to any religion. This echoed the sentiments of the Turkish government which banned veiled women from enrolling in universities and occupying political and official positions. However, the rise of Islamist women’s movement during this period had profound effects on the general outlook of Muslim women and their identities (Göle 2002, 2006; Marshall 2005).

Being that more than half of the women in Turkey observe the headscarf today, in

2011 the country’s first continuous fashion magazine, Ala, devoted only to Muslim women’s fashion, was released, becoming Turkey’s most popular fashion magazine within a few months of its birth (there were some Muslim fashion publications in the

1980s, however).21 The editor-in-chief of the magazine has suggested that the notion of the veil has changed drastically throughout Turkish history, and it is now a ‘progressive’ aesthetic: “We have become socially accepted...We want to show these women...to look more stylish and lead more exciting lives, and that the headscarf doesn’t have to be an obstacle.” For many, veiling-fashion has provided a way for the construction, and engagement with, a new feminine identity, in which young Muslim women negotiate gender meanings and gender roles while integrating themselves in the global capitalist economy as fashion-conscious consumers (Gökariksel and Secor 2009: 10; 13).

Although women who observe the veil must remove it upon entering universities or governmental institutions, there has been an increasingly public visibility of veiled women, and Turkey now hails as one of the top fashion capitals for veiled Muslims.

21 Deatsche Welle. (2011, December 8). Turkey “Vogue” for Muslim Women l European Journal [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_Ck1_SDkTg 46

Turkish producers of veiling-fashion also export their products to retail outlets across the

Middle East, Europe and North America (Gökariksel 2009: 8). The global growth of “an

Islamic consumer sector” in Turkey encouraged Muslims to be both “covered and fashionable, modest and beautiful” (Gökariksel and Secor 2010: 119; Navaro-Yashin

2002).

While the state has become less strict on the public visibility of women observing the veil, veiling-fashion remains controversial for both Turkish Islamists and secularists.

While conservative Muslims view veiling-fashion as contradicting and degenerating

Islamic values, for secularists, fashionable Muslim women are “symbols of the hypocrisy hidden under the mask of Islam by Islamic capitalists and politicians” (Gökariksel and

Secor 2009: 14).

On the streets of conservative San’a, Yemen, veiled women have also engaged in the repertoire of fashionable Islamic dress. Moors’ (2003) study of veiling fashion shows that young women experiment with different modes of styles, colours and patterns. Muslim entrepreneurs have become active producers of garments, catering to the growing number of women looking for fashionable yet modest dress styles for pious Muslim women (2003: 43). However, similar to the case of Turkey and Iran, opposition from conservative sectors poses challenges to the change of dress taking place. Booklets written by conservative religious authorities have warned against the dangers of consumerism and fashion (2003: 45).

In other cases such as Egypt, which does not regulate dress codes yet has a large

Muslim populace, women’s veiling practices is still a pervasive matter. As Abaza (2007:

284) suggests, in Egypt “Islamic attire has taken multiple layers of meanings and is worn to different degrees and with different intents and effects.” Depending on class and religious affiliation, certain modes of dress are adopted. Especially amongst the youth,

women wear tight and short, colourful clothing. Alongside them, older Muslim women adopt the veil and long-black chadors. Alongside that, Islamic youth have fashioned

Islamic clothing to fit a youthful appearance, covering their hair, yet wearing tight jeans and make-up. Other Muslims choose to simply go without any religiously affiliated clothing. Like their counterparts in Iran and Yemen, young Egyptian women have been engaged in debates regarding both the adoption of Western and Islamic clothing. An official newspaper claimed that youth who adopt Western clothing are following

“disgusting expensive and shameful fashions” (Abaza 2007: 284) while on the other hand, complete covering of the Islamic body has been regarded as a symbol of Islamic extremism.

Women in Egypt began wearing the veil in the mid-1970s, and by the 1990s women’s veiling became routinized and stabilized (El Guindi 2005: 56). According to El

Guindi (2005:60), the adoption of Islamic clothing was an affirmation of an Islamic identity which rejected Western materialism, consumerism, commercialism, and values.

Abaza (2007: 295) argues that the adoption of Islamic style is a way for such Egyptians to reinvent an identity which they feel has been taken away from them with the modernization of the country since the 1960s. However, these arguments seem rather reductionist when today one can often see veiled women in tight clothing and fashionable, attractive dress on the streets of Egypt as well as on television and various offices. While this may represent the shifting social, political and sexual landscape of

Egypt (See El Faki 2013), it nevertheless requires new approaches to the adoption of veiling and Muslim dressing.

What the cases above suggest is that women in the Middle East are faced with a constant negotiation of juggling both tradition and modernity through their dressed bodies, subjecting women to the dynamic relationship about what it means to be a woman, a Muslim, as well as modern. Nonetheless, as Gökariksel and McLarney’s (2010:

1-2) work on Turkey shows, women are increasingly coming to mediate their identities through commodities and acts of consumerism. In the case of Iran, as well as elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, identities are being shaped in new ways. Not only are Iranian youth engaging in a global youth culture with which they are interacting via internet and satellite, but they are appropriating previously restricted spaces and consuming products to posit identities of their own fostering rather than adhering to a collective identity like the Islamic Regime expects (Mahdi 2003; Mahdavi 2009;

Gökariksel and McLarney 2010; Gökariksel and Secor 2010).

Conclusion

The purpose of this chapter has been to provide a brief overview of the significance of clothing regulations and the enforcement of particular forms of dress on the citizen- populace is not only common to repressive Islamic fundamentalist countries. As discussed, dress is a significant sociopolitical instrument in which states, democratic or authoritative, have used to implement its sociopolitical projects, reshaping people’s bodies and minds to conform to and accept the ideology of the ruling elite. Yet, we have also learned of how dress has been critical for ordinary peoples, who have used dress to resist and subvert their marginalization and oppression, while using aesthetic material to convey and construct their individuality and identity.

Moreover, another aim of this chapter has been to shed light on the social control of women through dress. In various cases, we have seen how dress has worked to regulate women’s bodies, shaping, denying and defining their sexualities and societal positions. Yet, as evident in the incredible history of Western women’s evolution of dress, dress has gone hand-in-hand with women’s struggles to change to their societal positions, shifting with it societal conventions and women’s legal, social and political realities.

While it is not limited to Iran, Iran is, undoubtedly, a site through which to grasp how dress and clothing are both personal and political: a personal entity yet also state property and a political tool. The rest of the chapters to come demonstrate that, especially in its last 150 years, clothing has been completely intertwined with Iran’s history, its political dialogue and social conventions, and it has been utilized by the state as a mechanism of discipline and control; integral to undertaking and implementing its political projects and maintaining its authority. In terms of women, particular aesthetic materials such as the veil has been countered as an enemy, while it has also been appropriated as the state’s ultimate weapon to shape and regulate women, their bodies and their sexualities. Yet, people are also social agents who react and respond, using personal and symbolic means of expressing themselves, and in Iran, one of the ways in which women have done this is through the very act of dressing.

Chapter Four

The Making of the Modern Iranian Woman: Modernity, Sexuality and the Women’s Movement (1850-1979)

Only you, O Iranian woman, have remained in bonds of wretchedness, misfortune, and cruelty; If you want these bonds broken, grasp the skirt of obstinacy -Forough Farrokhzad

Introduction

The politicization of Iranian women’s dressed bodies stretches back to the nineteenth century. After increasing contact between Iran and Europe, the interchange between travelers, students and diplomats resulted in changes to the ways in which Iranians thought about themselves and their society on a national level (See Najmabadi 2005).

Complacently commending European civilization and its achievements, there was an advocation on part of Iranian reformists to push for Iran’s modernization. While astonished by the dressed bodies of both men and women, it was the visible and mobile bodies of European women and their presence alongside of men in various societal functions (not to mention the rule of the Queen over the most powerful imperial power) which became a point of reflexivity for many Iranians. Comparing the unconcealed bodies of European women with that of chador-clad Iranian women, who were covered in dark material from top to bottom, Iranian reformists began to increasingly link Iran’s

‘backwardness’ to the veiled bodies of Iranian women, who stood as the epitome of tradition and lack of progress. Thus reconceptualizing women and womanhood became an important center of attention of all those focusing on reform and modernity in Iran

(Moallem 2005; Najmabadi 2006).

While the push for women’s unveiling in the twentieth century was done so in the name of women’s “emancipation” and national progress, the banning of the hijab in

1936, the regulation of dress, the de-segregation of public and private life, and the implementation of particular modes of femininity and feminine bodily comportment administered by men perpetuated the patriarchal hold over women’s bodies; be it the state, Islam or male patriarchs (Moallem 2005; Sedghi 2007). Although modernization provided women with opportunities to receive an education and join the labour force, the patriarchal forces so instilled within Iranian society contributed to the lack of power, autonomy and control that many women experienced over their bodies and sexualities

(Hoodfar 1997, 1999; Moallem 2005; Paidar 1995). As they became political instruments to reach state endeavors, their bodies simultaneously became the battleground between opposing patriarchal forces, which fought to attain their own ideals and authority over women with little consideration on part of women themselves. The forceful unveiling of women and the imposition of modernized fashions established, as Moallem (2005: 71) argues, “a hierarchal dichotomy, both spatial and social, between modern and traditional, progressive and fanatic, urban and rural, secular and religious, upper and lower-class, male and female.”

Yet at the same time, this era was also marked by women’s own struggles for autonomy in multiple patriarchal milieus. The nationalistic and progressive fervor of the twentieth century contributed to the development of women’s general consciousness wherein which they pushed for legal and sociopolitical recognitions, marking a significant turning point in the societal perception of women. As much as men used, co- opted and fought over their bodies, women too utilized their bodies to assert themselves as visible actors and citizens on the public stage while using dress as acts of resistance to meet their own dictates and demands.

As women’s bodies had been regulated by ideological, cultural, and religious forces, then later taken over by state powers for political purposes, this chapter will examine the nature of the politicization of Iranian women’s bodies until the Iranian

Revolution in 1979. It is through the dressed bodies of Iranian women in which we can understand the multitude of political, social, religious, sexual, gendered, and economic transformations which occurred throughout the century. By examining the history of women alongside the study of dress during this period, it will shed light on the nature of patriarchal control and political endeavors through the battle over women’s bodies, while also examining women’s own negotiations within and against their state-constructed bodies.

Qajar Period

While the Qajar Dynasty ruled Iran from 1785-1925, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the idea of modernity and development percolated among the intellectuals and elites of Iran. This had to do in part with the fact that Iran was not directly colonized, and thus, their extensive contact with Europe only developed as of 1850 through exploitative trade and financial relations. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, increasing contact with the West influenced Iranian reformists to push for the modernization of the country while calling for Western military techniques, institutions, factories as well as the establishment of modern schools (Nashat 1983:14- 15; Paidar

1995; Sedghi 2007: 43). While realizing the stark contrast between the two societies after observing how their mixed-sex European counterparts interacted freely together, it was particularly the differences between European and Iranian women which became subject to much self-reflection (Najmabadi 2005). A new possibility of alternative scenarios and gender relations cultivated the seeds of desire for transformation in Iran.

Having been confined to the home and reproduction for generations, particularly since the Safavids Dynasty (1501-1722),22 Iranian women, donned in black chadors, stood in sharp polarity to their visible, white European female counterparts. Totally shielded and hidden under the covers of dark fabric, Iranian women were concealed, invisible and lacked freedom of movement and public mobility. Seldom unaccompanied by men when in public, women had little control of their own bodies. As Sedghi (2007:

26-27) suggests, “Their chador signified their separation from the world...assured them the identity of the weak sex, obedient to the man’s will.”

The fact that women had gained greater roles in Europe and were publicly visible in terms of spatial movement and dress, helped mold the views of Iranian reformists, both male and female (Paidar 1995: 44; Tabari 1982:11). Indeed many Iranian intellectuals and reformists during this era assumed that European progress was a consequence of the better treatment granted to women. Thus, women’s “liberation” and their access to education and public spaces, as well as hetero-sociability, were viewed by reformists as part and parcel to modernization if Muslim societies were to assert themselves and push out the control of colonial powers (Amin 2002). It was precisely at this point in which the subject of Iranian women’s bodies in their publicly dressed presence became subject to discussion on part of Iranian reformists.

22 The Safavids declared Shia Islam as the state religion of Persia and used much force to convert many Muslims in Iran to the Shia sect. It was here in which many social limitations were imposed on women, although women’s statuses varied depending on geography and ethnic groupings. Women were restricted from legal rights, individual freedom, and access to economic attainment. Additionally, women were expected to cover their whole bodies in public. (See Jahandideh and Khaefi 2011). 54

Figure 4.1 ‘Qajar Women of the Haram’ (Source: http://fouman.com/Y/Picture_View- Qajar_Women_Harem.htm).

Constitutional Revolution (1906-1911)

Growing out of what is known as the ‘anti-tobacco movement’ (when the monopoly over tobacco, Iran’s largest cash crop, was granted to a British company in 1890) was the

Constitutional Revolution. Resulting in the overall discontent with the Qajar state, decades of mobilization and political wrangling between various societal factions eventually prompted a revolution in 1906. Following a response to widespread resentment and frustration aroused by the imperialist policies of the Qajar rulers

(Osanloo 2009:24), the Constitutional movement was a ‘democratic’ movement, inspired by European models, particularly those of France and England, which aimed to change the current system. Revolutionaries aimed to limit the Shah’s powers, establish a parliament and end foreign dominance, all the while drawing upon traditional and

western ideas to form a future political order (Ettehadieh 2004: 86; Paidar 1995: 71).23

However, the success of revolution did not manage to curtail the widespread resentment and frustration aroused by the imperialist policies of the Qajar rulers (Osanloo 2009:24) and a search for a better political alternative continued.

Women’s involvement in the revolution was significant, although it was not the first time women had joined a national movement.24 Women’s involvement in the uprisings which followed the anti-tobacco concession of 1890 marked an important shift in the societal perceptions of women at the time.25 Eager to join, women boycotted smoking and broke their tobacco pipes in opposition (Paidar 1995: 51; Also see Afary

1996). Not only did women voice their political demands for the first time, but their participation in the events was an unconventional act for women who were generally expected to remain in the private domain and be virtually nonexistent in the realm of politics (Hoodfar 1999:7; Paidar 1995: 74).

Nonetheless, women responded to and engaged in the revolutionary and nationalistic fervor spreading across the nation as their resistance and activity took multiple forms during the Constitutional Revolution (Ettendieh 2004: 87). Women

(from lower and middle-classes) circulated information, spread news, acted as messengers and participated in public demonstrations while organizing sit-ins. Some even sent threatening letters to the Shah26 (Paidar 1995: 50; Poya 1999: 31). They also boycotted imported fabrics, encouraging the use of Iranian textiles instead. During the

Russian ultimatum in 1911, women even took up arms, hid underneath their veils,

23 In 1905 an economic crises gave rise to public protests led by merchants, shopkeepers, and some members of the ‘ulama. (Ozanloo 2009: 24) 24 In the past they had demonstrated over shortage and high cost of food. 25 In 1890 a British company acquired monopoly over Iran’s production, sale and export of tobacco. The concession created major opposition, generating discontent among the merchants and clergies who were against the foreign control of Iran, which also meant inferences with their profit and trade inside and outside the country 26 A letter from the Women’s Revolutionary Committee sent a letter to the Shah which had a picture of a red hand holding a pistol. They threatened to kill the Shah if he ignored the people’s demand for a House of Justice. (Paidar 1995: 53-54) 56

threatening to shoot anyone who would submit (Tabari 1982:44- 45).27 However, the vigorous and visible actions of women during this period were met with differing responses. While some men encouraged women to join,28 other members from religious and traditional sectors saw women’s public activity as ‘immoral’29 (Nashat 1983: 23). Yet women’s presence was ample enough to assert them as meaningful actors. Their involvement transformed them as obscured and hidden inconsequential bodies to ones that had been utilized to react to and engage within the political turmoil which was taking place. Thus, the transitory political atmosphere during this period sparked discussion and debate on the position of Iranian women for the first time (Paidar 1995:

60).

The idea of women’s rights and emancipation were sensitive for both anti- constitutionalists and pro-constitutionalists. While varying political factions had contrasting opinions on national issues, they joined together to reject any reforms to help advance the position of Iranian women (Paidar 1995: 67). However in 1911, it was a male member of Parliament from Hamedan, Hadji Vakil el-Roaya, who, for the first time in parliament, raised an issue about equal rights for Iranian women (Sansarian 1982:

23). Having given a speech supporting women’s franchise, he asked the clergy to support the notion that women should be given the right to vote and be involved in political affairs. Outraged by the idea, the clergy denied this. Indeed the subject was considered so out of line that religious leaders in the parliament demanded that the entire issue and

27 In 1911, Russia occupied parts of northern Iran and made several demands, including the ultimatum to occupy Tehran within 48 hours. Women mobilized in response. Nearly 300 women marched into the public gallery with pistols hidden under their veils, threatening to kill anyone who would give in to the Russian demand (Tabari 1982: 45) 28 In Isfahan, for example, in response to the growing rise of copper, merchants and craftsmen encouraged their wives to attack the British consulate because they “wouldn’t be recognized under their veils” (Paidar 1995: 54).

The administrative committee encouraged women to demonstrate outside of Legislation and royal palace. (Paidar 1995: 54) 29 However, some of the clergy approved of women’s participation, since it gave them support. (Paidar 1995: 74) 57

speech be wiped out of the parliamentary report of the day. The rejection of women’s political rights and participation in parliamentary political processes were premised on the grounds that it was against the laws of Islam (Afary 1996; Hoodfar 1999).30

Although women did not gain any immediate changes or rights for themselves, their active involvement during the revolutionary period ignited a spontaneous yet zealous and impassioned women’s movement. It is important to mention, though, that there was no official women’s movement at this point nor did any woman base her political identity wholly on feminist endeavors (Paidar 1995: 76). However, the establishment of a constitutional system provided the foundation for claims to be issued for state institutions pertaining to women’s legal and political rights, instigating serious discussions pertaining to women as a societal group for the first time (Ozanloo 2009:

25). As their involvement in the revolution provided them with a means in which to learn to organize themselves, several women’s associations were created. Upper-class women focused on educational endeavors for girls, wherein which they raised funds and established schools despite the lack of support from the government (Hoodfar 1999:9).31

Additionally, the rise of numerous women’s journals32 and newspapers provided spaces in which women expressed their concerns about issues effecting and pertaining to

Iranian women’s lives (Sedghi 2007: 50). During this period, socially controversial issues such as family, education, as well as veiling became public and national concerns (Paidar

1995: 76).

Although most women undertaking such initiatives were from educated upper and middle-class families, women’s involvement in the constitutional revolution marked the emergence of Iranian women’s collective consciousness. The revolutionary ardor

30 Although such men claimed that women’s equality and legal recognition was against the laws of Islam, there is not a single reference pertaining to elections in the Qur’an (Hoodfar 1999:8). 31 By 1913 there were 63 schools for girls in Tehran, some established by foreigners (Amin 2002:146). 32 From 1910 to the 1920s, women published thirteen journals. Danesh (which means ‘knowledge’ in Farsi) was the first journal to be published, aimed at “awakening the masses of women” (Sedghi 2007: 55). 58

increased their awareness concerning issues affecting their lives, and it offered them a critical space to voice their political and social demands (Hoodfar 1999: 12; Paidar 1995:

74). As Paidar (1995: 71; 74-4) suggests, their contributions also “changed the social image of women from private beings to public participants.” Additionally, women’s participation in the revolution established them as fellow participants in the national struggle. “This was an aspect of a wider definition of ‘women’s emancipation’ and its relation to ‘national progress’ within the discourse of modernity” (Ibid, 71). The

Constitutional Revolution thus marked the emergence of a new political beginning for

Iranian women.

Women and Modernization during the Era of Reza Shah (1925-1941)

In 1925, Reza Khan (1925-1941) (hereafter known as Reza Shah), a military officer, overthrew the last shah of the Qajar dynasty, Ahmad Shah, and established the Pahlavi dynasty. The second wave of Iran’s modernity discourse emerged at this point as Reza

Shah embarked on his nation-building endeavor to modernize the Iranian nation. As

Paidar (1995) describes, as part of the national rhetoric of the state, specific definitions and elements of European modernity and progress were implemented, echoing the growing belief that modernization was necessary for the advancement of Iran. The Shah reflected and aimed to put forth a series of social reforms which were subjects of debate and demands by generations of Iranian reformists; namely, national sovereignty, industrial, technological and economic progress, and the liberation of women in the name of modernity (1995:81-82; 113). It was a consequence of women’s increasing awareness of their rights and their persistent determination to better their societal positions that gave the regime the ability to consider and eventually redefine gender discourses; positing a new specific position for women in Iranian society (Paidar 1995:

103; Yabooi 2012: 67). For the first time in the nation’s history, women became an important and critical focus of state policy (Amin 2002).

As noted earlier, male reformists began to consider the notion of women’s

“liberation” as important to national progress. The reformation of women’s dressed bodies, along with their social and economic lives, was essential to state development.

Incorporated into the nationalist rhetoric as ‘mothers of the nation’ who had to be well educated in order to raise the next generation of useful and intelligent citizens, and thus a stronger nation (Hoodfar 1997: 259; Moallem 2005: 74), the fate and future of Iran thus rested upon the unveiled and modernly dressed bodies of women (Hoodfar 1997;

1999).

In this era of nation building, women’s “emancipation” and their bodily liberation was first and foremost put in the service of imagining a modern Iran. While it may appear that the Shah was sympathetic to the women cause, his reasons to push for their emancipation were manifold. It is necessary to mention though that the Shah was anything but a women’s rights advocate and did not genuinely believe in equality between the sexes. As Sedghi (2007: 90) contends, the Shah’s “gender reforms did not intend to undermine women’s actual oppression and exploitation.”33 Instead, he was a nationalist focused on modernizing Iran, and modernity in the name of women’s emancipation was integral to the state’s project. Thus, women were central to the regime’s endeavor to create “a more unified and viable nation; a modern nation with a healthier, better educated and more productive population” (Paidar 1995: 117).

The reformation of women was, in one aspect, demonstrated by offering them entry into the workforce and educational institutions; the latter which was reformed as part of the modernization endeavor (Sedghi 2007: 67; 72). Although women (as well as

33 His daughter Shams noted that Reza Shah “was never subject to feminine influence and never displayed a sentiment for the fair sex” (Sedghi 2007: 90) 60

reformist men) had been calling for economic advancement through women’s education for decades, (and women often took it upon themselves to educate women (Sansarian

1982: 45), it was not until Reza Shah that girls and women's education was recognized as important on a political level, resulting in an increase in the number of schools for girls.

In the 1936-1937 school year, seventy women were accepted to Tehran University upon its official opening (Sedghi 2007: 71). There were also many opportunities for women to work as teachers.

However, in order to create a modern state, the image of a modern nation was vital. To do this, citizens bodies were tied to the nation-building process to posit and fortify a modern Iran. State building had to entail nation-building, which meant equating national unity with uniformity in appearance (Chehabi 1993: 223).34 Despite Iran’s multitude of tribal and ethnic affiliations, the Shah was keen on discarding population differences on an aesthetic level to assert a unified community. While both men and women had to be refashioned in modern, Western attire to achieve this image of progress and national unity, it was the unveiling of women’s bodies, in particular, which were fundamental to reform. It was here in which Iranian women’s dressed bodies would become highly politicized, paramount to state politics and the basis for the contention between varying ideological and patriarchal forces.

Dress Reform

Initially it was men who grew increasingly self-conscious about their appearances after

Iran’s growing contact with the West. During the Qajar period, European suits and ties were adorned by members of the Court and aristocracy while later on the educated urban

34 This is similar to the French Revolution. In the early years after the 1789 revolution, distinctions through dress were eliminated and religious costumes were abolished. When the Jocabins took power, they used a national civil uniform as a way to eliminate political differences and achieve the appearance of equality. However, the difference with Iran and Turkey was that these countries had to “form a new people” (Chehabi 1993: 223). 61

strata adopted the style, despite its opposition by religious clerics who forbid donning the ‘infidels’ clothes (Chehabi 1993: 210). Later with the rule of Reza Shah, the late 1920s saw a change in men’s attire, where Pahlavi hats (kolah-i pahlavi), jackets, dress shirts and pants replaced tribal and ethnic garments (Balasescu 2005; Kashabi-Sabet 2011). In

1935, all state employees were expected to wear hats as routine uniform. Additionally, directives were undertaken to provide rules for European modes of behaviour for state employees, teaching members about different styles and colours of dress appropriate for particular occasions and certain times of the day (See Chahabi 1993: 215-216). Although there was continuing resistance to this, especially amongst the religious sectors,35 men’s clothing did not become a contested political issue as much as women’s dress reform did.

Due to the increasing influence and dominance of European notions of modernity, sexuality also became subject to transformation, challenging the existing dominant ideology pertaining to gender and gender relations in Iran, especially the public presence and display of women’s bodies (Afary 2009; Najmabadi 2009; Yabooi

2012). Although demands to unveil Iranian women had been raised by male and female reformists prior to the Shah’s consolidation of power, it was due to the modernization project of Reza Shah that unveiling had been seriously considered.

Unveiling

Her radiance melts the heart right through her mask. If she had none, God’s help we’d have to ask.

The cleric wants to keep the veil in place: Behind it he can scheme without disgrace.

If the Koran says that he doesn’t want, He finds a hidden meaning: easy stunt!

Don’t ask him why: a wolf who wants a lamb

35 Opposition resulted in riots in Tabriz, Shiraz, Mashad and Azerbaijan. The Shi’i theologians viewed ‘the kolah (hat) and the short coat...not merely unbecoming but...actually...tainted with heresy’ (Baker 1982: 182) 62

Finds fluent words to justify his scam.

This riddle stays and will not let me go. If anyone can solve it, let me know!

Where but among Iranians could it be That creatures take a wife that they cannot see?!36

Coupled with the rhetoric of national progress and advancement, women’s new positions as both patriotic mother and educated individual would not visually display an image of a modern woman (and a national civic body) if dressed in a traditional veil (Kashani-

Sabet 2011: 154). Beginning with a visit from Afghanistan's reformist King Amanullah and his unveiled wife, Queen Soraya, in 1928, the move towards unveiling Iranian women began to emerge for the Shah’s political and sociocultural agenda in his drive to bring progress to Iran. However, due to the overthrow of King Amanullah by conservative sectors of Afghan society, the Shah remained cautious (Paidar 1995: 106).

Nonetheless, women began to slowly flirt with discarding the veil before the Shah’s eventual unveiling policy.

The first known woman to have unveiled in public was the Babi leader and poet

Fatemeh Baraghani (1841-1852), who discarded her veil at a Babi gathering in 1848, where in which she also called for Babism’s break with Islam (Chehabi 1993: 210).

However, it was not until the late 1920s that educated upper-class women slowly began to challenge veiling customs. Some wore unconventional colours and styles of chadors while others refused to wear it completely upon returning from abroad. Both acts of resistance sparked indignation, subjecting them to physical and verbal abuse by conservative and religious onlookers. Despite such disapprovals, however, most activist women continued to stand by their belief that unveiling was the precondition for their participation as legitimate social citizens of the nation (Paidar 1995:106).

36 Poem by Iraj Mirza, a poet and reformist who was an advocate for unveiling. (See Chehabi 1993: 211) 63

The state supported Ladies Centre, headed by the Shah’s daughter, Princess Shams, was used to aid the reformation of the ‘new’ Iranian woman, in which information sessions were set up across cities to educate women on Western dress and appropriate behaviour (Kashani-Sabet 2011: 153; 159). While discarding the hijab was, in one respect, conceived as necessary for the emancipation of women from the confines and bounds of

‘ignorance’ and ‘tradition,’ advocates of the veil’s removal still expected women to adhere to the meaning that the hijab suggested about feminine identity and sexuality. Instead of wearing the physical veil, women were expected to don an ‘invisible metaphoric veil’ (veil of chastity) when in public and around men. It was believed that as educated and sensible women, they would no longer need to observe the hijab because they would be self-disciplined enough to not be enticed by alluring mores. As modern women, they would be capable enough to contain their sexuality without the veil (Najmabadai 2005:

152; 1993: 511). However, Najmabadi (1993: 209-510) explains that due to centuries of segregation from men, women had to be taught the ‘rules of etiquette’ pertaining to heterosexual mixing with unknown men prior to entering into the public space.

[...] Until women learn the duty of policing and gendarming themselves, freedom will impact irreparable damage upon their womanly delicacy and feminine pride. Therefore we must teach self-policing, freedom will follow.

It was only after such teachings and the disciplining of their bodies that women could then enter into the heterosocial domain “without undermining the social and cultural order” (Najmabadi 1993: 509). Through self-discipline, as modern educated individuals, women could be modest and feminine without the necessary symbolism of the hijab covering their bodies.

As early as 1926, the Ladies Centre had the police’s cooperation to protect unveiled women from public harassment and abuse (Paidar 1995:105; Sedghi 2007:83).

Nonetheless, women’s bodily presence was met with severe harassment since the 64

beginning of their entrance in the public sphere. Contradicting the modernist project of heterosexual mixing in the public realm, as Najmabadi (2005:154) contends,

The modernist heterosocializing promise that invited women to leave their homosocial spaces and become educated compassionate partners for modernist men was unwritten by policing of women’s public presence through men’s street actions. Men at once desired heterosociability of the modern yet would not surrender the privileged masculinity of the streets.

Despite heated contention around women’s bodily presence, modernists, eager to bring change, encouraged and pushed the Shah for the unveiling of women, especially after his meeting in Turkey with Mustafa Kemal, known more commonly as Atatürk, or the father of Turkey, in 1935,37 where he observed dress reform and unveiled women as part of his modernization scheme. It was then that Reza Shah commenced on his vigorous unveiling policy.

Among the first societal groups to be affected by unveiling measures, the minister of education was instructed to prohibit teachers and students from observing the hijab beginning with the 1935-1936 school year. Ministries of the interior and education were also asked to send directives to provinces around Iran in order to start educating people about the advantages that unveiling would bring to women’s social lives. Although unveiling was delayed due to the violent backlash by religious and conservative sectors, known as the Gowharshad incident38

(Chehabi 1993: 216-218), Reza Shah appeared in public with his unveiled wife and daughters at the opening ceremony of Tehran’s Teacher Training College,

37 Kemal Attaturk was the Turkish president who modernized Turkey. 38 Religious clerics responded to what they saw as anti-religious initiatives by holding semi-secret meetings and protests. Meetings took place in Gowharshad mosque in Mashad, where oppositional uluma and preachers gathered. On July 13 1935, security forces stormed the shrine and mosque, where they killed some people. Most ulama in the city were arrested and exiled from Mashad (See Chehabi 216-217 for a more detailed description) 65

where he stated that it was necessary, for the progress of Iran, for women to unveil,

I am exceedingly pleased to see that as a result of knowledge and learning, women have come alive to their condition, rights and privileges. Being outside of society, the women of this country could not develop their native talents. They could not repay their debt to their dear country, not serve it and sacrifice for it as they should... We should not forget that [up to this time] one-half of the population of the country was not taken into account... I expect you learned women are now becoming aware of your rights, privileges and duties to serve your homeland, to be content and economical, and to become accustomed to saving and to avoid luxuries and extravagance (Chehabi 1993: 218).

The veil was officially banned in January 8, 1936, marking the day as Women’s

Liberation Day.39

Figure 4.2 Reza Shah among tribal women in modern (Western) attire (Source: http://iranian.com/Quiz/2005/January/hat.html).

39 Prostitutes were not allowed to unveil, but were given permission to do so during the spring season if they married (Chehabi 1993: 219). 66

Reactions to de-veiling varied. Among educated upper-middle class men and women who advocated for a move towards an Iranian modernity, unveiling was welcomed as a critical step towards women’s liberation. However, there was widespread resistance against the hijab’s ban amongst traditional and religious sectors of society. For those who refused to unveil, the police coercively and often violently unveiled them in public (Moallem 1999; Hoodfar 1997). For many, the removal of the hijab symbolized disgrace and sin, prompting male family members from disallowing their wives and daughters from appearing in public unveiled (Nashat 1983: 27). In the state’s lack of consideration for the consequences of unveiling for women outside the upper-middle class strata, the hijab ban had negative repercussions for the lives of orthodox women and girls which prevented them from receiving an education as well as working outside of the home (Hoodfar 1997: 259; Osanloo 2008: 50; Poya 1999: 75). Veiled women were also restricted from entering restaurants, theaters, hotels, as well as city buses.

Moreover, many women felt considerable embarrassment for entering the public realm unveiled, and opted to stay home40 (Hoodfar 1997: 261).41

It is important to consider, however, that although unveiling by choice by some modernist women was done so in the name of women’s rights, forced unveiling did not reflect this for the most part. As Moallem (2005:70) contends, the state’s interference in the unveiling process “predisposed women to obedience and submission to the will of the state.” Instead of offering women the opportunity to discard the hijab at their own choosing and prerogative, the state’s unveiling of all women undermined the discourse of

“emancipation” as a cause for women’s advancements by utilizing women’s bodies as a project tied to the promotion of the state’s sociopolitical scheme.

40 Some women also crossed the border to live in Iraq (Chehabi 1993: 220). 41 Writer Reza Haraheni explained that his father would carry his mother and wife to the public bathhouse in a sac in order to avoid consequences. However, when stopped by a policeman, his father was arrested. (See Chehabi 1993: 221). 67

Although unveiling was encouraged by modern reformists, an unexpected consequence of the policy was that it posed a major blow to male authority and patriarchy (although, of course, it did not eradicate it entirely) (Afary 2009; Sedghi

2007). As Sedghi (2007: 89) describes,

For many men, their honour had long been associated with their hold on women... The source of a man’s personal power, indeed his masculinity, resided in women’s seclusion, restrictions in their physical appearance, and control over their sexuality and labour.

Moreover, “What men concealed was now being revealed. What was private for them was now public, and what men owned was now being taken away” (Sedghi 2007:89). Not only did this effect the hold that husbands, fathers, as well as other male patriarchs of the family had over their wives and daughters (their bodies as well as their movements) but much of the Shah’s program on “emancipating” women had to do with considerably limiting the power of the clergy. As Sedghi (2007: 66) states, ‘emasculating’ the clergy through the liberation of women may have been one of the Shah’s most effective and successful instruments against religious clerics who maintained an ample amount of power over gender relations, family, education, marriage, and especially women.

Since the discourses of women’s emancipation began to emerge during the

Constitutional Revolution, clerical opposition on equality of women was based on their assertion that it went against the laws of Islam. They claimed that women’s liberation from the hijab would mean adultery and loss of feminine modesty and male honour, as well as the weakening of patriarchal control. For religious clerics and conservative sectors of Iranian society, “there could only be one motivation behind women’s emancipation, and that was the conspiracy of ‘morally corrupt’ westernized intellectuals to create easy sexual access to women” (Paidar 1995: 67).

The Modern Woman in Modern Iranian Society

The unveiling of women was meant to now give the outer appearance of modernity.

Women were no longer donned from head to toe in black chadors but instead, like

Europeans, were visible in their bodily presence. The emergence of European fashions appeared quickly in Iran as trade commissions were sent to buy clothes and hats from

Germany and France. Businesses also flourished for seamstresses and beauty salons

(Sedghi 2007: 86). Europeanization and modernization were now inscribed clearly onto the bodies of urban women, and thus the nation as a whole.

Aside from the state’s forceful expectation of all women to conform to Western aesthetics of the body, they equally expected women to behave, speak and interact in modern ways (Afary 2009:157). One of the discourses of the veil initially had been that it was not only a visible marker of difference between European and Iranian women, but as well as a central reason for gender segregation. To discard the veil was then to also desegregate society and provide a new meaning of masculine and feminine identities

(Najmabadi 2005: 150). The state’s implementation of new feminized subjects through the imposition of modern dress thus required women to intermingle with men in social gatherings and in public spaces to assume and perform an acceptable form of heterosexuality (Moallem 2005: 70).42 Accordingly, the Pahlavi regime demanded statesmen and high level officials to appear in public with their unveiled wives. Those who failed to comply were fired (Sedghi 2007: 87; Chehabi 1993: 219). Others were asked to throw parties and invite men and unveiled women in order for interactions between the sexes to become routine and frequent, and eventually a normative part of

Iranian society (Chehabi 1993: 221). To encourage the image of modernity and

42 An additional consequence of encouraging heterosexuality was that it disrupted male homosocial spaces and homosexual relationships (Afary 2009: 142; Najmabadi 2009). 69

heterosexuality, shops, cafés, and cinemas were established in the developing urban centres of Tehran where members of the opposite sex could mingle (Afary 2009: 159).

Figure 4.3 Baha’i women in Tehran, 1950 (Source: http://denial.bahai.org/003.php).

Women’s Social and Political Activities (1925-1941)

Women’s sociopolitical activities during the reign of Reza Shah experienced two phases.

In their struggle for women’s rights, many women advocates and sympathetic political parties aimed to better the social standings of women in the post-constitutional era

(Paidar 1995: 91). However, as Reza Shah became increasingly repressive, he banned independent social and political groups as well women’s organizations and publications

(Afary 2009: 143), and instead set up the Ladies Centre (Kanun-i Banuvan), as noted earlier. Activities of the centre concerned unveiling, vocational training, home economics, education, charity and “shaping patriotic women” (Afary 2009: 151).

Although the Centre was government run, it nonetheless offered women a space to discuss issues and advocate for matters pertaining to women’s health, professions,

education and their roles in society, while remaining an important community for

Iranian women. As Yabooi (2012: 66) states, “Whether they worked from within the state structure or independently, women remained focused on the reform of the family and women’s political rights.”

Women, Modernity and Mohammad Reza Shah (1941-1979)

In 1941, Reza Shah was forced to abdicate by Britain and Russia and was replaced by his son, Mohammad Reza Shah. Like the regime of his father, women’s societal positions as working women and their bodily appearances were subject to depicting an accelerated image of Iranian modernity. With closer ties to the United States and the West, coupled with the expansion of print media, radio, television and cinema, the modernization of gender and sexual relations escalated from the 1940s onwards (Afary 2009: 174). As the prime targets of the advertising industry, propagated images of a more modern feminine body was commended as the appropriate and desirable form of femininity which all women were encouraged to aspire to (Afary 2009: 198).

The modern woman’s body fit in with the general appearance of the progressively industrialized urban centres of Iran. Glamorous holiday resorts had been built, attracting wealthy Iranians and foreigners alike. Casinos, luxury hotels, high-rise buildings and entertainment centres were established (Paidar 1995: 148), providing the grandeur- seeking, consumerist upper-middle class strata to engage with and within Western idealism.

Figure 4.4 Men and women dancing to rock ‘n’ roll. Tehran, early 1960s (Source: http://beautyprez.com/iran-before-islam/).

Figure 4.5 Miss Iran in the Miss Universe Pageant, 1967 (Source: http://fleetingperusal.blogspot.ca/2007/04/iran-before-1979-after-1979.html).

Figure 4.6 Students at the University of Tehran (Source: http://beautyprez.com/iran-before- islam/)

Despite the push for modern aesthetics, dress restrictions were eased under Mohammad

Reza Shah, and many veiled women who were once forced to remain outside of the public sphere reentered the public spaces.43 However, unlike their unveiled counterparts, veiled women lacked the same social and political “presence” (Zahedi 2007: 84). Even if a hijab-wearing woman was educated, the lack of her bodily visibility did not permit her a modern status. In the eyes of the state and secular counterparts, the hijab still signified backwardness and tradition. Accordingly, many who chose to observe the veil risked verbal abuse and societal shunning. They were still denied access to entering governmental establishments, high-scale hotels and restaurants, as well as educational

43 After the abdication of Reza Shah, clerics gained more power and called for a return to the chador. In 1944, Ayatollah Tabataba’i Qoim issued a fatawas calling for the veil ban, and many women of the old middle class returned to the veil and chador (Afary 2009: 187-8) 73

institutions (although modest forms of Islamic dress were fine). Thus, one’s attire applied to them different categories and meanings, communicating their beliefs, education and social class (Ibid, 84).

Although women were encouraged to observe Western dress to exemplify and communicate, in theory, their own bodily liberation and overall progressive nature, the pressure to observe such a style and live up to such a form of femininity ultimately policed their feminine bodily comportment beyond their own authority. Elements of social control were heavily tied to women’s dress, signifying a dominant and restrictive conception of femininity, not only for veiled women but for unveiled women as well. For the former, they were the antithesis to modern womanhood who were still unable to reach progressiveness and leave the bounds of tradition and Islam. For others, keeping up with the state’s modern gender discourse equally restricted them from obtaining rights over their own bodily agency. For unveiled and veiled women alike, then, Iranian elites possessed the power to initiate the terms of dress codes and gender, assigning moral and social value to each without much input from women themselves. Under both

Shah’s, “authoritarian modernization of sexuality and gender relations took place without democratic debate or discussion” (Afary 2009: 166). For Moallem (2005:65), this was a coercive form of patriarchy which undertook a redefinition of gender roles which the state effected by forcefully imposing a heteronormative social order,

“characterized by a hegemonic masculinity and an emphasized femininity as the appropriate gender identities for the social subjects of a modernized country.”

Thus, women’s appearances as well as their rights were mere instruments to the

Shah in the political project to modernize the Iranian nation. Echoing his father’s sentiments, Reza Mohammad Shah did not believe in equality between the sexes and still deemed women as the inferior gender. In an interview with Italian journalist Oriana

Fallaci in 1973, the Shah expressed his views on the women:

Nobody can influence me, nobody. Still less a woman. Women are important in a man’s life only if they’re beautiful and charming and keep their femininity... You’re equal in the eyes of the law but not, excuse my saying so, in ability...You’ve never produced a Michelangelo or a Bach. You’ve never even produced a great chef...You’ve produced nothing great, nothing!

He admitted that he allowed for women’s rights solely because he was “progressive,” and it was the image of progress which he intended to represent (Sansarian 1982: 91).

While for the Shah the modern woman may have meant external appearance, the era of modernization had profound personal effects on women’s general consciousness, which granted them the opportunity to think critically about their own lives and sexualities. Thousands of young Iranian women who were politically conscious in the

1940s and 1950s felt that they “stood on the threshold of history and could make momentous changes in their lives, their marriages, and the life of the nation” (Afary

2009: 184). The next section will elaborate further.

Women’s Social and Political Activities (1941-1979)

In the first decade following the Shah’s resignation in 1941, there was a relatively open political climate which offered a space for freedom of expression and association by the citizenry. An increase in the number of political parties emerged, including a reemergence and proliferation of independent women’s organizations (Paidar 1995: 125;

Sansarian 1982: 71), such as Iranian Women’s Council (1944) and the New Party Society

(1946). The Tudeh Party, a pro-Soviet group established in 1943, became Iran’s largest and best-organized political party, which attracted young intellectuals from varying religious and ethnic backgrounds. Its women’s branch, Tashkilat Zanan Iran

(Organization of Iranian Women), considered one of the most ‘radical’ women’s organizations, aimed at the total social, economic and political liberation of women,

stressing the need for better working conditions, day-care centres for working mothers, employment opportunities, equal pay, as well as calling for an end to the exploitation of women working in factories (Afary 2009: 176; Sansarian 1982: 72). The Tudeh Party also enlisted working-class women who fought for workers’ rights and organized trade unions. As Afary (2009: 176) contends, women active in the party “broke through centuries of class and gender barriers, becoming harbingers of a new generation of leftist women.” However, all women’s associations were encouraged to join the High Council of

Iranian Women in 1959, whose honorary chair was the Shah’s twin sister, Princess

Ashraf. Although some underground organizations remained covert, for many women, it was only through the government that steps for women’s rights could be achieved

(Sansarian 1982:81).

Since the Constitutional Revolution, women activists had aimed to obtain the right to vote. Although their demand for the vote was Ignored in 1952, women signed a petition, confidently asserting that “No country can advance as long as the women are thrust aside, no people can pretend to build a civilization and to be proud of it, as long as women are deprived of rights equal to those of men” (Sansarian 1982: 75).44 After much struggle, as part of the Shah’s six point program known as the White Revolution, the enfranchisement of women was granted in 1963, affording women the right to vote and to be elected to parliament, despite continuing opposition from religious figures, including Ayatollah Khomeini who had organized violent protests against the referendum in the name of Islam (Afary 2009: 205).

44 In 1952, a major step was taken when a confederation of women wrote a petition demanding political and economic rights. Signed by approximately 100,000 people, copies were sent to Prime Minister Mosadeq, Iranian Parliament as well as the United Nations. Despite such initiates, the franchise of women was not included in the election laws bill. Opposition to women’s sociopolitical advances were not limited solely to religious clerics, but also existed among men in the National Front, a democratic political group composed of socialists, secular nationalists and religious parties. While these men were politically progressive, they were still conservative on matters pertaining to women’s rights (Afary 2009: 193; Sansarian 1982: 75; Paidar 1995: 129, 134). 76

Being that women made up such a vast portion of the population, women’s participation in the workforce was necessary to the modernization endeavor marked by the White Revolution, which represented a significant turning point in Iranian industrial development and the dilation of the labour market (Sehdgi 2007: 135). Thus, it was argued by the state that women’s education and greater participation in the labour force would enhance the economy and contribute to the image of an industrialized, modern nation which the Shah had aimed to project (Afary 2009: 207). In legal terms, the labour law had assured the equal treatment of working men and women, and permitted women to paid maternity leave. Despite this, by 1978 women made up only eight percent of the total paid labour force (outside the agricultural sector), putting them below their male professional counterparts (Hoodfar 1999:21; Moghadam 1993; Sansarian 1982: 98).

Although the era of the Shah granted women the opportunity to become independent, offering them the chance to work alongside men as equal participants and constructive members of society, many women continued to experience unfair treatment in the workplace, and the new labour acts reinforced class-based inferiority of women workers, which undoubtedly fortified legal gender bias and male hegemony. Gender bias was also responsible for the exclusion of women from high professional positions (Sedghi 2007:

145; 175).

Moreover, as patriarchal notions of women ran high, intelligent and autonomous working women in respectable professions had to deal with and negotiate what their new modern identities and working positions granted them and meant for their social and personal lives. As Shirin Ebadi (2006) wrote in her memoir,

Though a secular government ran the country, though I was a female sitting judge with a promising career ahead of me, patriarchy still ruled Iranian culture, and it sent most of my suitors packing...Nevertheless, it did not escape my attention that though I came from a good family, was not bad looking, and held a respectable job, my suitors were few. Bottom line: my career struck fear in the hearts of Iranian men...they simply preferred to be superior and more important than the women they

married...being a judge was a universally acknowledged deal breaker. (2006: 24-25).

Thus, the challenge to male supremacy which arose due women’s increasing participation in the labour force and their access to education created many implications for ‘modern’ women.

In 1966 the High Council was replaced by the Women’s Organization of Iran (WOI), still government backed and chaired by Princess Ashraf. However, despite such limitations of working within the confines of state perimeters, WOI offered women a venue in which they were able to initiate programs and services such as family welfare centres, literacy classes, and professional training. Perhaps the most positive feature of the WOI was by offering women a space to generate legal questions pertaining to the status of Iranian women by actively and publicly discussing their legal rights (Sansarian 1982: 89). Their most successful contribution to women’s rights was by lobbying for the Family

Protection Law. Passed in 1967 and revised in 1975, the law helped women work outside of the home while also giving them considerable rights in marriage (Afary 2009: 211;

Hoodfar 1999: 19; Nafisi 2006: 3).

Although such legal changes did not affect the lives of a majority of the female population, mostly those living in rural areas and urban slums, as Hoodfar (1999) states,

“It would be a mistake to belittle the considerable ideological, symbolic, social and psychological significance of these reforms to women and to society at large, which indicated that women deserved more rights than tradition accorded them.”45 The passing

45 While discussing the positive aspects of the WOI, Sansarian (1982) does criticize the organization as well. Firstly, a majority of its members were not feminists but instead members of professional associations and charity organizations. Additionally, it did not include working class women; thus, most of the members were from the middle-upper classes. She argues, “The new women’s organizations were mere window- dress for the policies of the state,” arguing that the women who were part of this organization “lacked the dynamism, autonomy, and nonpartisan characteristics of the early period” (1982: 82; 92). 78

of several laws under the reign of Reza Mohammad Shah undoubtedly had a notable effect on women’s self-awareness (Hoodfar 1999:21; Afary 2009: 217).

Evidently, there were many changes made to social and gender relations, especially among the upper-middle classes. Due to women’s presence in public, as students, employees, and their visibility in the public space, there were fewer restrictions between men and women, which also enhanced the commercialization of leisure and the rapid increase of places in industrialized cities for people to mingle (Shahidian 2002:

58). As a result, sexuality was more often portrayed in the media, tying into Iranian consumerism and the spread of modern fashions.

Additionally, the “modernization” of sexuality provided women the means in which they “broke through centuries-old taboos” and “refused to settle for arranged marriages, and attempted to find partners they loved” (Afary 2009: 184). A new generation of women artists also began to focus more on social, cultural and political issues, namely Forough Farrokhzad, perhaps one of the most well-known and influential contemporary Iranian poets. An independent woman who refused to be defined by others, Forough wrote poems which were sexually explicit, challenged the institution of marriage, and blatantly expressed the “alienation of modern women hemmed by patriarchal structures.” Her frankness and open emotional disclosure both positively and negatively astonished readers, and her critics accused her of living and writing about an

“immoral life” (Afary 2009: 228-229).

Sister, rise up after your freedom, Why are you so quiet? Rise up because henceforth You have to imbibe the blood of tyrannical men46

46 Poem “To My Sister” 79

While both Pahlavi’s had co-opted women’s own initiatives, presenting themselves as the

‘champion’ of women’s liberation (Sedghi 2007: 76), women’s “emancipation” did not necessarily mean independence. As Shahidian (2002: 36) argues, “The refashioning of patriarchy in Iran was neither conspirational nor emancipatory. It involved...a transformation of patriarchy from “private” to “public.”’ Women were still subject to male authority, in the home, workplace and overall Iranian society. Their bodies and state-foisted feminine identities were to reiterate and stand as a representation of a modern nation, where women signified feminine beauty and poise while appearing as educated and constructive members of society, despite the unfair treatment they experienced as a result of patriarchal norms. Yet, Iranian women refused to remain passive as they pushed and utilized their bodies to reach further legal and social advancements (Yabooi 2012: 67), perhaps the most obvious being their involvement in the revolution.

1979 Iranian Revolution

The Iranian Revolution was the peak of several decades of mobilization by various underground political forces. Dissatisfied with the Shah’s iron-fisted domination of the state, the lack of freedom of expression and growing societal inequities resulted in a mass movement spreading various religious and political factions (Zahedi 2007: 87). The ruthless drive by the regime to construct an image of international prestige was done so at the disadvantage of many urban and rural Iranians who struggled against high inflation, shortage of basic necessities, housing scarcity, and high unemployment (Paidar

1995: 150). Although strikingly different in ideology, various opposition groups, including Islamists and leftists, joined together under the banner of nationalism, anti- monarchy and anti-US imperialism to overthrow the Shah.

Joining men in their plight against what they had considered to be an oppressive dictatorship, women had played a definitive, active and critical role in the events leading up to the eventual overthrow of the monarchy. Having matured thousands of women, the revolution offered them a critical platform to voice their demands for progressiveness, to express their discontent with gender inequalities in an economic and political context, as well as their frustration with patriarchal control (Poya 1999:122). Many women joined underground leftist organizations, participated in peaceful and violent demonstrations, organized strikes and work-stoppages, while also taking part in guerilla attacks against government installations (Afary 2009:234; Nashat 1983:197; Paidar 1995: 211).47

However, it is important to note that the overriding concern for all opposition factions was to overthrow imperialism, not to advocate for gender equality. Women did not participate in the events as “women” and did not put forward, for the most part, a political argument to advance their own cause (Paidar 1995: 21). The public generally idealized and assumed that if they demanded democracy, it also meant equality for all, including women.

Islamic studies also began reemerging as a point of interest among young Iranians in the

1960s and 1970s. While partly influenced by the works of Ayatollah Khomeini and

Morteza Motahhari, it was Ali Shariati, a leftist intellectual/sociologist (strongly influenced by Durkheim), who had the greatest impact on the religious and political consciousness of many (Zakaria 2007: 2).48 Often known as the ‘ideological architect’ of the Iranian revolution (Ibid, 2), Shariati denounced the role of women in both Western and traditional societies, and presented a third alternative for Iranian women to aspire to: the figure of Fatima (the daughter of Prophet Mohammad) (Ferdows 1983: 283).

47 Women’s participation in the labour market politicized many women during the revolution. 48 To read in more detail about Shariati’s influence see Ferdows (1983) 81

Having discussed texts concerning sexuality and gender relations, women increasingly began to see Islam as an alternative to the political authority of the monarchy and regarded their faith as an antithesis to Westernization and secularization (Sedghi 2007:

195). While Shariati appealed to both young men and women, it was his combination of rejecting the Western sexual objectification of women, yet encouraging modern notions of women’s rights as a reflective social actor and agent of change, that influenced young women, especially those from religious backgrounds, to join the revolutionary fervor

(Azari 1983:30).

It was in large part due to Shariati’s influence on women that the growing religious opposition, whose prominent leader would come to be Ayatollah Khomeini,49 were able to draw on women as a ‘source of legitimacy’ during the revolution, praising their persistent activism (Sedghi 2007: 195). Through his encouraging speeches from abroad, Khomeini had assured women that his return would mean a realization of the social and political demands which they were struggling to obtain. Convincing them that the Iran he would govern would include women who were educated and intelligent, women were promised their social and political rights under Khomeini’s regime.

Khomeini had said,

As for women, Islam has never been against their freedom. It is, to the contrary, opposed to the idea of woman-as-object and it gives her back her dignity. A woman is a man’s equal; she and he are both free to choose their lives and their occupations. But the Shah’s regime is trying to prevent women from becoming free by plunging them into immorality. It is against this that Islam rears up. This regime has destroyed the freedom of women as well as men (quoted in Betteridge 1983: 118).

49 Khomeini frequently had interviewed with foreign press. Moreover, from his headquarters of his apartment in Paris, he communicated messages about the anti-shah movement. He was able to construct an image as a ‘popular, charismatic and progressive Shi’i leader (Paidar 1995: 200). His responsibility was seen as a spiritual leader, providing guidance to the revolutionaries and their movement (Paidar 1995:201). 82

Khomeini’s messages provided women with “support and encouragement, security and importance” (Paidar 1995: 214). And thus, increasingly, university students grew critical of the image of the modern woman, and questioned the relevance of adhering to Western ideals of gender (Hoodfar 1997:214). The modern women that the Shah had so fervently attempted to construct was now being be ridiculed as ‘Western dolls,’ “obsessed with self-adornment, Western fashion and revealing clothing,” (Yeganeh 1982: 49) which some believed only encouraged the image of a ‘mindless’ woman (Betteridge 1983: 115).

Thus, as an emblematic statement of resistance, many women began observing the veil in their public demonstrations. While many dressed in non-Western clothing and modest forms of dress, the hijab was appropriated by secular women as a sign of opposition against Pahlavi bourgeoisie (Mahdavi 2009:107; Balasescu 2005:301). For many of these women, the decision to wear the hijab was not a religious motive; rather, it was a symbolic statement of defiance, as well as an act of unity with women across social, religious and economic classes in their revolutionary stance. Many Islamic women who once chose (or were forced) to remain secluded, emerged to become active symbols against the Pahlavi state. The hijab and chador ceased to be symbols of backwardness, but symbols of resistance, representing a new political meaning (Afary 2009: 270; Azari

1983: 2; Betteridge 1983: 121; Hoodfar 1999: 22; Zahedi 2007: 87).

Figure 4.7 Men and women, veiled and unveiled, demonstrating together, 1979 (Source: http://www.radiozamaneh.com/74037#.UeheOHPIwqm).

Even amongst guerilla organizations that emerged in the late 1960s, dress and appearance were symbolically used in women’s resistance. For example, women of the

Fedayeen Khalq, whose membership consisted mostly of people from modern sectors of the middle class, dressed in jeans and short-sleeved Maoist t-shirts. Their participation followed the Marxist-Leninist argument, which ultimately led to the ‘masculinization’ of women, denouncing trivial material items as bourgeois. Women in such groups dressed similarly to their male comrades, wore their hair short or tied back, and did not wear make-up. Colourful clothing, perfume, as well as sexual and romantic passions were repudiated by its members (Afary 2009: 249; Paidar 1995: 171).

What is important to take from this is that both women’s ‘masculinization’, and I argue as well as the observation of modest clothing and the veil, presented a new willingness by the citizenry to transform the boundaries of gender relations, particularly those that had been indirectly encouraged by the media and expectations of the modern woman by the Pahlavi state (Paidar 1995: 172). As Paidar (1995) describes, 84

The effusion shown by women was an important contribution to the transformation of gender relations in the revolutionary discourse (1995:212)… The redefinition of Iran’s relationship with Western powers entailed a redefinition of gender relations. It was in this context that gender was constructed as a revolutionary discourse (1995: 186).

However, soon leftist alternatives diminished and Iranians, “in their need for an ideal, glorified the Islamic social system as a remedy for all social ills” (Zahedi 2007: 85). Islam provided revolutionaries with a framework to restructure their ideal future society and drew on their “authentic” heritage and beliefs to envision a better socio-economic and political arrangement (Ibid, 85). It was expected by a large segment of the population active in the revolution that the future of Iran, even if Islamic, would function independently from Shi’a Islam (Paidar 1995: 201).

Mohammad Reza Shah and his family fled Iran in January 1979, bringing an end to

2,500 years of monarchal rule.

Conclusion

The aim of this chapter has been to show the significant, contentious and imperative nature of women’s dressed bodies in Iran’s history. Subject to the control and regulation of the state, the dressed bodies of Iranian women were refashioned and reconstructed to meet a new political ideology to accompany the modernization endeavor in order to present Iran as a civilized and progressive nation alongside their European counterparts.

Although the political discourse of the state suggested that unveiled women, dressed in modern attire, stood as a symbol of their own liberation, the forced refashioning of women’s bodies, and the continuous expectations of adhering to Western aesthetics, in large part, policed and regulated their sexuality and bodily comportment, projecting a limited meaning of femininity for both veiled and unveiled women alike. The state’s utilization of women’s bodies undermined the discourse of emancipation and instead 85

implemented a political project which worked to maintain patriarchal control over their appearances, movements and meanings of their femininity. Although modernization did provide women with greater opportunities to receive an education and join the labour force to partake in society as constructive members, the patriarchal forces which still penetrated society contributed to the lack of power which many women failed to have over their own bodies and sexualities.

As much as men and the state attempted to control them, women also utilized their bodies to make incredible changes to their social and political realities, asserting themselves as meaningful actors on the public stage. And during the revolution, women’s energies presented them as consequential citizens working to transform Iran for the better. Moreover, they used the revolutionary fervor to criticize the regime’s overemphasis on women’s appearances, and thus voiced their discontent through the nonverbal symbolism of non-Western and less ‘feminine’ clothing as critical emblems of opposition against Pahlavi bourgeoisie (Mahdavi 2009:107; Balasescu 2005:301).

Clothing, especially the hijab which once stood as the sign of oppression, had been availed by women to criticize and reject the gender ideology of the modernist regime, playing an important and symbolic part in ousting the Shah in 1979. For both the regime and women, dress was used to make social and political statements.

While secular women in the revolution now had a social and political consciousness potent enough to bring change to the country, the Islamic Regime would present to them an unexpected surprise.

Chapter 5

Wearing Ideology: Constructing the New Muslim Woman

He who controls images, controls thought, belief and ideology -Roxanne Varzi

Introduction

Within weeks of his homecoming, Ayatollah Khomeini commenced his quest to

Islamize50 the Iranian nation to the denouncement of revolutionaries whom he had mislead with his promises.51 Although the Iranian Revolution was a largely secular movement which aimed to establish a future democratic state, a referendum in April of

1979 declared Iran an Islamic Republic, placing Khomeini as the absolute leader of the

Shi'ites52 and the Supreme Leader of Iran.53 Despite the fact that women had played a critical role in the revolution, and had been assured by Khomeini that their rights would be guaranteed under his regime, women were immediately at loss as the new government rose to power.

Critical to the regime’s Islamization project, Khomeini’s first political move was to remake women’s bodies into the site of the Republic’s national reformation agenda and the basis for the nation’s morality. While state controlled institutions were established to refashion the attitudes and beliefs of both men and women to conform to

50 ‘An Islamized society is marked by politicized Islam governing both the private and public lives of individuals. The strict enforcement of religious laws in all spheres of life and the rule of religio-political authorities are what distinguishes Islamized Iran from other Muslim societies’ (Mehran 2003:272). 51 Via recordings communicated from Paris to Iran, Khomeini concentrated on the issues and demands of the masses to gain their support during the uprisings prior to the eventual overthrow of the Shah. As Varzi notes, Khomeini was able to elicit a feeling of unity across the nation, crossing ethnic groups, genders and religious factions (2005: 40). However, the demands of the masses called for freedom and democracy. Although Khomeini had promised this, he quickly changed his stance once he returned to Iran, establishing an Islamic theocratic government instead. 52 Shi'ites are the second largest denomination of Islam after the Sunni’s. Iran is made of a mostly Shi’ite populace. 53 The Supreme Leader is highest ranking political and religious authority in Iran. 87

state ideology, it was women’s bodies, particularly, which were subject to greater regulation.

Ridding them of the rights they had won in the decades prior to the revolution, new laws granted authority over women to male control, returning women to the private sphere of the family. Most crucial to the success of the regime’s project, however, was to re-veil women. Despite resistance, veiling had become mandatory for all regardless of religion and ethnicity within the first few years of the establishment of the Republic

(Betteridge 1983; Hoodfar 1999).

In the aftermath of the revolution, the enforcement of Islamic dress was necessary to assert and establish the image of an Islamic nation to validate the national rhetoric of the newly formed Islamic Republic. The women’s veil, and to a lesser extent, men’s beards, depicted Iran as a homogenous civic Islamic body (See Moallem 2005).

However, by strategically using Islam as a justification for the regime’s move, the larger aim of enforcing the hijab has had much to do with the imposition of a social order based precisely on the regime’s implementation of a new ‘judicial discourse’ on sexuality (Afary

2005: 265). While theologically the hijab is meant to protect women and symbolize their bodily of modesty and chasteness, politically, the Islamic Regime has utilized and appropriated the veil in order to safeguard the success of its ideological control over women. Enforcing Islamic dress has much to do with the fact that post-revolutionary

Iran is structured around the premise that women must be regulated and defined by men for the containment and stability of the social order. Accordingly, this has subjected her to the private domain of family, docility and sexual submissiveness, and away from the public sphere of politics.

This chapter will examine the role of Islamic dress in constructing the docile

Muslim woman in Iran, with a primary focus on the early years of the Republic. By administering Islamic dress, the regime has assumed that by regulating the outer

appearance of the body, inner thoughts would likewise conform to Islamic values and state ideology. In doing so, women would internalize their submission and remain in their compliant position under the authoritative control of men who defined and controlled their duties, sexualities and womanhood.

Re-Veiling Iranian Women

The institutionalization of the Islamic Republic was quickly established following the revolution as the regime directed a number of restrictive measures aimed particularly at limiting the rights and freedoms of women. Day by day, reversals were made to their liberties. Women were restricted from serving as judges,54 enrolling in the army,55 and participating in sporting activities56 (Afary 2009: 272). A major attack on their rights was by repealing the Family Protection Law of 1967 (Nafisi 2006:3).57 Women’s responses to such measures were heard when the regime suggested mandatory veiling at the workplace.

Although women active in the 1979 revolution wore the veil as an emblematic form of resistance against the ‘Westoxification’58 of the Pahlavi regime, a majority of them had never intended to make the hijab mandatory or elect a theocratic government to power; nor did Khomeini ever suggest that either of these would occur under his regime. In fact before his return, he was quoted saying that, “Women are free in the

Islamic Republic in the selection of their activities and their future and their clothing.”59

Nonetheless, eliminating any sign of Western decadence was vital to the new regime.

54 March 3, 1979 55 March 6, 1979 56 March 9, 1979 57 Abrogation on February 27, 1979. See chapter four. 58 The term ‘westoxification’ was initially used by Jalal Al-Amhad. The term refers to a “euphoric intoxication and poisoning by the West” (Moallem 2005: 76). Al-Amhad’s work influenced Khomeini’s revolutionary discourse (Varzi 2005:8) 59 Interview with The Guardian in Paris (6 November 1978) (See http://izquotes.com/quote/243811) 89

To Khomeini, Western society was recognized as the root of all of Iran’s ills. As a staunch critic of the Shah, he argued that the previous regime had encouraged the spread of ‘immorality’ and ‘prostitution’ among young women under the banner of progress and emancipation (Nashat 1983: 195). Modern women were condemned as ‘seditious’ and

‘dangerous’, and ‘destructive of public honour’ (Afshar 1987:74). The Islamic counter discourse to this was that modernization had resulted in a loss of not only the nation’s

Islamic identity, but the Islamic identity of women, which was marked by their observance to their Islamic marker, the hijab (Najmabadi 1993).60 Thus, one of the central objectives of the Islamic Regime’s Islamization project was to re-veil women.

Khomeini had initially entertained the possibility of Iranian women observing the hijab by suggesting that they wear modest dress and the hijab at work (on March 7, 1979).61

The reaction to his pronouncement, the very next day, marked the first mass demonstration following the revolution as an estimate of fifteen thousand and more women took to the streets to protest, which incidentally coincided with International

Women’s Day (which would have normally passed unnoticed) with demonstrations lasting for nearly a week.

60 A short documentary on the demonstration is available on Youtube. (See JensonPersian. (2012, December 25). March 8, 1979 Iranian Women March Against Hijab and Islamic Laws in Iran [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XQGIDwL9GI 61 Khomeini had also argued that observing the veil would separate committed Muslims from corrupt modern women (Nashat 1983: 209). 90

Figure 5.1 Mass demonstrations of women marching against the imposition of the veil in Tehran (Source: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/99177 ).

Figure 5.2 Women demonstrating in Tehran (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:InternationalWomen%27sDayIran1979.jpg).

As women chanted, “We have not carried out a revolution to go backwards,” many were attacked by Hezbollah62 groups who shouted that protestors were pro-Shah, and yelled “either you put a scarf on your head or we hit you on the head!” (Poya

1999:131)63 The surge of women’s protest against the veil spread. As Nafisi (2006:5) describes, at a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Justice, women issued a manifesto, calling for gender equality in public and private domains while also demanding that the “decision over women’s clothing, which is determined by custom and the exigencies of geographical location, be left to women.” In response to the backlash, government officials stated that Khomeini’s words had been misunderstood, and withdrew (Nashat 1983: 119).64

However, in June of 1980 the hijab was made a mandatory uniform for women working in government institutions. Again, women waged various campaigns to defy the regime’s policy. In large numbers, they organized sit-ins, rallies, forced work-stoppages and strikes in hospitals, banks and schools. Angry women organized private and public gatherings while also publishing a number of articles against the imposition of the veil in newspapers (Sedghi 2007: 251). Despite these major initiatives, women were forced to comply as they became targets of violent attacks by pro-regime supporters and the police, leaving no choice but to abide by the newly imposed dress codes. The start of the

Iran-Iraq War (1981-1988), which was supported by European powers and the United

States, greatly contributed to the success and fortification of the regime (as many

Iranians felt that the nation should not be divided during the war with an external

62 Hezbollah literally translates into ‘Party of God’ or ‘People of God.’ Hezbollah was established as an extremist Shi’ite Muslim group which was organized following the Iranian revolution of 1979. Hezbollah in Iran should also be distinguished from Hezbollah in Lebanon. 63 “Iranian women protest” (1980:11). 64 On March 16, 1979 nearly 100,000 demonstrators, mostly chador-wearing women, rallied in Tehran to defend Khomeini and denounce the women’s anti-veil demonstration. While the crowd was larger than the secular women’s demonstration, Islamist women had the help of the regime. The regime provided them with free transportation and freedom from harassment on the streets (Afary 2009: 274). 92

enemy). In this context, women who failed to observe dress codes were fired from their jobs. Many women also resigned.

Over thirty years later and now living in Toronto, Iranian women I spoke with clearly expressed the apprehension and distress that the immediate attack of the veil had on them. Although all the women had said that they were Muslims, they felt from the onslaught of the hijab’s forceful imposition that it was not an expression of religious conviction but instead a means of control. As they spoke of their reflections, their bodily postures accompanied by their responses conveyed the anguish of their experiences in the early years of the Islamic Regime as much as their words did. Overt expressions of sighs were obvious. Their heads shook slowly from side to side in discontent as the recollections of their memories played in their minds.

A group of friends who had worked in the same office during the time of the revolution and the early years of the Islamic Republic reflected on the day they were told that the hijab had become mandatory at the workplace.

When we first started hearing rumors about the government’s plans, no one took it seriously. We thought it was a joke, but one day at work our boss asked all the women to gather in the typing pool to read a letter that had been circulating around our office about the government’s plan to make the hijab mandatory. We were all shocked.. we were in complete disbelief. Women were crying...We were so angry... How could this have happened? (Roxana, 54)

We were in the revolution, we got beat up, but we thought this is what we had to do for freedom. We were so disappointed [when the Islamic Regime came to power] because we thought women would be treated better. But then we even lost the right to wear what we wanted. We knew that the situation for women was only going to get worse when they told us to wear the hijab. (Donia, 53)

Once the hijab in the workplace was finally imposed, a year later, Islamic dress had been made official state policy to the distress of many. Even some religious women who observed the veil on personal grounds denounced the government’s move, warning against reducing Islam to the hijab and not respecting the spirit of personal and social freedom (Poya 1999; Tabari and Yeganeh 1982).65 All women, beginning from the age of puberty, were expected to observe the veil at all times in public.

Figure 5.3

‘Much better’ ------‘No Problem’

(Source:

http://imgur.com/a/JqG1VI).

The sign displays proper dress codes for women. If one does not abide by such dress, it is considered a criminal offense.66

65 Some religious women who observed the hijab prior to the establishment of the Islamic Regime were against the state’s enforcement of the Islamic dress codes. For example, a successful female physicist, who observed the hijab, had resigned in protest once the hijab became mandatory at the workplace. In her resignation letter she had stated that the policy had no religious significance and would negate the purpose of the hijab as a religious symbol for women who chose to observe it as a personal choice (Poya 1999:156).

Similarly, Azam Talqini, a former female member of parliament and daughter of the late Ayatollah Taliqini, condemned the imposition of Islamic dress as discrimination against the rights of women (Nashat 1983:210). 66 Signed ‘Gonbad police, section for criminal investigations and opposition against decadent members of the society.’ 94

As the picture above shows, the chador on the left is said to be the better of the two choices of women’s attire, although the outfit on the right, consisting of a long jacket and magneh (head covering) is considered appropriate as well (The magneh was accepted only as a compromise on part of the regime who only wanted women to wear the black chador.) As the sign reads,

It is compulsory for women to cover their body with the exception of the whole face and hands. If your clothes cover this then it is okay, but wearing the chador is much better. Clothes that attract the attention of strange men are forbidden.

In the early years of the Islamic Republic, the only colours women were permitted to wear in public were black, brown, navy blue, grey and beige. Black pants, shoes and socks were also required. Nail polish, make-up and perfume were restricted.

Although it is beyond the scope of this thesis, a brief consideration of men’s clothing is necessary. While less extensively enforced, men had to wear pants at all times in public and avoid any sign of Western clothing: this consisted of ties, jeans and anything overtly ‘bourgeois’. Beards were also a sign of religiosity and being in support of the regime, and thus encouraged by the state (Najmabadi 2004). There were men in the early years of the Islamic Republic who still wore some materials of clothing which the regime did not approve of, however. My own father was subject to workplace remarks and rumors for being a communist because he wore jeans and had a mustache, and did not observe daily prayer.

As Najmabadi (2004: 43) asserts, as part of the “cultural purification” of the

Islamic Regime to shed itself of its corrupt Western past, women’s veils, as well as men’s beards, served as “visible markers of state-sponsored masculinity and femininity.” By wearing the hijab, it was the Islamic Regime’s hope that women would adopt and internalize a prescribed set of gender norms and expectations determined by the

government. The veil now symbolized a new discourse on Iranian femininity which regarded women as compliant, obedient and sexually submissive.

Under the Shah we could dress the way we wanted. We were able to go out and have fun. We interacted with men as friends. We didn’t have to worry about how we were behaving. But all of a sudden that was taken away. We were told that living such a life that we had lived less than a year ago was not right, and that we were bad women because we wore dresses and make-up....Now we were being told how to behave and look [by the Islamic Regime]...This was not what we had fought for! (Shiva, 54)

Maryam quickly followed up:

The hijab was just the beginning for what was going to happen to women. It eventually became a symbol for the rights we didn’t have anymore. (Maryam, 53)

Disciplining the Islamic Nation

The enforcement of Islamic dress did not lead to an automatic adoption of the Islamic

Republic’s newly imposed ideology. Minds had to be refashioned, and individual bodies had to be subjected to constant surveillance and various disciplining mechanisms for the

Islamic endeavor to be successful. The regime not only wanted to make a society of law abiding citizens, but a nation in which Islam ruled and the citizenry followed proper civic duties, apparently, dictated by God and Shari’a. This required constructing and reforming spaces, institutions, as well as peoples; each expected to play an essential role in the Islamization of Iran.

Soon after the revolution, citizens were subjected to the surveillance of the regime. Amongst the very first forces established was the Komiteh (Islamic police), who patrolled public spaces to assure that deviance from the newly imposed norm ceased.67

67 Oppositional political factions were driven underground and censorship had returned. No organized opposition outside of the Islamic Republic’s framework was permitted (Katouzian 2003:15). Numerous 96

Basiji women (morality police) were also appointed by the state to ensure that women followed dress codes while also monitoring their interactions with men. Any objection was attributed as aiding the enemy at war with Iran.

I wasn’t scared of the guards who would check us, I just hated them. They were rude and verbally abusive. The female guards would wear long black chadors.., and the men..vahyyy mard-ah! (oh the men!) The revolutionary guards were worse. They wore dark green army uniforms with a gun in hand, and had black beards. They always looked angry.... It was like the uniform gave them power to control people. (Maryam, 53)

It is important to consider the empowerment that such a position of authority afforded

Basiji women, however.68 Since the era of Reza Shah, women who observed the veil were considered backwards and traditional, and were often shunned from public life.

However, the establishment of the Islamic Republic provided them with a sense of liberation and independence. They were able to leave the confines of their homes and join revolutionary forces with the approval of their fathers and husbands (Sedghi 2007:

218). More importantly, Basiji women were invaluable to the regime. Not only did they provide support, but they were key instruments for the state’s implementation of new gender relations (Sedghi 2007: 219).

While they exerted their control over other women, Basiji women were, nonetheless, equally controlled by the patriarchal system. Despite the fact that they were women working outside of the home, where they were able to leave the private form of patriarchy (fathers, husbands), they were still subjected to the public form of patriarchy

(the state) as they helped implement the very policies which affected them as women

(Voss 2011). As I will discuss in more detail the role of Basiji women in chapter 7, newspapers and magazines were disallowed from publishing articles. Many who openly resisted the state were imprisoned and executed in public view, spreading fear throughout the masses. It has been reported that by 1985, nearly thirteen thousand individuals were been executed (Abrahamian 1999). 68 Members of these forces usually come from poor religious backgrounds, where poverty is common and education lacks (Sedghi 2007: 215) 97

although these women were given ‘power’, “their power was still channeled through the male sphere: the only way one could have power was through men and by dressing as dictated by men” (Voss 2011: 11).

Beyond coercive and institutionalized measures of discipline, Khomeini managed to reform Iran to a nation of images. To Khomeini, Varzi (2006:26) notes, “the concept of the image functioned as an actual actor on the political stage.” Through Islamic and revolutionary quotes as well as pictures of martyrs, state political propaganda had been strategically positioned around Iran’s public spaces to reiterate the nation-building rhetoric, continuously reminding citizens of their necessary loyalty to the nation and

Islam. Photos of Ayatollah Khomeini were superimposed on the individual conscience to remind the nation that the closest man to God was watching their every movement.69

Figure 5.4 Chador- clad women passing by Khomeini’s image in Tehran (Source: http://www.sfgate.co m/books/article/Misu nderstanding-Iran- Figuring-out-what- we-ve-2718476.php).

69 Khomeini “placed himself between people and God to write the rules of a religious state” (Varzi 2004: 37) and became the “all-seeing” leader that secured his power by placing himself everywhere (Varzi 2004: 26). Upon Khomeini’s death in 1989, Ali Khamanei became the Supreme leader of Iran, and his picture now rests side-by-side with Khomeini’s. 98

To construct an Islamic identity, however, bodies had to be tied to the project of creating an Islamic state. As Varzi (2006:111) suggests, even the dressed bodies of citizens created an ideological space. It was Khomeini’s hope to avail the essential relationship between ideas and power to posit a nation in which every Iranian was part of the totalitarian vision of the regime’s ideological utopia. Coerced to be veiled in dark, neutral colours, women’s bodies were intended to be a reflection of a homogenized, disciplined Islamic whole where individual bodies ceased to exist. As Moallem (2005:

110) contends, the veil was a symbol “which spoke to individuals, reminding them of their responsibility and commitment to Islam, calling them to give up their individuality to the communal will and laws of political citizenship in the sacred community of God.”

To ensure that people felt part of the nation and the ideological venture of the state, the

Islamic Regime had aimed to make people, especially women, physically, mentally and ideologically part of the Republic’s imagery (Varzi 2006). 70

However, for the Iranian women I spoke with, they felt anything but a sense of nationalism as they observed Islamic dress in the early years of the Republic.

It was like...you didn’t like yourself anymore. You didn’t feel good. Before the revolution, I wore nice clothes, make-up. I was very feminine. We weren’t allowed to wear any of these things in public in the Islamic Republic. You just had to go out with a plain, dull face, dressed up in depressing colours of navy blue or black...and it wasn’t just you. Those

70 While Saba Mahmood’s (2001) work seeks to examine the revival of Islam at an individual and collective level in Egypt (which was not enforced by the state), Mahmood’s discussion regarding the disciplining of the body is necessary to briefly discuss. On her discussion of the disciplinary element of wearing the veil, Mahmood’s participants discussed the role of the veil as a ‘critical marker’ by which one was to train themselves to be pious. The veil acted as a “tutor” to not only fashion the external body, and stand as a symbol of adhering to the Islamic faith, but it simultaneously worked to transform the internal self as well. Moreover, Mahmood states that participants, through repeated bodily acts, worked to transform ‘memory, desire, and intellect’ in so to adhere to the necessary forms of conduct and behaviour: “Although piety was achievable through practices that were both devotional as well as worldly in character, it required more than simple performance of acts: piety also entailed the inculcation of entire dispositions through a simultaneous training of the body, emotions and reason as sites of discipline until the religious virtues acquired the status of embodied habits” (2001: 214). However, consent of the participants in such practices is the essential element of such a transformation. In the case of Iran, state imposition on the act of public worship and dress codes, and adhering to the laws of Islam has had a reverse impact on Iranian citizens. 99

early years.... it was like women were zombies. Everyone looked depressed and unhappy. (Roxana, 54)

Manna also described the emotional stress which she experienced.

At those times [under the Shah] the streets were so colourful. Then everything changed. The dark colours of my hijab matched the way I felt...I resented being a woman eventually. I would say to myself, ‘Oh God, why did you make me a woman?!’ In the first few months, I didn’t even want to go outside. I remember calling in sick a lot to work just so I wouldn’t go outside and wear those clothes and have to be around all that. (Manna, 54) The imposition of Islamic dress became the instrument through which social law was to maintain its hold on its subjects in order to regulate them. By controlling the movements and thoughts of women while dressed in an imposed uniform invested with a specific ideology, the regime had hoped that women would accept their compliance to state ideology and male authority.

Weakening Women’s Rights

Public and Private Spheres

The Islamic Republic’s Islamization project began with targeting gender relations as its most necessary undertaking to establish an Islamic social order. The regime’s view of women had been founded on the belief that women should be confined to the private sphere of family and marriage while men were active in the public domain. According to

Islamic thought dictated by the state, women and men are biologically and psychologically separated from each other. As a result, the division of labour grants different duties and roles for men and women (Nashat 1983: 202; Poya 1999:71). In the first decade of the Republic, the regime ensured that women had no part in the public domain of men. Not only did this imply that men and women could not enjoy equal rights, but it was part of the regime’s aim to bar women from economic, social and

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political activities outside the home, while keeping women out of public presence (Poya

1999:11). Maheen recalled the time she was approached and questioned by a Basiji man as for why she was standing alone, unaccompanied by a man, as she waited for the bus.

To keep women in a position of subservience, the Islamic Regime strategically incorporated women into the Republic’s nationalist rhetoric by granting them the designation of ‘mothers of the nation.’ The enactment of the Republic’s constitution depicts the Iranian nation as based on the family, with women as its pillars. Being granted special responsibilities and rights to care for the family (Paidar 1995:258), a woman has been expected to attend to her husband’s every need and obey his every demand while nurturing and socializing her children to be loyal Muslim citizens.

The family had played two intentional roles for the Islamic Republic. On the one hand, the family had acted as one of its disciplinary mechanisms where children were socialized to be good citizens of the national Islamic body (Paidar 1995). As Turner

(1984: 162) states, “the family is where individuals are formed, and where decentralized political power is to be located for the reform of the population.” However, on the other hand, the family had also been critical in the disciplining of women, limiting their rights as well as their participation in the public sphere. As the link between family and the nation, not only had subjection to the private domain restricted their active involvement and bodily visibility in the public sphere, but it also strengthened patriarchal authority over their lives as well. This considerably defined and fortified the Islamic Republic’s discourse on femininity. Clearly, as Paidar (1995: 265) notes, “the actualization of the

Islamic family and nation involved an extensive Islamization of women.”

Accordingly, the regime granted husbands and men greater authority over women’s lives, as well as their sexual and reproductive capacities. Fathers, grandfathers, even paternal uncles (male guardians) had been given considerable powers over their unmarried female relatives (Afary 2009:281). In marriage, except for the rights to

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economic support, women had few rights. All other rights such as divorce, custody of children and the choice of location, as well as the permission for a wife to leave the marital home or take up a job, had been granted to the husband.71 Men had been given greater sexual freedoms in marriage as well. Although polygamy was banned under the

Shah, it was reintroduced under the Islamic Regime. To curb pre-marital sex, men were able to take up several wives through temporary marriages; “marriages” which could last as little as 10 minutes.72 The regime also lowered the age of marriage from eighteen to nine years old. With the abolishment of the Family Protection Act, women lost most of their rights in marriage and divorce (Azari 1983). While the legal reforms of the Pahlavi regime in the 1960s and 1970s did not totally revoke male authority within the institution of family and marriage, the reforms did, however, challenge male power in areas of polygamy, temporary marriages and divorce. Arguing that such reversals were

“un-Islamic,” the regime gave back men greater authority (Shahidian 2002: 53).

Education

The banning of co-education also helped to advance the disciplining and constructing of the New Muslim Woman. Antonio Gramsci suggests that, ‘all states require both coercive and ideological forces to maintain themselves, establishing several institutions, such as education, to develop hegemonic control’ (Mohammadi 2003:24). Schools in post- revolutionary Iran have been institutions of socialization to Islamize the youth at a young age to conform to state ideology. Especially in the first decade of the Republic, girls’ education socialized the youth to become good mothers and wives. Already expected to

71 For more detail on theological and legal discussions of Islamic marriage, see Mir-Hosseini (2012) and Mir-Hosseini and Hamzic (2010). 72 Temporary marriage, a legal contract between men and unmarried women, is considered a legitimate marriage in Shiite Islam. After setting the terms and specific length of the contract, the marriage automatically dissolves. Temporary marriage is considered a personal contract between consenting couples and it does not need family approval nor the presence of any witnesses. There is no limitation to the number of temporary wives a Shiite man can have, while women can only be married to one man at a time. (Shahidan 2002: 55). 102

observe the veil from the age of six in school, young girls had been taught that, following

Islamic norms, the father works and provides food and shelter for the family while the mother takes care of the family and domestic work (Mehran 2003: 277).73 As a role model, young Iranian girls were educated to see themselves as Fatimeh, the Prophet

Mohammad’s daughter. Fatimeh had been appointed as the role model who “embodies all that is divine in womanhood. Her loyalty and devotion to her family, her tolerance and compassion and her feminine modesty by observing the veil” (Azari 1983: 26).

Women’s higher education has been a site of major contestation since the establishment of the Islamic Republic. During the Cultural Revolution (1980-1983), which aimed to Islamize Iranian universities, higher education was characterized in a manner which followed the regime’s ideological perceptions of the necessary roles of men and women. Women were restricted from more than half of the fields available for them to study when universities were re-opened in 1983, most of which were technical and scientific fields (Poya 1999:183). Since such disciplines went ‘against’ the laws of nature, they were only suitable for teaching and health services.

Sexuality

The implementation of the regime’s hijab became the most central political instrument to control women’s sexualities. Much of this rested on the fact that a woman’s body stood for the nation’s morality. On one hand, women were regarded as needing protection from the ‘satanic’ lures of men. On the other hand, women were capable of instigating total and utter moral chaos. Due to a man’s inability to control his sexual appetite and

73 Textbook illustrations also had been changed to only depict pictures of veiled women (Mehran 2003).

Girls’ education has changed in the years since the revolution. In the later 1980s, girls’ education included politicizing young girls to be involved in the social and political process (as long as they supported the regime’s agenda). Additional changes have also been made to girls’ education since then, predominantly due to the liberal presidency of Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005). Education now reiterates a more modern view of women, suggesting that women can be loving Islamic mothers and wives while simultaneously being active in the public domain (see Mehran 2005). 103

desires, women had been expected to hide their bodies in order to keep men from committing sin.74 Not only did the site of her body provoke men’s ‘weaknesses’ and arouse their desires, but so did her movements, her tone of voice and the colours of her clothes (Afshar 1987: 74; Azari 1983: 113-114). If not controlled, a woman’s sexuality could be dangerous and fatal for the communal whole. A woman in Islam, according to the Islamic Republic, had been considered “a living representation of the dangers of sexuality and its rampant disruptive potential...a symbol of disorder and the embodiment of destruction” (Azari 1983:96). Azari (1983) concludes that it was thus in the “interest of the community that she should be veiled and confined to the private sphere of the house” (Ibid, 96).75 As a result, a woman’s body was forced to be hidden under loose dark clothing, her gestures controlled, her laugh muffled, and her emotions suppressed for the protection of the Iranian nation.

Besides men controlling women, as noted, other disciplinary forces had been established to assure that women’s bodies remained non-visible. Especially in the first decade of the Republic, women who violated dress codes had acid thrown on their bare faces and skin by the regime’s supporters, knowing that they could get away without punishment. Moreover, the could have faced severe punishment of up to 74 lashes or imprisonment up to one year (Afary 2009: 279; Kar 2006: 32). Additionally, through

74 “The Muslim woman is assumed to be endowed with a fatal attraction which erodes the male’s will to resist her and reduces him to a passive acquiescent role. He has no choice; he can only give in to her attraction” (Azari 1983: 96). 75 The discussion of how the veil and veiling came to represent Islam (even though it has never been part of the pillar of Islam) is outside the scope of this work. However, scholar El Gundi (1999) has looked at the history of the veil from long before Islam. Leila Ahmad (1992) has examined how such debates seeped from Iranian imperial culture into the Islamic culture during the Islamic empire and later became part of the colonial discourse and subjection of Muslim societies. In many ways, modernity and colonization have had much more of a role in the politicization of the veil and dress codes that scholarly work on the MENA region recognizes. Such work often tends to focus on Islam’s Qur’an as a justification. However, the hot debate about what women can wear and the role of fashion in the French Revolution shares much with some of the debates that were current in the first decade of the establishment of the Islamic Republic (See Riberio 1988). 104

drawings, posters and billboards, hijab propaganda had also been imposed around the country to remind women to abide by Islamic dress codes and behaviour.

Figure 5.5 ‘A woman modestly dressed is a pearl in its shell’ (Source: http://imgur.com /a/JqG1V)

Figure 5.6 ‘Hijab is grace,’ found on the door of stores (Source: http://imgur.com/ a/JqG1V)

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Maheen remembers clearly the dismay of being subject to surveillance and mandatory checking:

I constantly argued with them when they would check my clothes at work or on the streets. I would say to them, ‘What was it to you how I dressed?’ But afterwards, I couldn’t say anything [when the veil became mandatory]...I had seen the way they attacked women on the streets. They yelled at them, called them whores...pushed them into cars, and the women would be crying and screaming. It was so terrifying. You just looked at this...you looked at yourself in the mirror and you would think, ‘Is this real?’ (Maheen, 54)

However, Vida recalls how a teacher she worked with got around appearance restrictions. This teacher enjoyed getting her nails done prior to the revolution, and still could not give up her love of nice nails even after the Islamic Regime’s stern restrictions.

She eventually resorted to wearing gloves to cover her nail-polished hands at work, telling everyone that she had become allergic to chalk!

For others, though, the fear of potential consequences prevented them from even attempting to wear anything but the regime’s requirements. Although some noted that they lost their femininity, at least in the first few years of the Republic, others described that at family parties, they were able to dress as they pleased, and sometimes even with more freedom than pre-revolution times. Yet the constant worry of pro-regime neighbours who often acted as spies (who Roxana lived next to) and the morality police encroaching on their privacy prevented them from feeling completely free and comfortable to dress and appear stylishly, or to interact with men.

In line with the state’s discourse to regulate and control women for the protection of the social order, sex-segregation was introduced as official state policy. Subject to constant surveillance of the morality police, segregation had become a new policy practiced in many public spaces to regulate interactions between non-related or married men and women. Although the intermixing of the sexes in public is common today, there

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were major restrictions in the early years of the Republic. If men and women were seen associating together, they had to show proof of marriage or else they were arrested. Sex- segregation also effected places such as cinemas, theaters and buses (women still have to sit at the back of the bus76), as well as education. Additionally, inter-sex groups of relatives and friends could no longer partake in picnics nor have parties, sometimes even in private settings, without being harassed (Azari 1983: 131).

Conclusion

It is through the body that the construction and maintenance of ideology and power prevails. While dress may clothe the body, it is, as shown in this chapter, a tremendously powerful tool which can be utilized to enforce a social order that can oppress and impose restrictive gender expectations. In the context of Iran, the Islamic Regime’s hijab has been a discourse invested with a myriad of meanings pertaining to power and discipline.

It has determined women’s movements, opportunities, rights and privileges. It has regulated, restricted and defined their lives while subjecting them to the authority of men. Additionally, by administering Islamic dress, the patriarchal system of the regime had hoped that by regulating the outer appearance of the body, inner thoughts would likewise conform to Islamic values and state ideology.

However, the effect which the Islamic Regime had initially hoped to have on women has failed. As will be made apparent in the next chapters, while the state managed to put women back into the veil, they failed at re-socializing women to the

Islamic Regime’s expected norms and ideologies (Azari 1983:12; Also see Afary 2009;

Mahdavi 2009; Varzi 2006).

76 Although women still continue to sit in the back of public buses, if the driver is female, women sit in the front. A video following a woman bus-driver showed, however, the contentiousness of this, as an older man said, “This woman is putting Islam in danger!” (See Davidson. (2007, October 16). Women and men on the bus - Driving through Tehran [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_iJULa1krw). 107

Chapter 6 Women in Post-Revolution Iran Seek your rights, Sister, From those who keep you weak - Forough Farrokhzad

Introduction

Despite intensive measures undertaken by the Islamic Regime to construct a compliant, disciplined and devoted Islamic society, the decade following years of strict and tight repression and limited access to the global arena ignited significant social changes in

Iranian society by the 1990s. In the aftermath of the war with Iraq (1981-1988) and the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, Iran began to reestablish its trade relations with the West in order to rebuild the country’s ailing economy. Under the presidency of

Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997) not only did mass amounts of foreign goods begin to reappear in the country, but print media was modestly liberalized and, although illegal, the introduction of satellite television and later the internet had momentous and crucial effects on the sociopolitical climate of the country. Not only did it alter the flow and access of information to the citizen populace, but it contributed to a reforming of gender relations, especially in the public realm.77

While rigorous measures were undertaken to reform women’s social rights, as well as their dressed bodies with the enactment of the regime’s Islamization project, many women refused to succumb to the regime’s rules as they continued to work towards modifying government policies (See Hoodfar 2008). Especially later with their access to the global arena, women began demanding greater recognition as citizens,

77 The internet for the public became available after 1995. It was under Khatami that the internet became widespread and it was a deliberate policy of the reformist regime. 108

while pushing for their economic and social rights.78 As a gender awareness began to progressively emerge under the liberal leadership of President Mohammad Khatami

(1997-2005), who called for a participative civil society while supporting women’s demands, women, both secular and religious, young and old, began to react to their legal and social oppression by challenging issues of gender inequality and patriarchy, and access to the public domain (Hoodfar 2008).

One of the consequences of the shifting sociopolitical milieu of Iran was that the image of homogeneity which the regime attempted to foist through the refashioning of the citizenry’s minds and bodies, and the hope that women would comply with the discourses invested through the donning of Islamic attire, was challenged. As the social and political context of Iran changed, the dressed bodies of women unraveled along with it.

Although brief, this chapter will set up the foundation for the social, political, cultural, educational and technological advances which altered the regime’s hold over its citizens, especially women. It is necessary to consider such changes in order to understand how the upsurge and refashioning of women’s dressed bodies have transformed along with the changes made to societal conventions as well as to the citizen consciousness. It was during this point in which Iran’s body politic was ‘invaded by feminine power’ (Tahmasebi-Birgani 2010).

Accessing the Global World

Satellite, Internet and Consumerism

Since the late 1990s, satellite broadcasting, internet technology and the rise of consumer culture has posed challenges to the Islamic Regime’s firm hold over the minds and

78 The social context was also liberalized in large part because the regime could no longer silence the criticisms of its policies by claiming the special measures due to the war. 109

bodies of the citizenry (See Alikhah 2008; Alavi 2008; Rahimi 2003; Mahdi 2003).79

Despite the regime’s initial attempts at restricting the forces of globalization from filtering into the country, ‘decadent’ Western television shows, movies and music videos managed to make their way, often illegally, into the homes of millions for the first time since the Pahlavi era, and for the youth, for the first time in their lives. For young

Iranians who grew up under the Islamic Republic, the opportunity to observe their foreign counterparts provided them with a new understanding of the global world while communicating differing realities which existed beyond Iran’s borders80.

Quickly accessing information from abroad and participating in the rise of consumer capitalism, a youth culture in Iran rapidly emerged; radically contradicting the official values of the state. Combined with the opening up of public and political life under President Khatami, the regime’s concealment of ‘modest’ women and ‘pious’ men, in both thought and appearance, destabilized as their power clashed with the forces of globalization and the new openness to the global arena (Amir-Ebrahami 2008: 98).

Although socio-political changes in Iran cannot be a result of either technological communications or consumerism alone, such advances have had paramount effects on the social and political landscape of the country.81 In one respect, satellite, internet and consumerism have afforded Iranians a ‘marketplace for styles and identities’ while exposing them to other lifestyles, ideas and peoples elsewhere in the world (Krimse

79 A small minority of reformists in the Parliament did, however, argue that satellite shouldn’t be completely denounced as it was a tool of modernization - argued that ‘they should consider using the technology with the governments supervision’ (Alikhah 2008: 96).

However, in 1995, a law was passed to ban satellite dishes. Although under Khatami, there was a graduate tolerance of satellite dishes (see Alikhah 2008), satellite still remains illegal.

Moreover, it was not until after 2002 that satellite television became available. Prior to this time, there were a couple of Turkish channels which most people watched for music. Additionally, they watched the BBC along with Arab channels. 80 It should be noted that foreign products and goods were still able to make its way into Iran during the 1980s, though often illegally. 81 Skalli (2006) notes this point about the transformations taking place across the Middle East and North Africa. 110

2009: 283 in Ibold 2010: 524). Jafari’s (2007:368) study shows that as the market in

Iran has become increasingly filled with foreign goods such as cellular phones, computers, clothes and cosmetics, it has constructed a rich cultural environment wherein which women and youth, especially, have drastically altered previous static identities and realities which the Islamic Regime had aimed to make normative. Through the consumption of consumer items such as clothing and cosmetics, people have the chance to shape not only their own public appearances and self-presentations, as well as their identities. Thus, as ideas, images and products move between borders, such trends not only influence local patterns, but have significant effects on the individual conscious and their desires for autonomy and self-determination (Mahdi 2003: 49).

Accordingly, what is important to consider in light of mass-mediated information technologies and consumerism in Iran is that issues pertaining to gender, identities, as well as gender relations are part and parcel of these changing social and cultural systems.

While the youth born following the Iranian Revolution were intended to be the target of the state’s Islamization project, expected to be the ‘index for the success of the Islamic

Regime’ (Varzi 2006:41), the youth populace in Iran have radically transformed the

Regime’s initial intentions by asserting different personal and individual initiatives rather than strengthening the Regime’s goals. With two-thirds of Iran’s 70 million people below the age of thirty, the youth have altered the Regime’s initial attempts at fostering docile citizens. Instead the youth have been among the societal groups which have enriched a new social context in Iran (Basmenji 2005; Mahdavi 2009).

Changing Gender Relations

Since the late 1990s, men and women have also been shifting conventional bounds of gender relationships and have crossed the fixed lines of sex-segregation policies, despite ongoing restrictions. The pervasive mingling of men and women was difficult to ignore

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as they made dramatic use of the public space while I was traveling around Iran in 2011.

Large numbers of couples walked hand-in-hand together down the street while they sat alone under the bridge of Sih-se-pole in Isfahan and in the gardens in Shiraz. Groups of mixed-sex friends hung out at cafés, restaurants and at the Tehran’s famous Darband

(which is higher up on the mountains of the city and away from the surveillance of the

Basiji and police). Although such free mixing between the sexes would have been unthinkable in the first decade of the Republic, young men and women continue to experiment with, test and challenge normative gender and sexual relations. 82

Figure 6.1 Men and women dining together in Darband, Tehran (Source: http://www.lifegoesonintehran.com/20_November_2008.html).

82 For a more detailed account of the shifting gender and sexual relations in Iran, see Mahdavi (2009) 112

Figure 6.2 Young men and women at a restaurant (Source: http://iransnews.wordpress.com/tag/hijab/).

Globalization and Women

Besides changes made to relations between men and women, the impact of globalization has also had an imperative and profound effect on women in various ways. While I will discuss soon how women began to ponder their lived realities vis-á-vis foreign women they observed on satellite television, the internet has opened up a critical medium in which Iranians, young and old, have been able to engage in autonomous self-expression.

In a society where freedom of expression fails to exist, Iranians, especially women and youth, have appropriated the internet as a means in which to speak freely about the issues affecting their lives while denouncing the institutions which have restricted and suppressed them. The emergence of blogging culture in the early 2000s in Iran has become a widespread medium for the citizenry to seek alternative routes to voice their concerns and criticize the government, and today, as noted in chapter 2, Iran is the third largest blogging country in the world (See Alavi 2008; Doostdar 2004). Amir-Ebrahami’s

(2008) work on women and writing on the internet illustrates that women have utilized

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cyberspace as an act of ‘unveiling,’ a space in which to criticize patriarchal gender relations, transgress the bounds of what is expected of Iranian women, and discourse and debate over compulsory hijab, which will be further discussed in chapter 8.

Undoubtedly, technological and communication developments in Iran have had paramount effects on the lives of Iranian women. Women’s desires and calls for democratic change and participation in social, political, and economic processes has been rising drastically since the advent of technological advancements (Mahdi 2003).

Women have begun demanding greater access to global resources and have adopted and developed expertise in usage of technological and communication skills to advance their societal positions. Moreover, women have used such forces to their advantage, having gained major influence on the government (in comparison to the earlier years of the

Islamic Republic at least) by demanding their rights while denouncing religious laws which have denied them career opportunities and rights to divorce and custody, among many others (Mahdi 2003: 61; also See Hoodfar 2008). As Skalli (2006:37) argues, for women across the Middle East and North Africa, technology has created “alternative discursive spaces where it is possible to redefine patriarchal gender roles while questioning the sociocultural, political and legal institutions constraining them.”

In many ways, it has been a result of such forces that women, along with urban youth, continue to challenge, in larger numbers and various paths, traditional conventions of social and gender relations to advance and transform their realities. As satellite, internet and consumerism have contributed greatly to the development of a new gendered consciousness which has developed in Iran, as well as an assertion of individual identity, globalization in Iran has undoubtedly led to an upsurge of remaking fixed and essentialized, state-imposed feminine identities; the most obviously recognizable way being through dress.

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Changes in Women’s Public Appearances

While secular women in north Tehran83 began applying touches of colour to their public attire in the latter half of the 1980s (Varzi 2004: 125), Sofia, who currently resides in

Tehran, said that it was not until the era of Khatami that a vast number of women felt comfortable, as well as safe enough, to wear colour and observe styles after a long decade of banality and homogeneity in appearance. Although women were still expected to follow Islamic dress codes, rules pertaining to women’s dress were relaxed under the presidency of Khatami, loosening the once tight surveillance of women’s clothed bodies in public spaces. Coupled with the socio-political changes which women activists made since the presidency of Rafsanjani (which will be discussed further later in this chapter), technological communications, as well as the rise of shopping centres and malls throughout urban Iran, the phenomenon of women’s alternative fashions have sprung up drastically ever since. A myriad of colours and styles have reemerged upon women’s public bodies. 84

The upsurge of women’s engagement with alternative fashions has been, at least for several women of this study, a consequence of watching their foreign counterparts via satellite and internet. They explained that it was through music videos, movies, online blogs and fashion magazines which influenced them to start dressing in alternative fashions. Before misreading this point and denouncing such women as passive consumers emulating a Western lifestyle, it is important to recognize how it has been through such venues that women began reflecting on a different reality of women outside of Iran.

83 North Tehran is a predominantly upper-middle class part of the city. 84 Although there were privately organized fashion shows since the early 1990s, the first publicly announced show since the revolution was held in Tehran in 2001. While women were only allowed to attend, and clothing styles still followed Islamic codes, the fashion show contributed immensely to the emergence of fashion in Iran (See Balasescu 2005). 115

For Anna, watching Western women, who were unveiled and less covered, yet were scientists, doctors and engineers, registered to her that not wearing the hijab was not a sign of immodesty. Socialized to view unveiled and unconcealed women as

‘valueless’ and ‘decadent,’ the Western female characters she watched offered her a means through which to acknowledge that women were still able to attain respectable professional careers despite what they wore.

Before satellite, bad-hijab seemed to be only worn by sex workers, prostitutes.. ‘bad women’.. women who were sexually available. But after watching how women were elsewhere, minds have been changed...Not wearing the veil isn’t so bad as they say it is..it doesn’t jeopardize our modesty or womanhood.. our lives. (Anna, 35)

Comparing characters on Iranian television with women in Western popular culture, the women I interviewed discussed how the representations of women radically contrasted with one another. They explained that female characters on Iranian broadcasting were usually quiet and passive, lacked aesthetic appearance and bodily visibility, while the undertone of the shows and broadcasting channels were also generally ‘depressing.’ In contrast, Western women appeared to be generally happier, more vibrant, mobile and confident.

We thought..well... they look like they are happier, they are more beautiful, they can wear whatever they want...it had an effect on us as girls. We learned that there was something more than our own society or...one way of being a woman. We saw that we can be good women even if we didn’t wear the hijab. (Samira, 31)

I think what was most surprising to us was how free other women were. They looked like they were having fun, they were able to look nice, hang out with boys easily, you know. I think it was after I watched American movies that I started to think that we were very restricted from enjoying ourselves. (Ellaheh, 27)

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When you’re young, you accept everything that they say...but we got older and we had access to satellite and we started to think differently. (Haideh, 25)

You are so affected by their mentality and ideology when you’re younger...a lot of us did our prayers but then we grew up...You start to think for yourself. (Jillah, 31)

Consequently, the emergence of underground films, music, satellite, internet and consumer culture had paramount effects on the sociopolitical milieu of Iran, shifting the bounds and loosening restrictions which were enforced on the citizenry, especially women. The opportunity to gaze on the lifestyles of their Western counterparts registered to them a different depiction of womanhood, where they realized that, despite efforts of the Islamic Regime to get them to adhere to the notion that a woman’s morality was signified through her observance of Islamic attire and modest dress, women could be visible and less covered yet still maintain respect. With the advent of consumerism, women were able to then remake their outward appearances as ideas about themselves changed. Education also has played a significant role.

Education

Despite efforts to bar women from enrolling into institutions of higher education in the years following the revolution, liberalization policies and the reformation of the Iranian labour market and economy in the 1990s permitted women to attend university for the first time since the establishment of the Islamic Republic (Kian-Thiébaut 2002; Sedghi

2007). Along with the increasingly active participation of Islamic feminists and the changing socio-political policies towards women (Reza-Rashti 2012:5), the regime promoted and encouraged women to enroll in institutions of higher education with the prospects of creating their ‘ideal’ Muslim women which would contribute to asserting

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and shaping a strong Islamic society. However, their policies had many unintended consequences for which they were not prepared for.

The number of women in Iranian universities drastically increased in the 1990s, reaching nearly 50 percent by 1999-2000 academic year (Kian-Thiébaut 2002: 63). As women currently make up more than nearly 60% of the overall student body, their educational advancements have been groundbreaking in the nation’s history and unrivaled in other Muslim countries (Sedghi 2007: 235; Also see Reza-Rashti 2012).

However, since the increase of women’s enrollment in educational institutions in comparison to men has been drastic, women have been subject to much gender discrimination. Not only did the state quietly pass a law under the presidency of

Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) stating that the number of women should not exceed more than 60% of the student body,85 but since 2012, many universities have simply barred women from enrolling into disciplines traditionally held for men.86 Nonetheless, higher education has been significant for some women of this study.

For some, it was not necessarily their class teachings which altered the conceptions they had about themselves, but it was the opportunity to meet new people, mingle with men, and partake in youth gatherings on campus which provoked an important self and gender consciousness to manifest. For women and youth who were born under the Islamic Republic, the Khatami era provoked a youth awakening. The environment of the university for Ava, who was an undergraduate student during this period, offered her a space to explore different means of critical thinking and being. It was through youth gatherings and feminist book clubs on campus in which she and others read up on feminist and social and political literature that was increasingly

85 Except in certain fields which are considered feminine, such as nursing 86 As of September 2012, over 30 universities have introduced new rules restricting female students from almost 80 different disciplines. Such subjects include engineering, physics, computer science, English literature and business. (Sahrasei, Fariba. (2012, May 6). Iranian university bans on women causes consternation. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19665615 118

making its way into Iran without the obstacles of censorship which had permeated

Iranian society until that point.

For most of the women, however, independence and the prospects of attaining a respectable career which accompanied a university education was the most imperative reason why education had a significant effect on the ways in which they acknowledged themselves as women in Iran. They explained that with education, a new sense of personal development arose which encouraged their self-esteem, undoubtedly shaping their confidence and assertive nature which they felt they needed in order to not only maintain themselves as independent women, but to survive the discriminatory environment of life as a woman in Iran. Understanding independence as a powerful social marker, women were more confident enough to contest and reject not only societal expectations of women, but their families’ hold over them as well.

Before, most women would just get married after high school, but when you’re educated and have a job, you are more legitimate. My education gave me more power to resist my family’s control because I felt more independent. Comparing myself to other girls in my family who were my age, they just got married and had children... their lives didn’t really change. Education gave many women awareness about their rights, and more demands and expectations about their rights and power to ask for it... to demand their rights. (Anna, 35)

Despite familial expectations and regressive policies of the state, women have worked vigorously to resist conventions and barriers which have limited them (Reza-Rashti

2012: 1). Educational advancements have offered women a new realm of opportunities to challenge and transform conventional societal expectations of Iranian women. A new gender awareness has been raised through the space and prospects of education, in which a new discourse of womanhood has been established.

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A discussion of information technologies, consumerism, and education is important to consider in order situate alternative dress in the study of the shifting perceptions that women in Iran have about themselves. As they had critical effects on the lives of women’s autonomy, the ways in which they have come to understand themselves in society, has been reflected, in one manner, through dress.

You get the vibe that they are changing…women feel more powerful...being a housewife makes us feel useless now. We want to be educated...support ourselves. Women are participating more in society, they are also breadwinners now, not just men. (Ellaheh, 27)

The role of satellite, education and consumerism has thus affected women greatly.

However, women activists in Iran have also be paramount to the changes made to women’s lives in the Islamic Republic.

Women’s Demands in the Islamic Republic

Women’s resistance to the Islamic Regime’s policies continued despite intensive measures to restrict them from the social and political domain following the revolution.

Given that political organizations and women’s associations were driven underground soon after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, women’s initiatives until the late

1980s were primarily small, informal groups which aimed to raise a gender consciousness amongst Iranian women. While secularist women focused on critiquing the discriminatory nature of the regime’s gender policies, most Iranian women worked within the Iranian structure to change their existing realities (Hoodfar 2008: 6). Despite fierce opposition from the conservative clergy, women were able to make their demands heard and legitimized. The restrictions to women’s access to university was removed

(1986), family planning and contraception became available (1988), a bill was passed for women to receive wages for housework (1991), and divorce laws were modified to limit

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men’s right to divorce (1992) (Mir-Hosseini 2002: 40), while they eventually managed to establish the Bureau of Women’s Affairs.87 Especially with the growing access to the international arena, President Rafsanjani, aware of women’s growing demands for their rights and liberties, allowed women to represent Iran in various global conferences

(Hoodfar 2008: 7).

The 1997 Presidential elections marked a ‘political coming of age’ for Iranian women (Ibid, 7). Participating in the elections in unprecedented numbers, women voted for reformist Mohammad Khatami, who supported women’s active involvement in civil society, calling for further rights and access to education. Despite setbacks from the conservative members of the Council of Guardians which prevented Khatami from passing any reform laws which he had initially promised, nonetheless, women’s organizations multiplied with the growing demand for civil society, along with the formation of non-governmental organizations in many spheres which women were concerned with (Keddie 2007). With growing access to the global arena, education and information technologies opened up a greater space for dialogue between Iranian women and the global women’s movement (Hoodfar 2008:8).

Moreover, Islamist women, who had initially attempted to work with the regime’s framework, as they imagined a new, women-centered interpretation of Islamic texts, grew increasingly disappointed with the regime’s manipulation of Islam and the disadvantages women faced as a result. Shut-out from the goals of the revolution which they had hoped to be part of, they thus joined their secular counterparts in demanding changes to women’s realities by working from a secular and human rights framework

(Hoodfar 2008: 8; Sameh 2010: 447).

87 The Bureau examined issues pertaining to women (See Hoodfar 2008: 7) 121

The uprisings which followed the engineered reelection of conservative hardliner

President Ahmadinejad in 2009 brought women, young and old, out to the public realm to voice their opposition in the largest public protest against the regime in nearly thirty years. Educated and socially aware, women took dramatic steps as their presence in the millions, with their green veils nearly falling off their heads, spoke volumes as they asserted their bodies alongside men to articulate and pronounce their existence in the public sphere (Tahmasebi-Birgani 2010). Due to the transformation of the social, cultural and political climate of Iran, and the persistence of women to attain their rights, a large portion of the female populace, especially in urban centres, are now “equipped with a feminist consciousness which has grown out of decades of women’s struggles in

Iran,” ready to make themselves and their demands visible (Tahmasebi-Birgani 2010:

78).

Evidently, the Iranian women’s movement since the Islamic Regime has been a democratic movement with the aims to move towards a democratization of the social, cultural and political milieu of Iranian society with the hopes to construct a stronger civil society with a more visible female presence. While initiatives continue to be taken to fight for basic rights and freedoms and equality with men, women’ defiance is also highly individualized. As women demand individual rights and basic liberties, they have been fighting to have the freedom to choose one’s own lifestyle, bodily appearances, autonomy and right to have control over their own bodies (Tahmasebi Birgani 2010: 79).

Individualized resistance and resistance through dress in Iran will be discussed in more detail in chapter 8.

As Keddie (2007: 30) notes, while women’s rights initiatives in Iran is dynamic, ever-changing, and consists of a multitude of initiatives and goals, what is important stress is that women, despite their class or religious persuasions, are increasingly 122

asserting themselves in an abundance of ways in the public domain to change their existing realities. Whether attending higher education, choosing a respectable career, willing to criticize the government on blogs, or donning alternative dress, women are undoubtedly shifting the general consciousness and representation of themselves.

Although most women are concerned with personal attainments rather than political ones, “this new assertive and consciousness is contributing to women’s power to defend and ultimately expand their rights” (Ibid, 30).

Conclusion

Taken together, access to information technologies, consumerism, education and the consistent demands by women activists for legal, social and economic gender equality, as well as control of their sexuality, have had profound and undeniably positive (by their own assessment) effects on Iranian women, especially in the last twenty years. By accessing the global world and appropriating the offerings of consumerism, women have grown critical of their static identities and the control over their appearances and lives by donning alternative modes of dress to meet their individual needs instead of reinforcing the ideology and dictates of the state.

What is important to take away from this chapter is how the changes to women’s dress have accompanied the changes made to their realities. As women have pushed to change legal orders which have worked to socially, economically and politically subordinate and marginalize them, they have managed to also reflect such changes onto their dress bodies. As women have interacted more with the global world, demanded greater rights, participated actively in the public sphere, while also receiving university degrees and professional occupations, women’s clothing has changed along with their growing consciousness and increasing confidence. It is for this reason that we have to

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pay much attention to the significance of this symbolic, yet politically threatening utilization of alternative dress.

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Chapter 7

Under the Gaze and Under Control

Woman as a sign of difference is monstrous - Rosi Braidotti

Introduction

While all societies control and regulate the sexualities of men and women, in the Islamic

Republic of Iran, forms of regulation over women’s sexuality are more strictly and legally monitored. Although in Iranian culture, socialization within the family and societal rules in public spaces have always been sites of control over women’s sexuality, since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, however, new dimensions have been added to the authority over women’s bodies which has made the question of women’s sexuality more political than any other historically documented time in Iran. With the regime’s introduction of new forms of legal constraints over women in the name of morality and religion, these added dimensions have been intended to reinforce the ways in which an appropriate Muslim woman is expected to think, act, behave and feel, with the hijab, donning her body, as the ultimate reminder.

In the context of Iran, sexuality is integrated not only in cultural and social systems but also in state politics. By enforcing Islamic dress, the leaders of the Islamic

Republic were well aware of the communicative power of clothing and the role that it played in creating not only particular forms of behaviours among the citizenry, but a moral system as well, which at the centre laid the bodies of women. As women have been critical to this moral system, the observation of Islamic dress has been intended to be a symbolic indication of women’s docility and sexual submissiveness; an indication of state-constructed feminine sexuality; a sexuality which women themselves have had little part in defining. 125

This chapter will probe into the link between dress and the control of women’s bodies and sexualities in order to recognize how political the nature of women’s dress in

Iranian society. By examining girls’ socialization in schools and the surveillance of the morality police, we will see the imperative emphasis placed on shaping and restricting women’s bodies, moralities, sexualities, and thus individualism through the enforcement and monitoring of their dressed bodies, to keep such bodies under the control of men and the state. Given the culture that the Islamic Regime has produced, the discourse of sexual harassment towards women in alternative dress will also be explored.

While the next chapter will delve further into women’s resistance and subversion, in this chapter we will hear women’s own criticisms and perceptions of state-determined feminine sexuality and the external control over their dressed bodies.

Religious Education

As briefly noted in chapter five, the Islamic Regime has used educational institutions to socialize children from a young age to advance their Islamization project. In terms of girls’ education, it has been used as a site to adhere to an ideologically constructed feminine sexuality. The most intensive socio-religious education begins from the tender age of nine, in which the educational policy is characterized by sex-segregated institutions, mandatory veiling from the age of six, explicit gender stereotyping in school textbooks and class teachings, as well as advising female students to internalize appropriate Islamic womanhood (See Mehran 2003). Expected to follow specific rules, young girls have been taught how to be ‘good’ Muslim women, in the home, family, within gendered power relations, and in public presence.

It is important to begin this chapter by examining religious education to grasp how quickly sexuality is expected to be a matter of concern for Iranian girls. It is within

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the confines of the classroom in which the young are shaped into docile citizens, disciplined to conform to the state’s way of thinking and being. As they reflected back on such classes, women’s comments suggested that their education seemed to focus less on how to be faithful Muslims but instead how to appear as good Islamic women in relation to women’s bodily modesty and thus their sexualities. Although women said that they were taught to observe religious prayers, a great deal of time was spent on informing and shaping young girls’ bodies to adhere to a specific notion of sexuality. In other words, in order to be ‘good’ Muslim women, women were taught how to dress accordingly, how to behave around men, and what to do to avoid sin.

In schools they would tell us to wear the veil so that men don’t see our hair. We were told that if they see our hair we would go to hell... They told us to not speak much to men who weren’t our brothers, or fathers, because even the sound of our voices could be... seductive.. So we were told to fully cover our bodies because if a man sees our bodies, they will be aroused, and we would have committed sin and God would not be happy with us. (Samira, 31)

Conversations emphasized the importance of sexual modesty on part of girls.

Although they were taught not to interact with unrelated men, if they had to, girls were expected to keep their eyes down, not make any physical contact, keep their voices restricted, and avoid showing parts of their bodies which could potentially be sexually alluring. Additionally, they were asked to restrict their bodily movements and gestures, which meant no laughing, yelling or running.

I was young when I was learning about this...about 11 maybe. This is a time when you’re a child...you want to play outside...you run around.. but after all these rules that they wanted us follow, I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. Your childhood...or the innocence of childhood is quickly taken away because of that. (Ladan, 27)

In order to practice the teachings taught to them, girls had to follow strict rules pertaining to appearance at school. Although schools were sex-segregated, girls’ 127

bodies were still subject to aesthetic restrictions, since dress is the key symbol of the sociopolitical system. Every morning, Zarine and Darya said, girls would have to stand in line to get their nails checked by their teachers to assure that none of them were wearing nail polish. Zarine even stated that nails had to be kept short; the teacher sometimes standing with a nail-clipper. Furthermore, young girls were prohibited from colouring their hair or doing their eyebrows. Darya explained that the punishment for doing either of these was expulsion from school until the natural hair colour or eyebrows grew back.

It is important to bear in mind what Soraya said, that it is easier to brainwash young children at an early age: “When they are adults, they can’t be shaped that easily, so they invest a lot of time in brainwashing little children and teenagers instead.” The regime’s intention was that, through such socialization, girls would internalize their version of femininity. By fashioning children’s minds and bodies at a younger age, self- monitoring would eventually replace the need for external control. However, to do this, particular methods of instilling such rules were necessary. Perhaps the most vital weapon teachers used to convey such messages into their young minds was by imposing fear.

If you didn’t follow the rules, the biggest punishment was that you will go to hell instead of heaven. It frightened everyone...so when we were young we had to believe it. (Tara, 25)

When I was in elementary school my religion teachers told us that if your scarf doesn’t cover your hair..when you die, you’re going to being hanging from each hair that you didn’t cover. I was scared the first time I heard this. (Goli, 26)

I had asked women if they believed in what the teachers were telling them. Atoosa’s comment reiterates the general responses.

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Of course, at that age you’re a child.. your mind is clear and open to whatever is being said to you. And what they were saying was scary. We had to uphold this nation we were told...by covering ourselves and being good women. We believed it... we didn’t know anything. (Atoosa, 31)

Other ways in which teachers managed to get the youth to accept their values was through means of positive recognition. The phenomenon of ‘teacher’s pet’ is a well- known term, and a teacher’s approving reactions to young children can influence students’ behaviours to be compliant (See Babad 1995).

In the case of Sofia’s daughter, this was exactly the logic. Sofia attended her daughter’s class as part of a mother-daughter day. Going after work (where she had to follow proper dress codes), Sofia was dressed in modest clothes, donning a magneh and lacked any make-up. In comparison to most of the other mothers who wore loose veils and lipstick, Sofia, in the eyes of her daughter’s teacher, reflected the image of a good

Muslim woman. Taking note, the teacher congratulated Sofia’s daughter on having such a ‘good mother,’ which was accompanied by ‘classroom points’. Due to her mother’s appearance, the teacher encouraged Sofia’s ten year old daughter to wear a chador

(observing the chador is considered a reflection of a truly excellent Muslim woman).

My daughter came home from school that day asking for a chador. My husband and I couldn’t believe it, but we didn’t want to say no to her...we wanted her to make up her own mind. So we went out and bought fabric, and the next day she went to school wearing a chador. At first the teacher approved of her, saying that she was a good girl and this, but after that, the teacher didn’t say anything else...she didn’t continue to give her any special attention, so my daughter stopped wearing it after a few days. She also felt uncomfortable wearing it. (Sofia, 42)

While Sofia’s daughter’s discontinued interest in wearing the chador after a mere few days is humorous in retrospect, what is critical to take away from this, as well as from childhood religious education in general, is the role that it plays in enforcing a specific definition of feminine sexuality without any critical consideration of it on part of the girls 129

themselves. For Goli, Atoosa and Yasameen, the implications of inquiring into the teachings of their religion teachers were met ill-heartedly. Some teachers ignored their questions, refused to provide a space for open-discussion, and some were even subject to punishment.

They force you to accept it and you have to do it...that’s it...and it made me angry and I didn’t want to accept it. Sometimes I tried to make conversations [with the teachers], but they didn’t accept me and my reasons. She just said, ‘No, if you do this you will go to hell, if you do this you will go to paradise’...They wouldn’t let me think for myself. (Goli, 26)

Whether teachers use compliments or fear, feminine sexuality is deemed as a passive, non-disputed issue which the young are expected to accept without question or any analytical reflection and discussion.

Ever since I was a child I was told that because I was a girl I had cover myself because of men. But we were never told what a woman’s sexuality even means other than it can cause a lot of harm... damage to others and we would commit sin or something like this. We were never allowed to question why this was a reason...or why it is our fault. We were never able to think about our sexuality in a good way.. They just made us scared of ourselves. They taught us to not celebrate our sexuality but to be fearful of it....It was like we were monsters or something. (Roya, 27)

In the Islamic Republic, a woman’s sexuality is amalgamated with religious fears and the moral panic of sin and eternal damnation. Attempting to instill into a young girls’ consciousness that her body can be a source of social disturbance if not hidden under the shielding protection of the veil was perhaps the regime’s central intention to fashion both her mind and body to accept such an ideology; to not enjoy and take pleasure in her sexuality, but to be in constant fear of it. However, as much as the regime has attempted to use education to their ideological and disciplinary advantage, to transform young girls into their one sole version of a ‘good Muslim woman,’ women I interviewed discussed that the education system, while at one point

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having an effect on them, still did not manage to maintain the influence that the regime had hoped for as they observed alternative dress in public.88 In large part, this had to do with the fact that most of the participants came from secular families, and had opposing beliefs than the regimes. This thus had an impact on the ways that the women reacted to their teachings at school.

However, it is not only through the education system in which women are socialized and regulated to adhere to the regime’s dictates; it also stretches to other areas of the public realm. It is in this public domain in which women have to deal with the implications of dressing in alternative fashions.

Figure 7.1 School girls take off their veils to mock public hijab sign: ‘My sister, hijab is protection, not restriction’ (Source: http://imgur.com/a/JqG1V).

88 The regime is aware that many women are not following their objectives. Despite the obvious failure of such education, especially for the urban populace, the regime has recently attempted to begin teaching children at an even younger age. (Chasmar, Jessica. (2013, February 28). Iranian toddlers to be taught chastity, wear hijab. Washington Times. Retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/28/iranian-toddlers-be-taught-chastity-wear-hijab/) 131

Good Woman/ Bad Woman

In a multitude of ways, Iranian women are reminded that their morality is exercised and expressed by observing the veil. The discourse of a ‘good’ woman as properly veiled and a

‘bad’ woman as improperly dressed is not only heavily emphasized in religious education, but continues to resonate throughout public life in Iran. So critical is the appearance of a woman to the regime that her entire morality and character becomes signified and imprinted onto her clothed body. The dominant political ideology dictates that the donning of proper hijab is the main moral yardstick by which she is judged in society, and that any changes to the normative dressed body--a slippage of hair, coloured clothes, make-up--can put her entire virtue and integrity at risk.

Women who cover their hair, wear loose clothing and divert their eyes from men are proclaimed as ‘good’ women in the eyes of the Islamic Republic and religious believers (mostly those in favour of the regime), while women who show strands of hair, wear form fitting clothes and make-up, and associate with men are destructive of public honour. As Wee (2012: 42) asserts, “The identification of ‘good’ women and ‘bad’ women rests with power-holders in gendered power-structures.” Thus, women who violate the bounds of ‘appropriate’ feminine appearance and behaviour become signifiers of ‘loose’ women who are sexually open, morally corrupt, and sinful.

It is necessary to mention, however, that members of educated middle classes also have their own views of women who choose to wear the chador. Several women had explained to me that there is an environment in Iran in which people tend to not want to associate or be friends with chadori women (women who wear the chador). Considered too traditional, non-modern and supporters of the regime, secular Iranians have less interest in associating with chadori women.89 Not surprisingly, some also raised their issues with veiled-Iranian women living Montréal (it is highly uncommon to see Iranians

89 Sadi’s (2012) work also discusses the issues which secular Iranians have with chadori women. 132

abroad wearing the veil). They suggested that secular Iranians do not want to interact or be friends with hijab-wearing Iranian women because they symbolize, like chador-clad women in Iran, tradition and hyper-religious devotion. For some, veiled Iranian women represented and reminded women of the authoritarian life under the Islamic Regime.

This point confirms that while the regime and conservative sectors of society have their own concerns with women donning alternative dress, secular, modernist Iranians likewise have their own criticisms of chador-wearing women (Also see Sadr 2012).

Nonetheless, being judged on the way in which one wore her veil and dressed in alternative fashions was an extensive area of discussion for the women of this study.

From the way in which teachers reacted to them, men thought of them, and conservative members of society criticized them provides a means in which to examine how compulsory Islamic dress is used to further subject women to societal subordination, sexual submissiveness and lack of control over their own bodies. As women spoke of their experiences with such criticisms, the anger, distress and frustration was obvious.

Anna, now a PhD student in the social sciences in Montreal, spoke of a close relationship which she had with her high school teacher. Despite the fact that the teacher had often complimented Anna on her academic achievements and her intellect, the moment that her teacher saw Anna in a purple manteaux, her view of her suddenly changed.

I had a purple manteaux which I wore to go pick up my report card during the summer time, not school, and this teacher was shocked by what I had done. She said, ‘I didn’t expect this from you.’ Even though this women liked me in this social science class, she just judged me on my dress. She was not valuing my thoughts. (Anna, 35)

When Anna was in high school in the earlier half of the 1990s, black, brown, grey and dark blue were normative colours. Colours beside these were deemed as zanandeh

(something that is distasteful/vulgar). Although this word is usually used to describe 133

inappropriate behaviour, Anna explained that zanandeh has also been applied to colour.90 Colour, it is argued, is provocative as it apparently works to ‘put women on display.’ Sanaz also had to deal with the implications of wearing colourful clothing.

Colour was a big thing...If I wanted to wear red lipstick, a red headscarf, my mom disapproved. She would say, ‘Don’t go out like that..people will think you’re a whore...they will treat you like less than you are.’ (Sanaz, 28)

Darya had a distressed reaction to her own experience when she got accepted for her

PhD at the University of Tehran. Upon telling her supervisor of the good news, he told her that the way she dressed would not be approved by the university, and that it would be impossible for her to be hired as a professor eventually.

I was shocked. I was from the best university in Iran, and when I heard this, I was shocked. Why would this school care about my appearance?! They should care about my knowledge, my publications...not my appearance! (Darya, 29)

Although clothing and appearance matters to almost every occupation, regardless of the country, Darya, who was still a student at this point, was quickly judged on the basis of her attire before even being granted a teaching position. Had she gone in for a job interview, she was well aware that proper Islamic dress had to be observed.91 However, due to how she dressed on a regular basis, she was told that a job at the university would not be open to her.

Instead of congratulating women on their intellectual success and valuing them as intelligent persons, both Anna and Darya were condemned on the basis of their appearances, in which the respect of a teacher was lost and a teaching position was

90 ‘Zanandeh’ has always been applied to sharp colour, even under the Pahlavi regime. It was assumed that women would wear such colours because they wanted to attract attention. 91 In addition to having a good knowledge of religious references which could potentially be asked during the interview. Darya said that many people pretend as if they are religious, educating themselves on Islam, in order to get certain jobs. 134

prohibited. For Sanaz, the mere use of colour put her morality and sexual openness into question.

In attempts to show their opposition to societal expectations of their dressed bodies, individual agency and freedom to assert one’s own appearances became a conflicted matter. Zarine’s comment reflected this:

It’s really bad because you don’t know which one to choose. You really want a job, but you don’t want to change yourself.....If you dress in clothes that do not follow dress codes outside of work and someone sees you, you could potentially get fired. (Zarine, 23)

It is not only the morality police who approach women in improper dress, but random strangers have also taken it upon themselves to tell women of the impropriety of their clothing. In my own experience, it was not a Basiji woman who advised my cousin and I to pull up our veils, but an elderly woman in a chador. Although the comment was in passing as the woman quickly left after her remark, I proceeded to cover myself up nonetheless. “Just ignore her,” my cousin said to me, unfazed by the comment. Looking over at the other young girls close by, who were also told to fix themselves up, they too rolled their eyes and refrained from making any adjustments.

Ava also had an encounter with an elderly woman.

Once I helped an old woman carry her stuff...It was a long way so I helped her. Once we arrived there, she said to me, ‘You’re a really nice girl, I like you...but why do you wear something like this? It’s not really nice. When you’re a good girl you shouldn’t be wearing something like this.’ (Ava, 27)

Anna had also noted that when she was in a store, an older woman said to her,

“You’re committing sin!”

Thus, appearance is central to the dichotomy between good and bad women which resonates throughout Iranian society. It is this very contention that ‘bad’ women,

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who wear alternative modes of dress, which is not necessarily revealing but colourful and not based on conventional styles, bring on sexual harassment due to their appearances.

Sexual Harassment

Although mandatory Islamic dress has been enforced under the notion of ‘protection,’ the implication of protection, as Wee (2012) contends, is that only ‘good’ women are granted such security. Thus, sexual harassment, it is argued in the Islamic Republic, is brought on by improper dress and the corrupt morals of ‘bad’ women. Posters found in public places and shops around Iran attempt to denounce women who are dressed in alternative modes of dress. As the picture below states, “We ourselves invite sexual harassment. Girls who do not dress properly are harassed and targeted on the streets.”

Figure 7.2 ‘Alternativly dressed women bring on their own sexual harassment’ (Source: http://imgur.com/a/JqG1V)

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Although in the West, comments towards women by random strangers is not uncommon, in Iran, an Islamic country, an outsider’s assumption would be that men would refrain from such acts. However, my first night in Tehran offered me a glimpse into an entirely different actuality. Standing on a busy street corner with relatives, a young man suddenly poked his spiky gelled head out of a crowded car, and asked me with a smile, ‘Chehtori khanoom’? (How’s it going, lady?). The open-flirtation of Iranian men, their uncontrollable and non-discrete stares, and their brief gender-specific comments to women as they passed by was, to me, an unexpected reality of life in Iran.

While such experiences were entertaining and amusing for me, for Iranian women who had to deal with this as an everyday reality painted an opposing picture of women’s lives in Iran.

While I am not at all arguing for a generalized conception of Iranian men, I did, however, listen as interviews shed light on the fears and concerns that some women had for their safety whenever they made themselves present in public spaces. As the Islamic

Regime has argued that women bring on sexual harassment because of the way that they dress, some men, too, have accepted the regime’s notion that women in alternative dress are signifiers for being sexually available, and are thus, ‘asking for it.’ For Mina, an engineer who worked in Iran, being judged as a “loose woman” happened with her boss at work.

One day he just closed the door of his office and said, you know...I like your perfume very much...he tried to grab my hands...oh my god, it was awful. (Mina, 33)

She paused for a few moments before she continued.

And I could say nothing because he was the manager. If I said something he would have said something like..it’s the way that you have made yourself...it’s because of you.

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Mina also stated that she felt more comfortable walking on the street as opposed to the sidewalk due to the easier access of getting away if she was confronted by men.

Goli also had a physical experience. After coming home from shopping one night, a group of men began bothering her, saying ill-hearted “dirty words,” and started to touch her. Although she said that she was able to handle herself, shouting at the men and eventually getting away, she stated that the feeling of fear is not easy to get rid of. “It has a great impact on you...when you see a group of strange men at night, you can’t get over it.”

The reason for which the sexual harassment of women is justified in the Islamic

Republic is on the basis that women’s bodies provoke men into uncontrollable temptation. While men are asked to divert their eyes when they see women, there are no legal repercussions if they fail to do so. The regime’s contention that it is a woman’s own fault for bringing on unwanted attention, which in turn causes men to sin, was a disheartening matter for women as they spoke. They felt that it was unfair that women had to hide and cover their bodies for such reasons, and felt as though all the guilt and condemnation was pushed on women.

I have always been mad about this..you hear it a lot. Since you were a child..in school...it’s really annoying to hear that you are asked to do something to keep someone else from committing sin...Why should I care? (Ava, 27)

Although Muslim women are expected to abide by such codes of ethics, to assure that their bodies are in fact covered to protect both men and themselves, women whom I interviewed refused to accept this as a legitimate or moralistic argument. Instead, they insisted that this is one of the ways in which women are not allowed to have control over their bodies, and where women’s sexualities are further condemned and incriminated.

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They openly say that women who do not dress well are evils...are making men deviate from the right path that they are supposed to be going on... There is this evilness that is attached to women. (Leila, 29)

This ‘evilness’ which is attached women’s bodies makes women bear the responsibility for enticing and tempting men by the way that they dress, apply their makeup, and expose parts of their bodies and faces. Like the state has attempted to legitimize, as noted, some Iranian men too have been socialized with the idea that women who do not follow the outward appearance of a ‘good woman’ are sexually available. Evidence of sexual violation of women by men confirms and augments the power which men feel that they have over women. As Niki explained,

The Islamic Regime has put it in their [men’s] mind that women are their rights...and they can do with you any way that they want...Men on the streets are given the right to bother you...Men, boys on the street, feel like they have the right to rape you with their looks, in the taxi with their fingers... (Niki, 30)

Moreover, as Sadr’s (2012) study of the discussion of veiling through blogs by

Iranians indicates, many of the commentators discussed that enforced veiling regulations have “stripped women of their personhood and further sexualized Iranian men’s view of women, and thus women’s safety in public and in private has been reduced” (2012: 192). While a number of the bloggers noted that whether dressed in alternative fashion or in modest dress with no makeup on, women are not immune to sexual harassment, a recent study of sexual harassment in Iran showed that while this was true, experiences with sexual harassment were far more for women who wore alternative dress (Lahsaeizadeh and Yousefinejad 2012: 24). This study also showed that such harassment also communicated the message that women do not belong to the public realm. Lahsaeizadeh and Yousefinejad (2012: 19) noted that such remarks do have negative effects on women’s self-esteem, making them feel not only

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uncomfortable and unsafe in public, but also with their sexualities, reinforcing female social and sexual submissiveness.

Despite the country, however, men’s right to access women’s bodies takes place in both the private and public spheres. As Pateman (1988) contends, once patriarchy is established in the marriage contract (in the private sphere) it automatically stretches to other arenas of public life. Due to explicit gender stereotyping and given that men have been granted extensive authority to regulate and define women in all spheres and spaces of their lives, Iranian law, state gender ideology, and culture have thus granted men the authority to treat women as they please, where it represents the gender-based oppression which reinforces a structure that subordinates women.

Women’s resistance will be discussed in the next chapter.

Moral Policing

Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the morality police have been appointed to maintain and protect the morality of the nation. The first organization was created in

1979, known as the Basij-e Mostazafin (Mobilization of the Oppressed), a volunteer militia directed by the decree of Ayatollah Khomeini to safeguard the Islamic Republic against counter-revolutionary revolts as well as threats from beyond Iran’s borders

(Sadeghi 2009: 50). Today, more than 4 million of the nearly 14 million Basijis are women. Roaming the public streets of urban centres (ironically, often accompanied by male militia), their main concern is to regulate the bodies of the citizenry; policing relations between men and women as well as their dressed bodies. Sometimes mobilized women or groups of revolutionary guards swarm private parties, arresting unveiled women, or women in “indecent” dress, as well as other violators for drinking or engaging

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in mixed-sex parties (Sedghi 2007: 218). They follow the rule of “enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong” and “eradicating depravity and “anti-values” (Sedghi 2007: 216).

In order to combat gender-mixing and women’s alternative dress, as well as other forces of Western ‘decadents’, even cafés, restaurants and clothing stores have been shut down,92 while satellite dishes have been confiscated.

Moral security, known as herasat, is also present at university entrances to assure that women are dressed accordingly. If their clothes do not conform to the rules, women are prohibited from entering the university until they change their clothes. Women are also asked to take off their makeup and nail polish. However, once inside, Ladan told me, she put on her makeup. Having been well accustomed to the rules, Ladan would often refrain from applying makeup prior to going to university because she knew she would have had to take it off. Although she risked being confronted about her made-up face once inside the school, it was less common.

The following is from a YouTube video which depicts the confrontations between women and the morality police, which provides us with an idea of what Basiji women usually say to women in improper dress.93

The manteaux you are wearing is tight and has a long slit. Don’t you think it violates our society’s norms? You live in an Islamic country, right? Your head is completely uncovered as well. Your make-up is too heavy.

As an Iranian citizen, do you think the way you are dressed is appropriate?...What you are wearing is sarafan (sleeveless dress with a

92 In 2012, close to 53 coffee shops and 87 restaurants were closed down. (Rezaian, Jason. (2012, July 21). Struggle over what to wear in Iran. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-07-21/world/35488091_1_hijab-morality-police-iranian-city 93 Sherlock72. (2010, July 7). Iranian woman attacked by Islamic morality police [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YedjmaAKVwQ 141

shirt worn under it). In Islamic dress code, this is not appropriate covering.

Come with us into the bus..We have some things to discuss with you.

Although penalties for going against imposed dress codes are less severe than what it was in the first decade of the Islamic Republic, women are still subject to fines, arrests, as well as verbal and physical abuse for dressing improperly. Nonetheless, many of the women I interviewed had encounters with the morality police.

Figure 7.3 Woman confronted by morality police (Source: Iranpoliticsclub.net)

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Figure 7.4 Woman being pulled away by the morality police. Note the young woman trying to resist (Source: http://www.voiceofthecopts.org/index.php/categories/womens-rights/6372- 6286women-who-violate-scarf-law-should-be-stripped-of-passports-iranian-lawmaker).

Figure 7.5 Physical fight breaks out between morality police and women (Source: http://bulletinoftheoppressionofwomen.com/2012/08/19/irans-morality-police- believe-uncovered-hair-releases-sex-rays-that-drive-men-wild/).

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Haideh was arrested for wearing sandals and a short manteaux:

Two women confronted me saying that my clothes and shoes were not good. I told them, it’s summer time..it’s hot, and it’s just my feet that are showing..my manteaux wasn’t even that short. But they said, ‘No, what you are wearing is not good and you have to come with us.’ I tried fighting with them, saying that, ‘You know...I’m not wearing anything bad,’ but they didn’t listen to me and made me go to the station with them. When I got the station I had to fill out a form that said that I would not wear these clothes again and they called my mom to bring new clothes for me. (Haideh, 25)

Anna, too, was arrested for bad-hijabi, twice. The first time, she was forcefully pushed into a van and taken to the police station where she had to sign a form. (Haideh had explained that most people do not need to show an identification card, so many women would fake their signatures). However, the next time she was approached, she made a public scene as she screamed and yelled.

I said I was a Masters student. I told her that this is what you’re doing with nohkbeh, this is what you’re doing to smart, intelligent people and you’re treating us like criminals... People were watching close by gathered around and cheered for me, saying that I was very brave. (Anna, 35)

The implications of wearing alternative dress also brought about verbal harassment and criticism by the Basijis. Caught on several occasions, Niki explained that she had been called a slut many times: “They would say, ‘You’re nothing, you’re gindeh (slut).”

Living with the prospects of potentially being confronted by the Basiji, women have had to learn how to get around them. As they wait at popular, busy intersections in large cities, many of the women told stories of the ways in which they have learned to bypass the Basiji in order to avoid encounters. Most knew where the Basiji were usually standing, thus they eventually learnt of alley ways and detours. Others would adjust their clothing before passing them.

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People usually know where the police are waiting..because they aren’t on all streets, they are just in certain parts of Tehran. So if you know you’re going to be passing them, you fix up your clothes. (Darya, 29)

When I saw the police catch some girls....I would fix myself up..roll down my sleeves, fix my scarf (Goli, 26)

Others had more adventurous experiences with the police.

One time I was out with a friend when a Basiji man started following us. We had to run across the street in the parking lot, and we hid in someone’s car...the car was parked, and we asked if we could get into the car, and he (the driver) said yeah...and the cop eventually left. (Zarine, 23)

Evident in Zarine’s experience, as well as many others, women who are confronted by the morality police often have much support and help from both men and women by- passers, who, despite knowing that they could potentially get in trouble, help women get away from the police or even insult and yell at the Basiji to let women go.

However, dress is not the only issue that women are confronted for. Although it is less of a common occurrence, women are also approached for wearing nail polish, with a penalty of a 10,000 tomans ($10) fine. Other penalties are for failing to wear socks and showing too much ankle. From top to bottom, there is a price on bodily ‘offenses’.94 Goli noted that whenever she was stopped for wearing nail polish, she simply lied and said that she was on her period. One of the reasons why nail polish is considered an offense is because it is evident of a non-praying woman. In order to pray, devotees’ bodies are expected to be clean, which also includes nails. Because women who are menstruating are considered impure, they are prohibited from praying. Thus, Goli had the perfect excuse. “How would they know? They can’t check you,” she said, laughing.

94 Men are also subject to moral policing due to their clothes. Although it is less severe than women, men have been advised to refrain from any styles, clothing, hairstyles or accessories, which are overtly Western. 145

Other experiences caused for feelings of anxiety and fear. Jillah had braided her hair, and included some coloured accessories in it. Visible under her veil, the police at the mall threatened to arrest her.

I apologized constantly...it was very scary because you don’t want to get in trouble for this simple thing..when you have done nothing wrong. There was so much anger..I felt so insulted...You feel like you don’t have the power to do anything about it. It’s not like you drank alcohol, it’s just a hijab. (Jillah, 31)

Of all the women I spoke with however, it was Sanaz who faced the largest penalty.

After being caught for associating with a young man (who was beaten up by the police) and improper clothing, Sanaz was pushed into a van and taken to jail at the age of 15.

After being forced to wash off her makeup with a pre-used bar of soap which she unpleasantly recollected, she was put in a small cell with nearly 25 other young women.

Recalling her brief time in jail, she remembered the hot and humid air which the small fan in the cell failed to change. Given only bread to eat, the smell of food from the kitchen still remained in her mind after all these years. Upon her four-day stay in jail, she received five lashes and paid a fine of 80,000 tomans (around $100 at the time).

Following her story, I asked Sanaz how she felt about being put in jail on such a basis.

[Like an] Object, really..it’s crazy...back then..it was over..I told my friends and we laughed about it. And it was kind of a proud story for me too. I got arrested and I stuck to my story, and I got the lashes..and I was proud of it, I did it, you know, but you know, no matter what, still like...you look at yourself as an object because... that’s how they see you...they can do whatever they want to. They can arrest you, rape you, they can...even men on the streets who hit on you...they see you as an object too. It doesn’t matter how educated they are, how open minded they are, you are living in that society, and that’s how everyone looks at you. (Sanaz, 28)

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Denying and Defining Women’s Sexuality

As women are subject to the gaze of the state, the moral police, neighbours and men, women do in fact become objects. They become objects which men, as well as women, react to, which the state acts upon, and which external forces police. As soon as women place themselves in public space, they can become automatic subjects of observation. I was curious to know how women felt about themselves knowing that their bodies become vulnerable to the gaze when they enter into the public realm. For many, the feeling of stress, pressure imposed on their general consciousness, the feelings of unease and humiliation were common responses.

I found it very horrible. This feeling of stress. The feeling that you are absolutely unsafe. You can be caught in the street and go to prison just because your manteaux is not long enough. This is very bothersome. I’m young...(Soraya, 25)

We aren’t normal women... There is a lot of pressure on us. When there is pressure, we aren’t comfortable. (Mina, 33)

You think every second that they are going to come and get you. You’re always nervous...Sometimes I wish I wasn’t a woman. (Sofia, 42)

For some women, like Sanaz, being turned into objects was a sign for the lack of control over their own bodies and sexualities; the veil, forced upon their heads, a constant reminder. Instead of being a sign of religiosity, the veil came to represent a woman’s subordination, both in their public and private lives. As Azari (1983: 114) describes, women have been conditioned to repress their sexuality to such an extent that they perceive themselves as asexual beings. As Leila had explained, “a woman who has sexual feelings is condemned... women are not supposed to enjoy sex nor want it.”

Although having pre-marital sex is denounced in Iran, and the punishment is death by stoning (Mahdavi 2007: 448), both Leila and Sanaz stated that they had sexual relations as teenagers. However, the extent to which Sanaz, in particular, understood sex

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at that point reiterates the notion of male dominance and female sexual submissiveness, even during sexual intercourse.

I had sex when I was in Iran, a few times. I think about it sometimes and I think...did I ever come? When I was there, I felt like I had to give my body. I felt like I had no control over it...It was the man who controlled me. I just laid there. I didn’t move. I didn’t do anything...nothing at all...like a potato... waiting for someone else to define sexuality for me... (Sanaz, 28)

For Sanaz, sexuality and sexual relations were pleasures which she believed has been taken away from women. Even talking about sex, she explained, was still uncomfortable for her friends in Iran to speak about: “They took away a thinking instrument from them,” she explained.

As Tara suggested, sexuality is “not my choice...I can’t decide for myself. They have decided for me.” Like Sanaz’s friends who felt uncomfortable speaking about sex, several women also noted that as they reached their teenage years, and their natural feelings of sexual attraction progressed, some felt embarrassed and even sinful. Leila,

Roya and Jillah suggested that women assume that such feelings are wrong to experience because women have been conditioned to do so.

While the external control over women, and the social conditioning to deny their bodies and reject their sexualities by observing Islamic dress was disheartening for many of the women, nonetheless, my conversations with them pointed to an opposing discourse of femininity. As illustrated in Mahdavi’s (2007; 2009) work, there are undoubtable changes unfolding amongst urban middle class women as they respond to the sociocultural and political changes taking place in the country. Considerably transforming sexual discourses in Iran through dating and pre-marital sex, not only are they reshaping their private sexual lives, but differing perceptions that women have about their bodies and sexualities are also being reflected on their dressed bodies in

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public. As will be discussed in the next chapter, some women, despite the repercussions, are using alternative dress to assert their own views of sexuality; utilizing their bodies as a discourse of opposition to the Islamic Republics norms and regulations over their womanhood.

Conclusion

The aim of this chapter has been to illustrate not only the contentiousness of women’s dressed bodies in Iranian society, but as well as how the imposition of Islamic dress has been used to control and incriminate women’s sexualities and further subordinate them.

Through various institutions and societal forces, women’s bodies have been policed under surveillances and gazes which have worked to marginalize women by keeping their bodies under the authority of men and the state. As noted, any deviance from state dress codes poses major implications for women, putting at risk state agents questioning their morality, subjecting them to verbal and physical abuse, and making them more vulnerable to sexual harassment, while women also risk losing occupational opportunities due to their attire. Moreover, because women’s bodies are so heavily regulated, we have seen in this chapter the ill effects that it has on women’s themselves.

Nonetheless, as made apparent, many women have refused to succumb to state rules as they have grown more conscious and critical of the monitoring and control over their bodies, sexualities and the meaning of their womanhood. The next chapter will delve further into these concerns in so to explore the significance of alternative dress to women in Iran.

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Chapter 8 Becoming Visible: (Re)Fashioning the Body Politic

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible - Oscar Wilde

I sinned a sin that pleased me utterly - Forough Farrokhzad

Introduction

The Islamic Regime had worked vigorously to establish an Islamic society based on its own particular definition. However, the reversal of a society already on the path of modernization, with the idea of women’s equality and hetero-sociability widely established prior to the 1979 revolution, such a task was not easily achievable by the regime despite all its intensive measures. To add to this context, as globalization filtered into the very spaces which the Islamization project had penetrated; as education and women’s initiatives progressed and established a new gender consciousness; and as women have worked to access the public realm, women have refused to succumb to the invisibility and passivity which the enforcement and donning of the regime’s Islamic dress has been intended to do. As the dark, neutral banality of women’s dress in the early years of the Republic reflected a particular discourse of femininity, the regime’s prospects of the Ideal Muslim Woman have slowly begun to crumble as women’s minds and perceptions of themselves had begun to change. As a new gender consciousness has developed and hopes for autonomy made apparent, women have begun to shed imposed ideological material wrapped around their bodies in order to refashion the very bodies and the selves which has been so integral to the regime’s power and ideological initiatives.

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Considering the social and political changes which have reshaped many urban women’s realities and perceptions of themselves since the 1990s, this chapter will examine the role of alternative dress as a critical channel through which to fathom the multitude of implications that the donning of such dress is posing: its role in challenging male authority, subverting state restrictions, asserting individualism and positing one’s own identity. As women thus dress in alternative fashions and assert themselves in the visibility of the public domain to be gazed upon by the state and the citizenry, not only do they challenge the homogenous identity which the regime had once aimed to establish, but they transform the meaning of ‘woman’ in such ways which radically contradicts state-foisted feminine identity and bodily appearances; a body which is not only to be covered by material, but is immobile, restrained and submissive, and away from the participatory nature of the public sphere.

Because the authority of the regime lies in their power to control the bodies and appearances of its citizens, and given that Islamic dress has been appropriated and utilized as their most imperative tool to control women in their public (and private) lives, alternative dress has thus become the ultimate symbolic attack on the Islamic

Regime.

The Fashioned Body Goes Public

When one visits Iran, it is difficult to ignore the pervasive images which are heavily placed around the country’s public spaces. In Tehran, in particular, I immediately noticed an absence of women. Billboards and advertisements only consisted of male characters; pictures of male martyrs were placed one-by-one down the highways; Islamic and revolutionary quotes said by men were written on the walls; and the superimposed

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faces of Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamenei95 signified the patriarchal and nationalistic ideology of the state. In the obviously politicized and gendered-ized public spaces of Iran, when women were portrayed in images, they only appeared as mothers mourning the loss of their martyred sons or modest Islamic women who donned the veil to symbolize their chastity and morality. Because representations of women’s bodies are so sensitive in Iran, even shop window mannequins have to conceal the feminine body

(See Kar 2006). Women’s representations in state imposed images contrasted heavily with their visibility in physical and material public presence as their colorfully, form fitted dressed bodies suggested an opposing representation.

Figure 8.1 Store mannequins in Iran. Note that their breasts have been cut off (Source: http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2010/06/are-irans-vice-police-providing-forced- mastectomies-to-mannequins/).

Whether I was in Tehran or Shiraz, the ‘modest’ Muslim woman, one who hid her hair, covered her body, and lacked aesthetic embellishment, the Iranian woman that I

95 Ayatollah Khomeini was the former Supreme Leader of Iran (see chapter 5). Ayatollah Khamenei is the current Supreme Leader. 152

had always imagined prior to my travels, had, in large part, ceased to exist in public view.

Instead, women dressed themselves in myriad colours. Different styles and materials converged together, with necklaces, earrings, rings, and handbags complementing their fashion, all the while their forearms, toes, ankles and parts of their neck and highlighted hair remained visibly bare. As they asserted their alternative dressed bodies in public sight, they stood in stark contrast to the ideal Muslim Woman which the regime had so vigorously worked to create; a woman who not only dressed accordingly, but remained outside of the presence and participative nature of the public sphere.

As made apparent by now, the public sphere in Iran has been institutionalized and conceptualized as the space in which the Islamization endeavor has been played out, while it has also been vested as a masculine realm. Yet since the establishment of the

Islamic Republic, as noted in chapter five, women have struggled against state rules which have attempted to restrict their access to the public domain. Although women attempted to plant themselves into the public sphere in various ways soon after the revolution, the social and political shifts since 1990s have changed the ways women have accessed the public realm, in which women are now consciously and sensibly utilizing the public space for social and political means. As Hoodfar (2012: 208) argues, “Iranian women...have learnt through centuries of exclusion from the public space that public space access is pivotal to autonomy, especially with regards to equality, full citizenship and control over their own sexuality...Women have understood that visibility is power.”

Fashion aside, women’s mere bodily presence itself has disrupted the bounds of

Iran’s public space as a masculine space. While once expected to be absent from it, subtle actions such as sitting in parks, walking on the sidewalk, interacting with men, shopping, going to cafés, Hoodfar and Ghoreishian (2012) argue, claims a particular presence of women which defies the regime’s view that women are to be bounded solely to the 153

domestic sphere. Due to the authoritarian nature of the regime, instead of overt defiance, many women have had to resort to such means as making themselves visible in public in order to access resources and opportunities to integrate themselves into the public realm

(Hoodfar and Ghoreishian 2012; Kian-Thiebaut 2002). Consequently, women have struggled for, and have eventually managed to, assert themselves as public actors by pursuing higher education, respectable professions, sports, among a long list of others, all the while shifting the conventional public-private divide (Bayat 2010: 16-17).

Figure 8.2 Fashionable woman in Isfahan (Source: The Tehran Times)

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Figure 8.3 Street Fashion in Tehran (Source: The Tehran Times)

Figure 8.4 Hipsters in Tehran (Source: Humans of Tehran)

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Women’s physical presence, coupled with a dressed body which does not adhere to state dress codes, ultimately defies the fundamental conception of women in both their public and private presence as ordered by the Islamic Regime. Not only does it defy state ideology which has limited women and granted men power over women, but as women dress in alternative fashions and position themselves in the public sphere, they disrupt the image of homogeneity and the singular identity which the regime had initially attempted to install to fortify their power and control the masses. As women assert signs of individualism and posit their own identities through their alternatively dressed body, the refashioning of the feminine body in the public domain is undoubtedly posing a considerable challenge.

Identity and Individualism

The assertion of individualism, especially from women, is a rather dangerous one for religious fundamentalism (Freedman 1997; Graybill and Arthur 1999). We learned in chapter five that individual bodies had ceased to exist, at least in public, in order for a unified body to prevail at a national level with the advent of the Islamic Republic.

Deemed as a substantial threat to communal identity, and an abandonment and betrayal to the group psychology, forming an individual identity implies a rejection of the collective morale and its ideals. As Varzi (2006: 198) contends, in Iran “The idea of a transmutable identity threatens the legitimacy of the conservative clergy for whom there can only exist a monolithic Islamic identity.” Especially in regards to women, who are controlled and regulated more closely than men, asserting an individual self would contest not only the state’s hold over women, but the regime’s ideological initiatives also.

Thus, as Islamic dress has been utilized as the ultimate symbolic tool to control and discipline the minds and bodies of the masses, to sway the citizenry to accept its beliefs,

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women who assert an aesthetically separated body thus simultaneously imply an ideologically separated body as well.

Fashion is not simply a mere presentation of the body, but it is also a reflection of the self, as discussed in the literature overview in chapter 3. Given that the Islamic

Regime has coercively enforced Islamic dress to refashion women’s beliefs, women’s use of alternative dress thus implies an opposing and dramatic non-verbal discourse which aims to assert an independent body in the public sphere. As Balasecu (2003:44) argues,

“Fashion is the result of the interaction between dress and a specific conception of the self, taking place in a space that bases its usage on an elevated attention according to visibility: the public space.” Concurrently, according to Crane (2000: 237), the significance of clothing is that it is supposed to be worn in the public realm since the public influences the ways in which people use clothes to express themselves and make subversive statements. Thus, as public visibility works to transform implicit feelings into observable actions, asserting an ideologically and aesthetically separated body ultimately opposes the regime’s conception of women’s social roles, bodily appearances, and most importantly, their individual identities.

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Figure 8.5 Skulls in Tehran (Source: The Tehran Times)

Figure 8.6 Fashionable outfit and accessories (Source: The Tehran Times). 158

Private Dressing

When I had asked women if they were able to exercise their individuality while living in

Iran, some responded by saying that in private, within their families96 or between friends, there was a relative openness to express oneself: acting and behaving the way they want, saying what they wish, dressing as they please. While this thesis is more concerned with public expressions of individualism, since it is in this public presence that individualism has been more coercively refused to women, a brief consideration of the use of dress in the private domain is necessary to discuss as well.

While women push the limits of acceptable dress codes in public, it is in the private sphere where women are able to dress according to their own dictates, tastes and styles. This was an event that I was fortunate enough to witness during my time in Iran, where I had the opportunity to observe the stark contrasts of people’s bodies in their public and private appearances, something that, prior to my travels, I did not expect.

I remember getting ready for a wedding that I did not plan on attending while I was in Isfahan. Having had to work with the dress clothes that I brought along with me, nice tops and black pants (I was going to the Islamic Republic of Iran, I thought, why would I need to pack a skirt or a dress anyway?) I resorted to wearing a formal sleeveless top, which my mom was quick to tell me to pull up to cover more of my chest. ‘This is a conservative society,’ she reminded me, ‘you can’t dress the same way you usually do.’

Knowing beforehand that it was a mixed-sex wedding, I listened to my mother’s concerns, and made sure to dress as modestly as possible.

Arriving at the venue, I had followed my aunt to a room which had been converted into a change-room for women. As quickly as I entered, I was stunned by the sight ahead of me. I watched as women disrobed, discarding their manteaux’s and veils

96 Some women who came from liberal and open households explained that their parents accepted and allowed for the women to dress as they wanted, partake in certain leisure activities and have boyfriends. 159

for short, tight dresses and high heels which were hidden underneath their loose Islamic attire. Their hair was stylishly made, make-up done to perfection, while nails were manicured and pedicured. Yet, in the midst of young and old women donning clothes in which legs and arms were bare, I, the Canadian, stood out as the most conservative one there--and people took notice. As my aunt introduced me to wedding guests as the ‘niece from Canada,’ guests were quick to tell me that something about me registered to them that I was different, as they glared down at my black pants.

For many women, private parties and gatherings were relatively safe spaces in which they could enjoy themselves. Hanging out with mixed-sex friends or family members, private spaces were often appropriated as spaces integral to, in one respect, adorning clothes that women themselves wished to wear, such as glittery short sleeve tops and dresses which showed their arms and legs. However, due to the intensive restrictions of women’s dress codes in public, some women also stated that the relative freedom of the private sphere causes some Iranian women to apply heavier makeup and dress in much shorter dresses. Sara stated that, “Because of the pressure of wearing the hijab outside of the house, women are reacting much more drastically in private parties, because that’s their freedom.” Several also explained to me that the more the government imposes stiffer restrictions, the more the youth will resist in further, and sometimes more extreme measures. This is not only limited to dress, either (See Mahdavi 2009).

Moreover, while the regime had attempted to socialize women into model

Muslim women, expecting them to adhere to specific rules about appropriate aesthetic appearances around men, many stated that they had no problem wearing revealing clothing nor showing their hair around non-related men when in private.

I felt fine showing my body to others. It was a good feeling for me and my friends...Finally we were able to comfortably show ourselves...But

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still, there is no place where you feel safe. We did it in our homes, but there is nothing free there [in Iran]. (Niki, 30)

While for Zarine, and several others, the private space was a place of solace, saying that

“It’s like the world outside has nothing to do with what’s going on inside,” as Niki’s comment suggests, despite the moderate feeling of freedom and safety people feel while away from the gaze of the morality police, the sense of total ease is still minimal.

Nonetheless, many women took advantage of the private space, dressing themselves in manners which would not be permitted in public.

Public Dressing

Asserting individual identities, whether through dress or not, was a restricted reality of public life for Iranians, especially women. Responses from women I interviewed contended that, since socialization as children in school, individualism has never been a subject of discussion. Never did teachers encourage girls to form their own opinions, choose their own identities, or contemplate matters pertaining to their social and familial roles. Instead of providing them with choices, girls have been told what is and is not applicable and suitable in a woman’s life. As Leila explained,

You’re not supposed to have individualism...it has been denied to Iranian women. You’re nothing but a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife...and anything that is different is a problem.

From the roles women are to take up within the family and society, the ways in which they are to behave, maintain their bodily comportment, or dress, the state has devised the one sole choice.

The enforcement of colour-specific Islamic dress by the regime had initially been intended to void the individual person, preventing the assertion of an independent identity. Allowing only black, navy blue, grey, brown and beige in the earlier years of the

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Republic, the state strategically used such colours to not only contain and control the masses, but to assert a vision of a homogeneously devoted Islamic citizenry. Through the singular and monotonous appearance of the peoples, its mechanicalness was a way in which to constantly remind the subject of its relationship to the Islamic state. It was clear among several of the comments that the unvaried and routine dressed bodies of women, in which differences lacked, was a public and visual representation of the fact that women were not intended to stand out nor express an identity which did not follow the regimes’.

While women have managed to break through colour barriers, as they are now permitted to embellish themselves in a multitude of colours, despite its ‘provocativeness’ at times which was discussed in the previous chapter, the normative, neutral colours of the regime are still the only acceptable colours girls and women can wear at many of the schools, universities, as well as workplaces. (However, my nine year old cousin’s school uniform consisted of a grey uniform with a pink magneh). As Setareh had explained,

They [the Regime] have an obsession with dark colours for women and they try to make us think that women who do wear these colours are like..the good women...like the model women. But I don’t get it...everyone wearing black or brown just makes everyone depressed....It makes everyone look similar. You can’t tell anyone apart, but that’s what they want I guess. (Setareh, 28)

Ava, too, expressed her discontent with the regime’s expectations for homogeneity in appearance, using a colourful manteaux in opposition.

I remember I bought a manteaux that was yellow. I usually didn’t wear that type of manteaux but I wanted to be different; I didn’t want to be like everyone else...black. They [the government] want everyone to be exactly the same. They don’t want any changes. (Ava, 27)

For several of the women, being able to dress in contrasting colours and styles was a means by which to separate themselves from the mono-colour, indistinguishable Iranian

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populace. Despite its potential implications, several felt that dressing alternatively was one of the only ways in which they were able to assert and express their individualism in public. Wearing different colours was also a way for Goli to accomplish this.

I feel like I’m unique in the middle of black, grey colours that people are wearing...I stand out....and it’s hard to do that in a country like that. (Goli, 26)

Although women were well familiar with the repercussions for dressing alternatively, namely, being arrested or harassed by the morality police, men and even ordinary citizens, they continued to do so because of its imperative play on who they were as persons to themselves. Although Ava was well aware of the consequences, having dealt with the Basiji on a number of occasions, she, along with others, continued to observe alternative dress regardless: “I didn’t care if they arrested me” she explained, “I just wanted to be myself.” Ladan expressed the same assertive, as well as frustrated, remark,

I didn’t care if they said I wasn’t a good woman...I just didn’t...this is me..Why do I have to pretend to be someone that they want? How is that going to make my life better, or make me a happier, healthier person? I know I am a good woman, and it has nothing to do with my appearance...but to them, that’s all that matters. (Ladan, 27)

Although several noted that they were once more cautious about their appearances, as they grew older, they became less concerned with how others reacted to them and instead worked to dress in ways which fulfilled their own personal contentment.

In Iran, you can’t be yourself..most people can’t. You have to be whatever they tell you. You can’t show who you are to people..like..you can’t be honest with people about who you are...A lot of people judge, and there are restrictions, so you can’t really express yourself. But eventually you learn to ignore them..you have to..and one of the ways we can do that is through our clothes. (Yasameen, 24)

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If you wear anything it should reflect your identity. You have to choose according to your character. (Marjan, 32)

Being that women lack other means in which to verbally express and define themselves, a number of the women have found that clothing has been a symbolic tool in which to posit a self-presentation of their own choosing.

Considering that choices have often been limited to them, in terms of what they could do during leisure time, what they could say, and what they could wear, the ability to choose how they wished to appear was paramount. Although alternative dress is still worn within the limitations of state dress codes, the donning of such dress is still not the expected attire of the Islamic Regime. It is instead an appropriation of materials, colours and styles done so at one’s own choosing. As Balasecu (2007: 278) contends, “Fashion and consumption resonate with a type of internalized form of control, pivoting around the idea of “desire.”

I think it has a lot to do about the chance to just choose. We aren’t really allowed to choose anything... we are restricted of it most of the time, but being able to choose our clothing is important. (Shanaz, 27)

It’s like we can improve ourselves with these types of clothes. We can decide for ourselves how we want to appear and that is one of the reasons clothes are so appealing to me, because I can choose my appearance. The word ‘choice’ is not very common to women in Iran. We don’t have choices the way you do here in Canada, or women do in Canada or anywhere else..the United States. When you are always told to do this and that, and not talk to those boys, or cover yourself by wearing only these clothes, don’t say this, all so you can be seen or thought of as a good woman, being able to choose how you want to look is a really good feeling. And especially for appearance, because we have always been limited, so being able to choose our appearance is a very exciting experience. It’s like we get to create ourselves. (Yasameen, 24)

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For many, the opportunity to choose their appearances was ultimately the means by which they were able to oppose the image that the regime had carved out for them while resisting the state-imposed definition of women, in not only their public attire, but their private lives and identities as well. For Niki, dressing alternatively permitted her to resist the state’s definition of women.

I was never wearing my clothes the way that they wanted because by dressing this way, I wouldn’t let them define me...It’s [a] small [act] but it’s really important.

Despite restrictions and drawbacks, having the opportunity to define oneself was critical.

As women were well aware of what the imposed hijab contended, one which worked to regulate and define women both internally and externally, by dressing alternatively they realized its symbolic challenge. As Sanaz had explained that the ‘Ideal Woman’ of the regime was one who “doesn’t think, doesn’t say much, accepts without questioning,” wearing alternative dress was thus a direct challenge.

Haideh’s comment which follows attests to the opposition towards such an expectation of women:

[...] wearing anything that the government doesn’t want us to wear, intentionally or not, is a threat [to the regime] because it shows that we are not the dumb, passive women that they had wanted. They wanted us [women] to just accept everything that they said. So wearing these clothes, it is like saying that we are not thinking the same way that they think, or how they think we should be.

Thus, for many women who dressed in alternative fashions, they aimed to resist state definitions and expectations of them in order to assert an individual, confident body and identity which they defined for themselves. Being able to choose and cross the bounds of state-imposed limitations of proper feminine appearances offered women the opportunity to assert their individual selves through the mere act of dressing. 165

Confidence

As noted in chapter 6, education, communication technologies and rise of women’s political and social demands had profound effects on the overall socio-political climate of the country, but especially on how women acknowledged themselves as persons and as individuals. Having come from a generation of Iranian women who have struggled to attain equality with men by accessing educational institutions, the labour force, and presence in the public realm, the changes made to women’s realities have had major effects on the overall consciousness and confidence of women. Several explained that it was due to such confidence that women have been able to change their attire.

Us women have a lot more confidence ...Women want to be more stronger, and it’s obvious in clothing..They [women] want to show that they are a person...that they are strong. (Goli, 26)

Other women talked of this as well.

All the changes come from women..they teach their children what to say, what to do...even if they are oppressed, women are still more open- minded than men in Iran. After 30 years of trying to put limitations on women..it’s not working...we have working women..engineers, doctors, taxi drivers....women are fighting to keep their power. (Sanaz, 28)

The most easiest choice for us would have been to just wear the hijab properly and dress like they want us to. But I didn’t want to take this way...and you see it with all of these women who wear these clothes. The point is to be honest to ourselves..I think that’s what it is in a lot of ways. If I just wore the hijab [properly] or a chador..I wouldn’t have any problems in society...no one would say anything to me... I wouldn’t be scared that someone might arrest me. But because of the person that I am..my personality, I couldn’t wear those clothes, as much they forced it on me because that would be like I was lying to myself. If I dress this way [in alternative dress] it means that I can be honest to myself... I can show who I am. Also it shows that I do not agree with them. To wear those clothes [proper Islamic dress] it means that you obey and accept, but I couldn’t do it, and when I had to, I didn’t like myself. (Roya, 27)

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In many ways, Roya’s comment sums up how many women view the politics of clothing in relation to women’s struggles for autonomy, suggesting that the adorning of alternative dress is an expression of women’s growing confidence, which is necessary to not only survive the obstacles of life as a woman in Iran, but in order to sustain one’s own personhood as well. Nonetheless, the implications of dressing in such alternative fashions challenge the masculine hold over women.

Contesting Male Authority

When women are regulated due to their gender, representations and discourses of women are posited to sustain the scheme of patriarchy (Whisner 1982: 118). As clothing regulations in the Islamic Republic work to conflict and deny the individual person the ability to choose an identity and self-presentation for themselves, the self-chosen appearances of women thus pose a fundamental challenge to masculine authority. Given that a man’s honour and power has long been associated with their control over women’s seclusion, appearance and sexuality, some women also spoke of the implications that choosing one’s own appearance, while showing parts of their bodies, has on men and the religious establishment.

Traditional men don’t like women to show their bodies, because that is their way of controlling women. In male culture, they always want to control women, including their appearances. So when you start choosing your own appearance as your own personal choice, they don’t want that because it shows that they don’t have as much control over women. (Jillah, 31)

It [the veil] is about a man’s belonging...[the hijab is not about] protecting women...not protection...it’s about not allowing the woman to be seen. I don’t think the philosophy is that not being veiled might harm you, ‘so because I like you I want you protected from the danger, so I want you to be veiled’... that’s not what is going on. It’s about..you belong to me. (Leila, 29)

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As Jillah and Leila’s comments contend, Islamic dress has less to do with religiously and the discourse of protection, but instead about a means of controlling and maintaining a patriarchal hold over women’s bodies. By controlling the outer appearance of women’s bodies, men would also have control over their internal selves, along with their sexualities. Yet, as women dress according to their own choosing, and to meet their own personal objectives, the power given to such authorities has weakened.

I think the way of dressing is just a continuation of the same discourse of femininity and sexuality; it’s just in its public form. In Islam, it is one of your duties to your husband to look beautiful, but only to your husband. What’s changed now is that women are expressing it to others...Women are wanting to be beautiful for themselves now rather than only for their husbands. (Leila, 29)

In the context of Iran and most Middle Eastern societies, where conventionally women have mostly socialized in single-sex settings, the desire to be beautiful for themselves and be admired by their friends is not as new as Leila is claiming. Nonetheless, under the new social and political context of Iran, dress has acquired a new meaning. As Leila’s comment suggests, dress provides a means by which women can consciously meet their own personal desires of beautification and self-fulfillment through appearances. For some women, wearing alternative dress, applying make-up, and showing stylish hair under their pushed back veils was simply a way for them to take pleasure in their own womanhood.

I feel more like a woman in nice clothes. I want to be beautiful and attractive..not for anyone else but for myself. When I’m forced to wear the manteaux and the veil, I just don’t get any pleasure or satisfaction from it. I want everything I wear to be nice. When you are not allowed to wear these clothes, the satisfaction that comes from wearing them is so much more...that is why I like traveling outside of Iran. (Tallah, 42)

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For others such as Sanaz, it was a way in which to feel sexy: “I wanted to feel sexy, you know...I could never feel sexy there...So dressing in such clothes was kind of like a fantasy and it’s very empowering.” For Sanaz to want to “feel sexy” is in itself an opposite understanding of ‘normative’ feminine sexuality in Iran. As discussed in chapter 5 and 7, sexuality is intended to be, essentially, non-existent for women. As women’s dressed bodies in the Islamic Republic are expected to personify and epitomize the docile, asexual Muslim woman, Sanaz’s comment reiterates the transformation of women’s understandings about themselves and their sexualities, which is becoming more apparent and communicated through their dress choices.97 Thus, women’s visibility and presence in the public realm, when dressed in alternative fashions, affords a space for a different presentation and rendition of gender and sexuality to play out.98

However, this new understanding of sexuality, self-fulfillment, and asserting of individual and independent identities which women are proclaiming through their dressed bodies conflicts directly with the sexual supremacy that men have been granted on behalf of Islam. As Islam, according the Islamic Regime, has reduced women’s beauty to only a matter necessary to arouse and satisfy the masculine sexual appetite, women are now transforming such notions to meet one’s own personal needs and desires rather than doing so solely for their husbands. As Moallem (2005: 109) contends, the

‘hegemonic masculinity’ which the Islamic Regime posited was “complemented by an emphasized femininity, symbolized by the veiled woman.” Thus, alternative dress asserts a radical alteration of fixed and essentialized gender norms which have consequently worked to re-shape social identities and relations between the sexes, in the public as well as private domain.

97 Some of the women also pointed out that women dress for attention from men as well. Anna and Leila both noted their criticism of such women who dressed up only to attract men. 98 Beautification is not only through dress. Iran has been deemed as the ‘nose job capital of the world’. Estimates of the number of procedures per year is roughly between 35,000 to 70,000 (Lenehan 2011:48). However, it is not only secular woman who get such procedures done. I observed a number of men with bandaids on their nose, as well as young women in chadors. 169

However, alternative dress may not have been as threatening as it is now if it was not due to the significant and drastic changes made to women’s lives in the past decades.

Soraya spoke of the political threat that women are now posing against the Islamic

Regime and male authority as they become more educated and independent, she believed that wearing alternative dress is a sign of the increasing boldness of women.

Women in Iran are very intelligent. Women can speak very well... they are very well educated. I think this is why the government is so afraid now. They are the biggest threat. Women who are more educated stand up for their rights... they aren’t going to accept what is being told to them easily, and clothing is for sure expressing that confidence. If they didn’t have that confidence I don’t think it would have been possible for all these women to go out dressing like this because it takes like...a lot of courage to do that. I remember my mother saying that if someone told her that this is how women would be dressing eventually, when the government first came [to power], she would not have believed it. And it is because as women get more independent, they want to prove that they are confident, so they go out dressed in these clothes, they have fun with their friends... they are not walked down the street with their fathers or husbands...or some man. Instead they are going out independently, showing that they do not have to depend too much on men or that they are not like the women that the government wants, and this is what the regime is afraid of. (Soraya, 26)

It is precisely for such reasons that the Islamic Regime has attempted to denounce women in alternative dress.

The Islamic Republic Attacks the Fashionable

On the onslaught of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini had attempted to rid Iran of its ‘corrupt’, Western past. Thirty years later, and despite the obvious failure to isolate

Iran from forces of globalization, many critics continue to argue that Iranian youth’s engagement with (mostly) Western popular culture and consumerism are ‘corrupting’

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influences and a ‘cultural invasion’ (Jafari 2007: 369). In the eyes of the clergy and conservative sectors of society, alternatively dressed women, as well as men, have been implicated and deemed as threatening “the moral security of the society” (Basmenji

2005: 303). As an Ayatollah in Iran had proclaimed, ‘women who are unveiled and wear tight clothing are more dangerous than evil animals.’99

As already stated elsewhere, the regime not only used the morality police to keep surveillance over the dressed bodies of the citizenry, but hijab propaganda had also been placed around Iran’s urban centres to remind women of to abide by Islamic dress codes.

Yet aside from such measures, additional governmental services have made their concerns about women’s dress apparent, condemning and denouncing fashionable women through posters which intend to make a mockery of women in alternative dress.

Figure 8.7 “Fashion: Those who suffer from weak self-esteem and lack of beliefs try to make themselves more appealing to others with fashion so they can hide their weaknesses.” (Source: http://imgur.com/a/JqG1V )

99 Quote of Ayatollah ‘Alam Al-Hodeh, a prayer leader in the city of Mashad. Eeyore (2011, June 15). Iranian Police to Launch Dress Code Enforcement Campaign; Ayatollah: Unveiled Women More Dangerous Than Evil Animals. Vlad Tepes. Retrieved from http://vladtepesblog.com/2011/06/15/iranian- police-to-launch-dress-code-enforcement-campaign-ayatollah-unveiled-women-more-dangerous-than-evil- animals/ 171

Figure 8.8 “Psychologists say: those who dress inappropriately and use lots of make-up have character issues.” (Source: http://imgur.com/a/JqG1V).

Figure 8.9 ‘Brainless Badly Veiled Women’ (Source: http://www.insideofiran.org/en/component/content/article/68-women-rights/1942- brainless-badly-veiled-women.html).

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The women of this study were well aware of the challenges that the female collectivity in urban Iran are now posing. Fashion aside, their remarks have illustrated that Iranian women have come a long way since the advent of the Islamic Republic, in which they are more educated, more confident, and more independent than ever before. However, as they express such an assertive and independent body while dressed in alternative fashions, positioned in the public realm, that very body directly defies almost everything that the regime has worked to make static.

This growing confidence of women is also apparent in how they react to their control by external forces. Despite intensive measures taken to regulate the citizenry with moral policing, women have reacted to such pressures, some even fighting back when they have been confronted. YouTube videos100 show recordings of women on the streets attacking those who have attempted to criticize and arrest them, while others have physically and verbally abused clerics and citizens who have approached them for bad-hijabi.101 Women also explained to me that a woman’s attitude and demeanor affects how the morality police treat them. If women express confidence and assertiveness, the

Basiji are less likely to continue to harassing while those who are visibly afraid are more vulnerable.

Women have grown to be a lot more confident...they stand up for themselves...they talk back and defend themselves.” (Ellaheh, 27)

However, women are not only using their bodies to contest Islamic dress codes by engaging in alternative fashions, but they have also made their voices heard through blogs. Blogging has been be a critical space used by many Iran women to speak freely

100 Sherlock72. (2010, March 4). Iranian woman clashes with moral police in Black [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh17-5LD9mY 101 The cleric said that when he told her to cover up she told him to ‘cover his eyes’. Proceeding to tell her a second time, the woman hit him with a cloth, hit the ground, and apparently the woman continued kicking and insulting him. (Brumfield, Ben and Shirzad Bozorgmehr. (2012, September 20). Girls beat up Iran cleric over dress code. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/20/world/meast/iran-hijab- fisticuffs 173

about their issues and concerns with compulsory veiling. As evident in the work of Alavi

(2005) and Sadr (2012), blogs have been a space for which young women have ridiculed the discourse of the Regime’s ‘revolutionary hijab’.

The day we don’t have to wear the veil, Iranian women will shed five kilos of excess gear...We will live in a more colourful land...Women will pay more attention to their figure...We are no different from the free men and women of the world..if we were free we would not be so culturally obsessed with the lower parts of our bodies. We know how to think, how to educate ourselves, how to work hard and improve ourselves. If we had free choice, people who still believed in the veil could wear it and those of us that don’t wouldn’t. As a society we would learn to respect other viewpoints and not ridicule them for being backwards for wearing the veil and we would learn how to avert our eyes. It comes back to reforming ourselves and not restricting others. (Alavi 2005: 174-5)

If the government was not scared of the potential threat of women, many explained to me, the regime would not enforce such intensive (and expensive) measures to patrol women’s dressed bodies when they could being using such initiatives and money to develop other ailing aspects of Iranian society.

Nonetheless, there have been attempts on behalf of the regime to curb women’s

‘inappropriate’ dress by promoting Islamic fashions of their own. In 2006, religious authorities put on a fashion exhibit in Tehran which aimed to encourage female modesty through the promotion of ankle-length manteaux’s, overcoats, and all covering black chadors. They attempted to publicize the image that women can dress stylishly while following the values of the Qur’an.102 However, as the Islamic Regime has failed to recognize, women’s alternative dress is not always a matter of simply dressing fashionably. As women’s responses have demonstrated, their changing appearances are a

102 Tait, Robert. (2006, July 14). Iran’s fashion police put on a show of chadors to stem Western cultural invasion. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.gaurdian.co.uk/world2006/jul/14/iran.roberttait. 174

reflection of the self, in which women are using dress to resist the images and definitions which the regime has attempted to impose on them since childhood.

Resisting Through the Fashioned Body

Everyday uses of dress as a form of resistance in Iran fails to be taken seriously among some scholars, as noted in the introductory chapter. They have argued that not only is it trivial material, but its wearers are not resisting on a tangible agenda which works to reach legal changes.103 Others argued that such women who wear alternative dress do so, not to change the situation of women, but to simply show off their social class while attracting the male gaze.

Because acts of resistance are often conceptualized as blatantly obvious movements, critics have argued that resistance through dress is a rather fruitless and ineffective ground in which to oppose the state. However, I argue that the use of dress as an act of resistance and subversion must be considered in light of the sociopolitical context in which it is taking place, and for what purposes it aims to achieve. Moreover, because Iran is governed by an authoritative government, resistance often has to be more symbolic and covert rather than openly defiant and pronounced, which is what Scott

(1985) has theorized as “everyday acts of resistance.”

As discussed in chapter 3, Scott explains that due to the potential consequences of engaging in overt acts of resistance, subordinated groups often have no choice but to suppress and regulate their anger, only to have their inner feelings of opposition and resistance emerge through what he calls the ‘hidden transcript’ (Scott 1990). Focusing on the peasants of Sedaka, Scott explains how peasants, while not being obvious about their resistance, focus instead on destroying farm animals or starting fires in order to resist their exploitative conditions. Although at first such acts may not appear to be political

103 I’m addressing the concerns noted in chapter 1. 175

protest, Scott argues that when considered within a particular context and within specific power relations, such acts do manifest as forms of resistance.

However, it is necessary to extend on the “hidden transcript” and call alternative dress a “silent transcript,” given that visibility matters to women’s resistance in Iran.

Firstly, to be seen in public is the only way one can transmit subversive statements through their clothes. If one is not seen, then clothing is rather insignificant in this sense.

Additionally, because dress is a form of non-verbal communication, women do not verbalize their resistance, so it is much harder for them to be punished on the basis that they are in fact resisting the state’s power. Thus, as women make themselves visible in the contentious space of the public sphere, alternative dress manifests as a clever way in which to resist the state without subversive intentions having to be made explicit.

Yet to make the argument of women’s use of alternative dress in Iran as an effective act of subversion against the state, scholars such as Bayat (2010), Hoodfar

(2008) and Mahdi (2003) have stated that women in Iran are now, to put it in Mahdi’s

(2003: 67) words, “less committed to totalizing ideologies, grand theories, and broad organizations” and instead invest their energies and their actions towards issues affecting their daily lives. Thus women aim to transform and improve their current situations by using subtle acts of resistance and subversion to maintain their identities, individual autonomy and rights, as well as their womanhood against the “assaults by the totalitarian gender policies of the state” (Ibid, 67). In other words, because of the repressive nature of the regime, women’s resistance is likely to be highly individualized, wherein which individual women participate in common actions despite the lack of collective actors and organizations with a specific agenda.104 Marked by greater

104 While Bayat (2010) describes such movements as “non-movements”, some scholars working on women’s movements have objected the term “non movement” as it tends to trivialize the very vibrant women’s movement in Iran. Instead they have suggested terms such as non-organized movement or informal movements (See Hoodfar and Sadeghi 2007). 176

individualism, in contemporary Iran, women’s activism has taken on a “self-reflective” dimension (Mahdi 2003: 67).

It is in this light in which we must consider the role of alternative dress as means of resistance and subversion against the Islamic Regime. For many women of this study, unable to verbally express their discontent, dress has taken on a role of a non-verbal opposition. As Mahdavi (2009: 122) points out, for young people in Iran, “the absence of an option to express dissent or unhappiness with the regime overtly’ results in

‘concentrating their efforts on looking good as a way to speak back to the regime.”

Concurrently, as Atoosa explained, “We aren’t allowed to openly talk or argue, so this is our way of saying that we don’t agree. This new fashion is like a gun for us.”

To fathom why the use of alternative dress in Iran manifests as an important, as well as symbolic act of resistance, attention must be concentrated on the significance of women’s dress and their bodies to the Islamic Republic; both of which have been dramatically and strategically utilized by the state to fortify their ideological project and maintain their power. As the imposition of Islamic dress was intended to not only fashion bodies but minds in order to adhere to the ideological undertaking of the regime, the Islamic Republic’s first move was to appropriate the bodies of women to foist an obedient and loyal Muslim citizenry. Within the confines of the veil, and drenched in the materials of imposed Islamic attire, a social order rested, and a specific discourse of femininity penetrated. Women’s bodies, hidden and concealed, signified and defined the

Regime’s definition of femininity: obedient to the man’s will, sexually submissive, passive, and docile. Arguably, the regime’s entire political project ultimately rested on the dressed bodies of women. Thus, as colour, styles, and skin have reemerged and reappeared upon the bodies of Iranian women, a new meaning of ‘woman’ is appearing.

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Figure 8.10 Alternatively dressed women mock hijab public propaganda sign. The sign says, ‘Executing the plan for promoting moral security is a national and religious demand.’ (Source: http://twicsy.com/i/Puqx2b).

Conclusion

The body as a medium and site for communication, expression, independence, subversion and action is clearly manifested through the use of alternative dress. As the

Islamic Regime has targeted women’s bodies as the ‘ideological battleground for control,’ women have also put imperative emphasis on the control over their own bodies (Mahdi

2008: 67) as they have reacted to the politicization of their bodies (Sadr 2012: 183). As the imposition of Islamic dress has worked to deprive women of their agency and right to their own bodies, women have refashioned their bodies and have made a point to assert themselves in the visibility of the public domain to be seen by the eyes of the regime. 105

105 Iranian women in exile have also made public videos of themselves topless to condemn the Islamic Regime’s hold over women’s bodies. One of its activists, Maryam Namazi, stated that “Islamism and the religious right are obsessed with women’s bodies. They demand that we be veiled, bound, and gagged. In the face of this assault, nudity breaks taboos and is an important form of resistance. ”The pictures of Iranian women who have posed topless was dedicated to the Egyptian blogger, Aliaa Magda El-Mahdy, who had 178

In doing so, women, whether intentionally or not, transgress bodily practices by using their bodies as instruments of resistance rather than as passive entities of docility, undeniably reclaiming the bodies which have thus far been defined and controlled by the state. Because power lies in the ability of the regime to control the outward behaviour and appearances of individuals (Varzi 2004: 146), as women refashion their bodies, then, the control that the regime once wished to have, the social order they once envisioned for

Iran, has altered.

Whether women used dress to assert their independent selves, to reject the state’s ideological hold over their bodies, to diverge from the homogenous collectivity of the

Republic, or dress to define themselves and assert their own identities, women have used their alternative dressed bodies as one of the multitude of ways in which to subvert the identities and discourses which have been enforced on them.

posted nude pictures of herself to protest sexual discrimination in 2011. The pictures are part of the Nude Photo Revolutionary Calendar. (See http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazi/nude-calandar/). 179

Chapter 9

Conclusion

Women’s dressed bodies have been contentious matters throughout Iran’s past 150 years of history. On one hand, as an exterior, dress has been a significant sociopolitical instrument through which multiple regimes in Iran have been able to implement and depict its political agenda, to suggest, on an international scale, what the political ideology of the state and nation was. As a mechanism of control, on the other hand, dress has been a coercive tool, enforced to reshape not only the citizenry’s bodies, but their minds as well, in so to accept and conform to the ideology of the ruling Iranian elite.

Indeed, dressing the exterior body was intended to simultaneously shape the inner self as well and, appropriated strategically, various regimes used such an instrument as a significant communicative and disciplinary power to contain and regulate the bodies of its subjects. Yet as we have seen throughout this thesis, the bodies of Iranian women have always been at the centre and forefront of changes taking place in Iran. Women’s dressed bodies have accompanied and changed alongside Iran’s social, economic and political transformations, as it has been their bodies in which state endeavors have unfolded, and where the nation’s identity, political ideology, and moral vilification has resided. Undoubtedly, her body has been the battleground for various ideological regimes to assert, establish and maintain its power, without much agreement from women themselves.

While state-appointed regulations to women’s dress was done in the name of women’s “liberation,” enforced dress in fact worked in opposite ways. While under the

Pahlavi regime, urban women did enjoy the fruits of modernization to an extent, the discourse of “emancipation” through the donning of modern dress, same with the discourse expressed by the leaders of the Islamic Regime and their enforcement of the

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veil, undermined the actual discourse of women’s liberation and instead used women’s bodies as a site to not only undertake political projects, but to perpetuate the maintenance of patriarchal control over women: their bodily movements, their appearances, opportunities, rights and sexualities. In many ways then, the enforcement of dress, whether modern or Islamic, worked to enforce a particular sexual order in

Iranian society.

Yet, Iranian women, as we have seen, were not and are not passive beings. They have been social agents who have reacted to their sociopolitical conditions. Since the power of a state lies in their ability to control the outward behaviour and appearances of citizen’s bodies (Varzi 2006: 146), any deviance from it and any refashioning of the dressed body then poses a multitude of implications for the state, and women have recognized the significant symbolic element of reworking the discourses of the dressed body in the Iranian context. We saw how women in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 donned conservative and Islamic attire as an emblematic statement against the Shah’s

Westernization, and we now watch as alternative dressed women signify the same subversive statement against the Islamic Regime through their very clothed bodies, every day. As women refashion their bodies, intentionally or not, they pose a silent yet deafening social, political and ideological challenge against the state’s excessive hold over them as well as the entire national endeavor of the regime.

In the state’s attempts to construct their Ideal Muslim Women, women who concealed their bodies, refrained from aesthetic embellishments, disassociated with strange men, remained asexual and complied to the ideological endeavor of the state, their veiled body not only signified the ideology of the state, but displayed the regime’s power to define, construct and control the minds and bodies of the citizenry, especially women. As a piece of material consisting of a myriad of discourses, the imposition of Islamic dress by the

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Islamic Regime, while initially intended to symbolize the success of the Islamic Republic, has worked to deprive women of their agency and rights to their own bodies, sexualities and individual rights.

By restructuring the social order and coercing women to literally wear ideology on their bodies, the Islamic Republic had aimed to instill into the female collective conscious a constant adherence to the regime’s one sole version of femininity. By denouncing interactions with men and all forms of bodily presentation which reveals women’s hair, curves and bare skin (other than their face and hands), along with the donning of colourful and stylish clothing, the Islamic Regime has radically attempted to ingrain into women an everlasting awareness of their appearances, and the consequences of their appearance on others as well as the nation as a whole.106

As elsewhere in the world, women’s sexualities in Iran have been a social construct of male power; defined, coerced upon and regulated by men which aims to reinforce female subjugation. Not only is it reinforced by power-holders such as the state, which have executed policing forces to keep surveillance over women’s bodies, but due to the distinctive power granted to men to maintain authority over women, their allowance to such dominance has reaffirmed gender hierarchies, and given men the right to act upon the bodies of women.

However, as demonstrated throughout this thesis, Iranian women have been able to radically transform the initial meaning of femininity imposed on them by the regime.

Secular women, along with many religious women whose reading of Islam is different from that of the regime, and who prior to the revolution had already tasted the fruits of modernization and relative freedom, could not be easily reshaped to accept the regime’s new definition of them, and thus have worked to change oppressive laws since the

106 This note is taken from Tseelon (1997: 13 in Entwistle 2000: 149), who made this point about the role of the church in being instrumental in instilling into the feminine conscious the impact of their appearances, which have thus condemned women’s sexualities and the display of their bodies. 182

establishment of the Republic. Moreover, with the opening up of Iran’s borders to the global world in the 1990s, women, along with the youth, have drastically transformed the socio-political climate of Iran as they have used communication technologies as mediums to reflect on their own societal positions as they engage in autonomous self- expression and denounce the institutions which have marginalized them. In addition, by observing the lifestyles of peoples elsewhere through satellite and internet, some women explained the personal effects that it had on the female consciousness, registering to them a contrasting image of femininity beyond the Islamic Republic. Finally, as women have entered into the labour force in higher numbers and have sought higher education, not only have they demanded more social and economic independence, but they have also asserted new meanings to their old static identities while transforming gender relations.

The upsurge of alternative dress has thus undoubtedly accompanied the changes made to women’s social, political and economic realities in Iran. The repressiveness of the 1980s kept women under the dark shield of the veil, while the 1990s progressively saw bits of colour emerge on women’s clothing; their hair began to peak through under their veil’s in public; and manteaux’s slowly became shorter and stylish as women increasingly began to access the job market, higher education and asserted themselves as political actors, especially with the presidential election of Khatami in 1997. Today, in the era of social and political awareness, the height of mass communication technologies, changes to sexual and social relations between the sexes, and women’s commendable drive for social and economic independence, women’s alternative dressed bodies tell us much about the current situation of many Iranian women today.

As women don a myriad of colours and styles, as they push back their hijab’s to show their hair, women stand as opposite representations of the regime’s Ideal Muslim

Women in both aesthetic and ideological ways. By asserting their alternatively dressed

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bodies in the visibility of the contentious sphere of the public realm, a space which women have struggled to access, their very bodily presence not only disrupts the institutionalization of the public sphere as a masculine space and a space which has worked to restrict them of its access, but their alternative dressed bodies express and convey a rejection of the regime’s expectations of them. Women reject the regime’s definition of femininity, their definition of sexuality, their definition of what it means to be a liberated woman within the veil. Despite the exhaustive measures taken in attempts to eradicate and deprive women of their individual identities since childhood, one of the ways in which women have expressed their new gendered consciousness and independent selves has been through the donning of alternative dress. In doing so, they work to break away from the homogenous, communal will to assert an independent body, and mind, of their own making, which meets their own dictates, desires and meanings of femininity. Although a form of symbolic subversion, alternative dress is also a highly personal matter.

In many ways, women are using their dressed bodies in so to reclaim the bodies and selves which have thus far been defined, regulated and controlled by the Islamic

Republic. Adorning different colours, beautifying themselves through make-up, showing off their bodies through their form fitted clothes, or wearing loose styles of clothing which satisfy their own tastes, women are pushing the limits in order to re-appropriate and reclaim the bodies that the Islamic Regime has attempted to forcefully discipline and control while destabilizing male authority.

While some critics have put forth their criticism of the role of alternative dress in bringing about any considerable benefits to women’s lives, I have argued in this thesis that the use of dress as an act of resistance and subversion must be considered alongside the sociopolitical context in which it is taking place, and for what motives it aims to achieve first. Although such a form of resistance may not be “resistance” in the

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traditional sense, women’s activism in Iran is marked be greater individualism anyway, highly intertwined with the personal needs, wants and desires of the individual as they tackle everyday life as women in Iran. Thus we need to be mindful of the effects alternative dress has on the individual person as a tool of subversion used in their everyday realities. Whether intentionally or not, and whether we agree with it or not, women are using, to whatever extent, their bodies as mediums in the public realm to take hold of their the bodies and selves which have thus far been state property and sites in which the authoritative regime and patriarchal control has been stationed. By refashioning the body, many are resisting state-foisted discourses about women in their public and private presence in so to obtain autonomy over their own lives and bodies, as well as their womanhood; a proclamation of independence from the suppressive social and political forces which continue to battle over their bodies.

Moreover, as I have attempted to demonstrate throughout this thesis, dress has been perhaps the most symbolic yet definite tool used to not only control women but to also maintain the regime’s power. The issue of women’s dress and appearance penetrates throughout so many aspects of Iranian society, delving into the centre of women’s control, regulation and marginalization; evident through the education system, their career opportunities, their morality and the ways in which they are perceived as women.

More importantly however, being that the regime is governed by the laws of Islam, albeit according to its own version of Islam, without the hijab, the government would fail to contain its legitimacy. There is no wonder why so much time and money is spent on system to patrol and denounce women’s dressed bodies when such energy could be spent on bettering other aspects of the ailing society. Thus, as the ultimate symbol of subversion, women who observe alternative dress and position themselves in the visibility of the public realm undoubtedly pose severe sociopolitical challenges.

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Iranian women are perhaps more independent now than ever before. They are women who are educated, many economically independent, and are aware of the global world around them enough to be critical of the government and societal institutions which command them. This growing confidence generated amongst many are apparent through the life choices they have decided to make, and obvious through how they react to their control by external forces. While women are reworking the definition and representation of womanhood in Iran in a multitude of different ways, many are also transmitting this new meaning of womanhood through the donning of alternative dress. As a gender consciousness has emerged and hopes for self-determination made obvious among those born after the revolution, Iranian women have begun to slowly discard the restrictive discourse of the Islamic Regime’s hijab and have turned it in for something else of their own. They have appropriated global styles with indigenous Iranian aesthetics to refashion the bodies, reclaim the selves and assert the persons which meets their own individual dictates. Their bodies, once expected to be sites of passivity and docility, are now re-appropriated as sites for power and action. Although I do not claim to provide a complete picture of all Iranian women who partake in this phenomenon of alternative dress, the aim of this thesis has been to reflect, question and seriously consider the role of both the Islamic Regime’s dress codes and the role of alternative dress within the context of women’s social and political realities in Iran.

It is through the body that the power and ideology prevails. While the material aspect of dress may cover the body, it is, as shown in this thesis, a substantially and considerably formidable instrument which can be utilized to implement a societal order that can oppress and tyrannize a population while imposing restrictive gender expectations. In the context of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic Regime’s enforcement of Islamic dress since 1980 has been intertwined in the dynamics of power and discipline, which

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has worked as a symbolic yet highly repressive material which has determined women’s bodily mobility, their societal opportunities, and rights. It has managed, restricted, governed and defined the lives, bodies and sexualities of Iranian women while subjecting them to the authority and dictates of men.

While dress in the Islamic Republic has been political, it has also been very much personal. As much as the regime has attempted to use Islamic dress to their ideological advantage, many women too have realized the symbolic nature and communicative power of dress to express an opposite understanding of themselves, to assert an independent body, and to express their own agency in the social and political context of

Iran. As they discard old symbols invested in the Islamic Republic’s veil and refashion their bodies anew, Iranian women are using the same aesthetic materials to reclaim the very bodies and assert the very selves which the Regime has worked so vigorously to control and define.

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