Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Theses Department of History 12-17-2019 Writing Women's Experiences: Twelve Memoirs of Life in Iran and Abroad Since the 1940s Kayla Abercrombie Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.edu/history_theses Recommended Citation Abercrombie, Kayla, "Writing Women's Experiences: Twelve Memoirs of Life in Iran and Abroad Since the 1940s." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2019. doi: https://doi.57709/15921506 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact scholarworks@gsu.
WRITING WOMEN'S EXPERIENCES: TWELVE MEMOIRS OF LIFE IN IRAN AND ABROAD SINCE THE 1940S by KAYLA ABERCROMBIE Under the Direction of Allen Fromherz, PhD ABSTRACT Iranian women have taken up memoir writing in response to the tumultuous recent history of their country and their own difficult experiences. My thesis explores twelve memoirs of women’s lives in Iran and abroad from the time of the Shah through the Islamic Revolution to the last couple of decades of reform and reaction under the Islamic Republic. The similarities and variations in the experiences of the women in these cohorts reveal the value of memoirs as historical evidence. These memoirs illuminate how changes in history have shaped changes in their authors’ consciousness, sense of self, identity, and sense of belonging as an individual person, as a woman, and as an Iranian.
INDEX WORDS: Memoirs, Iranian women, Exilic writings, Iranian history WRITING WOMEN'S EXPERIENCES: TWELVE MEMOIRS OF LIFE IN IRAN AND ABROAD SINCE THE 1940S by KAYLA ABERCROMBIE A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2019 Copyright by Kayla Abercrombie 2019 WRITING WOMEN'S EXPERIENCES: TWELVE MEMOIRS OF LIFE IN IRAN AND ABROAD SINCE THE 1940S by KAYLA ABERCROMBIE Committee Chair: Allen Fromherz Committee: Ian Fletcher Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University December 2019 iv DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my family and friends for their love and support and their dedicated partnership for success in my life. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my advisors Dr. Allen Fromherz, and Dr. Ian Fletcher for providing guidance, encouragement, and support with my work, during all stages, and for bringing this work to fruition.
vi TABLE OF CONTENTSACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .1 Scope of the Thesis .2 The Historical Background of Women in Modern Iran .3 Women, Islam, Feminism, and Iran in Scholarship. 12 2 CHAPTER TWO: WOMEN OF THE SHAH .1 Modernization and the White Revolution .2 Women and the White Revolution .3 The Good Daughter.5 Daughter of Persia .6 An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah. 30 3 CHAPTER THREE: WOMEN AND KHOMEINI’S IRAN .1 The Iranian Revolution .2 Women and the Iranian Revolution .3 The Islamic Republic and Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamization Policy .4 The Islamization of Women .6 Reading Lolita in Tehran.7 The Complete Persepolis .8 Journey from the Land of No. 47 4 CHAPTER FOUR: WOMEN BETWEEN IRAN AND EXILE .1 Iran in the 1990s and 2000s .2 Women and the Age of Reform .3 The Iranian Green Movement .4 Women in the Green Movement .6 I’m Writing You from Tehran .7 Americanized: Rebel Without a Green Card.8 My Prison, My Home.
72 5 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION .1 Iranian Politics and Life Experiences .2 Patriotism and Identity .3 Shared Perspectives on Iranian Identity. 82 1 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Since the late 1980s, the literary genre of memoirs has grown in popularity worldwide. There is greater acceptance of and interest in women’s voices and women’s experiences. Indeed, women authors have begun to change the genre as a whole.
1 Iranian women have taken up memoir writing in response to the tumultuous recent history of their country and their own difficult experiences. In particular, women who left Iran and went into exile have contributed many accounts. This thesis provides insight into not only women’s experiences as expressed in their memoirs but also women’s identities as part of the political and historical context in which they are written.1 Scope of the Thesis My thesis explores twelve memoirs of women’s lives in Iran and abroad from the time of the Shah through the Islamic Revolution to the last couple of decades of reform and reaction under the Islamic Republic. I have divided the authors of these memoirs into three cohorts.
The similarities and variations in the experiences of the women in these cohorts reveal the value of memoirs as historical evidence. These memoirs illuminate changes in their authors’ consciousness, sense of self, identity, and sense of belonging as an individual person, as a woman, and as an Iranian. My first cohort is composed of Iranian women who were born between the years of 1921 and 1946, lived in Iran during the last decades of the Monarchy, and left for exile prior to, or around the same time as the Revolution. They all lived in Iran under the Shah, a time of 1 Carolyn Heilbrun, “Contemporary Memoirs: or Who Cares Who Did What to Whom,” The American Scholar 66, no.
2 accelerating change and deepening conflict. The particular questions that guide my reading of these women’s memoirs are the following. How do their childhoods and familial structures compare to one another? How did their upbringings reveal the influence of life circumstances such as class, education, and occupation? How did they relate to or experience significant political events in Iran, such as the White Revolution, the Shah’s “revolution from above,” and the Iranian Revolution? My second cohort is composed of Iranian women who were born between the years of 1947 and 1969, went through the Iranian Revolution, and lived under the Islamic Republic until going into exile. How do their life experiences as young adults compare to one another? How did they relate to or experience the Islamization of society and culture during the Ayatollah Khomeini’s leadership of the Islamic Republic in the 1980s and 1990s? My third cohort is composed of a new generation of Iranian women born on the eve of the Iranian Revolution or in the years after the foundation of the Islamic Republic.
This last group is different from the first and second because it includes women who have lived most of their lives in the worldwide Iranian diaspora, in countries such as U. or France, and observed the experience of exile through their parents or other older relatives. As a result, these individuals share the perspective of a mixed cultural identity and the experience of diasporic life, in which the performance of gender or religion may diverge significantly from the public norms of the Islamic Republic. How did these women’s exilic families and communities influence their understanding of Iran? How did they experience major Iranian political events such as the political oscillations of the 1990s and 2000s, culminating in the failed Green Revolution? What role does their diasporic identity play in their relationships with peers in Iran? 3 These questions will allow me to analyze each memoir, compare the memoirs in each cohort, and, in my Conclusion, compare all three cohorts.
This thesis contextualizes these sources, by revealing similarities and differences over time, from the rule of the last Shah to the upheaval of the Revolution to the unending tensions of the Republic. Some of the commonalities and changes that bind and divide generations of Iranian women will be revealed.2 The Historical Background of Women in Modern Iran The study of women’s and gender history has expanded rapidly since the 1970s. More recently, scholars such as Lila Abu-Lughod, Margot Badran, Beth Baron, Marilyn Booth, Mounira Charrad, Haleh Esfandiari, Deniz Kandiyoti, Valentine Moghadam, Afsaneh Najmabadi, Parvin Paidar, Lisa Pollard, Eliz Sanasarian, and Elizabeth Thompson have produced numerous historical, ethnographic, and cultural studies of women in Egypt, Iran, Turkey, and the Middle East. 2 The historical context of these works is analyzed here.
First, it is important to outline the modern history of Iran before the 1970s, starting with the Qajar dynasty (1796-1925) and extending to the overthrow of Mosaddegh in 1953 and the rise of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (d. At that point I will continue the story of Iran as seen through the memoirs of twelve 2 Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Beth Baron, Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Marilyn Booth, May Her Likes be Multiplied: Biography and Gender Politics in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Mounira Charrad, States and Women’s Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001);Haleh Esfandiari, Reconstructed Lives (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1997); Deniz Kandiyoti, Women, Islam, and the State (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996); Valentine Moghadam, Globalization and Social Movements: Islamism, Feminism, and the Global Justice Movement (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012); Afsaneh Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Parvin Paidar, Women and Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Lisa Pollard, Nurturing the Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Eliz Sanasarian, Religious Minorities in Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Elizabeth Thompson, Justice Interrupted: The Struggle for Constitutional Government in the Middle East (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). I highlight moments when the histories of Iranian women and Iranian history after 1953 have intersected. Qajar society stubbornly adhered to traditions and rhymes, and their religious rhetoric.
Nonetheless, important changes occurred in this era. 3 Ottoman reforms and British imperial rule over India and Egypt influenced Iran. So did internal developments, such as the emergence of the minority Bahai faith, with its belief in the equality of men and women in the mid-nineteenth century. Without question, one of the most distinctive characteristics attributed to the Qajar Dynasty is patriarchy in the family, the clergy, and the monarchy.
4 It was typical for wealthy and middle-class families in Qajar Iran to live in extended, patriarchal households. The head of the household was the oldest member, and, in most cases, everyone was supposed to obey his decision; in theory, the father was the ultimate source of authority regardless of class. 5 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cultural and political conflict and change become more pronounced. This period of unrest was marked by two events, the protests against the foreign tobacco concession in 1890, which became a mass movement, and the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-1911, which established a parliamentary government for the first time in Iran.
Women emerged as significant and influential in both events. They not only engaged in national uprisings, but also mandated the reform of women’s social, legal, and political position.6 However, women did not win the vote. 7 Nevertheless, women inserted 3 B. Jalalpoor, “Development of Cultural Construction and Constitutional Revolution in Iran,” Journal of History Culture and Art Research 6, no.
4 Raibee and Jalalpoor, “Development of Cultural Construction and Constitutional Revolution in Iran,” 1141. 5 Afsaneh Najmabadi, “Women’s Worlds in Qajar Iran Digital Archive and Website,” Perspectives on History (November 2013): 246. 6 Deleram, Farzaneh, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: A brief History of the Legal Discriminations Against Women in Iran and the Violation of International Human Rights,” Annual Survey of International and Comparative Law 20, no. 7 Sarah Sheibani and Siva Jalapour, “Historical Approach to the Role of Women in the Legislation of Iran,” Journal of HIstory, Art, and Culture 5, no.
5 themselves into the public arena and established their own anjomans (nationalist groups) and a women’s newspaper. 8 A few years later, the Constitutional Revolution came to an end. Britain and Russia divided much of Iran into rival spheres of influence, not least because of the discovery of oil in Iran.