Iran’s women in chains
Despite progressive positions by its leaders, conditions for women in Iran have been deteriorating, says Shannon Ebrahim.
Johannesburg - Iran is one of those countries few Westerners have the occasion or intention to visit, even if they are issued with a visa, which is not easy to get. What really happens there is clouded in mystery and misconceptions.
Having just spent almost a week in Tehran, after not having visited the country for 12 years, the societal changes on the surface were stark. As a woman, I was told more than a decade ago that I could not walk around Tehran in pants – only a skirt – and had to be fully covered and veiled. No hair was allowed to show.
There was nowhere I could go without an official minder, and I was perpetually watched, even in my hotel room.
Twelve years later, I could not detect any minder, even though I visited as a journalist, I could wear pants and a jacket below the hip and a colourful scarf with hair showing. This was not just true for the few foreigners who were visiting Tehran, but women everywhere in the capital were dressed in this more relaxed fashion.
It was less the norm to see women in the traditional chador, although many older women dressed in such conservative attire.
Tehran is surrounded by snow-capped mountains, which provides an ideal locale for mountain side cafés with rivers running through them. The Darband is a 250m stretch of mountain cafés which are teaming with young couples by day and night. Both men and women smoke shisha pipes and eat kebabs, and occasionally one can observe the odd public display of affection.
REUTERS
Women may look freer in Tehran,
but some of the most repressive legislation in the history of the
Islamic Republic has been put forward in the past two years, says the
writer. File picture: Morteza Nikoubazl
