In 2006, BBC reported that female students were overtaking men in the populations of Iranian universities. The country's relatively progressive attitude towards women is perhaps a remnant of a more "Western" Iran, the one written about at the beginning of the graphic novel Persepolis and depicted in the movie of the same name. The author of that book, Marjane Satrapi, was ten years old when the Iranian Revolution took place in 1979, an event that overturned the country's monarchy and returned Iran's laws to a focus on traditional Islamic rules and traditions. Until that point, the women of Iran were perhaps the most privileged in the Middle East, and challenged social mores and gaining more and more rights enjoyed by Western women. They were not always required to cover their hair, as they are now, and the Iranian Women's movement (including organized groups, like the Patriotic Women's League of Iran which ran from 1922-1933) fought for women's literacy, the education of girls, set up hospitals for women, and published journals.
Indeed, the recent Iranian presidential election was considered an important one for women. According to the Wall Street Journal, half of Iran's eligible voters are womenand 60% of university students are women. Yet women have been subject to a higher rate of unemployment under the reign of President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, who ordered the jailing of women's rights activists and the "morality police" (yes, really) enforce the guidelines of Islamic dress. Ahmadenijad prevented women from doing things they were once able to.
So the outrage of countless Iranian women can be understood, as they are faced with a longer reality that includes a man who would take away their freedoms and repress their potential simply because of their genitalia, is understood. Knowing that, most likely, even the votes they thought they had have not been regarded, and they have been cheated out of yet another freedom, would piss me off too. Hoping that a man could actually come into power who is married to Iran's first female professor (who was fired after Ahmadenijad was "elected" the first time around) and then receiving the news that by some miracle, millions of votes were hand-counted in three hours and Ahmadenijad was victorious by a landslide would crush me too.
Then I would exploit my rights as a citizen of a perportedly democratic country and take to the streets. Roger Cohen wrote in his Op-Ed column this Sunday about the courage of many female protesters in Iran. He writes:
I also know that Iran’s women stand in the vanguard. For days now, I’ve seen them urging less courageous men on. I’ve seen them get beaten and return to the fray. “Why are you sitting there?” one shouted at a couple of men perched on the sidewalk on Saturday. “Get up! Get up!”
Another green-eyed woman, Mahin, aged 52, staggered into an alley clutching her face and in tears. Then, against the urging of those around her, she limped back into the crowd moving west toward Freedom Square. Cries of “Death to the dictator!” and “We want liberty!” accompanied her.
One eyewitness who emailed the BBC said, "I saw with my own eyes two ordinary 40-year-old women being beaten severely with electric batons, for nothing more than raising their voice in protest." And now there is the tragic story of a 26-year-old woman named Neda Soltan (who's name was used over fifty times on Twitter in the minute I started am writing this parenthesis, and 81 more times by now). It's not so much a story, as words and renditions leave room for doubt, but a stark series of images that have quickly become iconic. They leave no doubt about the severity of the situation. Cell phone footage of the young woman dying after being shot in the chest by the Basij militia for simply watching the protests has spread across YouTube. There are a few versions, shot at different angles by different people with cell phones and cameras (this has been the only method of getting out images of the protests). It is graphic. You will watch a woman die horrifically. But it is important to watch, to understand the level of crisis that is taking place in Iran. This is the stuff of civil war, of revolution.
I thought for a while about whether to post the video to this site or just to link to it. The Valley Advocate is a newspaper, an alternative newspaper. And as a writer employed by that newspaper to write about relevant women's issues, whether my style may at times be humorous or irreverent, I think it's my responsibility to reveal this event to maybe one person who doesn't know about it.
Again, the video is graphic. a young woman is shot, falls, is terrified. Her father and others try to stauch the bleeding. Blood spurts out of her mouth and nose. People are screaming. Neda is being held up as a martyr by many young people in Iran. I only hope that this is so, and that the last heartbreaking moments of her life, viewed by hundreds of thousands since Saturday and more and more every minute, were not in vain.
