Reading Lolita After Iranian Revolution

After the Iranian Revolution of 1979 Iran became a nation led by a Muslim theocracy. In the years following the revolution, women’s presence in the public sphere actually increased under Sharia law. This increase can be explained in two main ways: conservative and religious women tended to feel more comfortable in the post-revolution public because every woman had to adhere by strict dress codes, which allowed a sense of anonymity. On the other hand, more liberal women increased their presence as a sort of retaliation towards the government, proving that regulations placed specifically on women would not push them out of the public, but rather motivate them to establish their place in the public sphere. In the post-revolution era women gained

These presumptions are influences by an inherently Western way of thinking that assumes that non-Western nations are oppressive or under-developed. In fact, the reason for the Iranian Revolution was to depose the Shah and to force the government to represent the Iranian people well (see figure 1, the tearing down of the Shah’s statues after he left Iran). This thought that women were in fact being pushed out of the public sphere, however, did occur in some first-hand accounts of Tehranian women. In the memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran, the life stories of eight women living in Tehran in the 1980s to 1990s show the displeased attitudes towards the government that some women held. One account of a woman named Mahshid tells of her unhappiness with the head covering law, not because she did not want to wear one, but because it took away the meaning. Nafisi states: “Before the revolution, (Mahshid) had worn the scarf as a testament to her faith. Her decision was a voluntary act. When the revolution forced the scarf on others, her action became

This can be attributed, in part, to Ayatollah Khomeini’s want to include “women in social, political, educational and economic activities. He took every opportunity to make clear that he didn’t want women to go back into isolation.” This understanding of Khomeini’s ideals might seem contradictory to his strict fundamental Islamic beliefs, but they may have served his more of a political purpose than religious in some cases. When looking at the