Today, I saw these images by Alireza Sotakbar from ISNA News agency, showing the Iranian morality police who are presenting (random) women who are in full and "proper" Hijab with flowers and small gifts on the street. It reminded me of my sadness as a child, of feeling discriminated against in my own country- and I sighed. Sighed because these Hijab are used as a tool to promote the government’s Islamic agenda, and to further discriminate against women who choose not to where them.
23 May 2013
Growing up in Iran, every Mother’s Day (which, there, commemorates the birth of Fatemah, the Prophet’s Muhammed’s daughter), school officials would gift the girls whose names were Fatemah, Zahra, Marziye, etc. (there's over fifty on that list) As a little girl with a purely Persian name (those names were based on Arabic names), I would be saddened and felt discriminated against by the country's Islamic system.
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About the Columnist: Parisa Saranj
Parisa is a journalism graduate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is currently a MFA Creative non-Fiction writing candidate at Goucher College. She began writing about her native country, Iran, at her personal blog IranStories.com to share everything she loves about Iran and Iranians, minus all the politics (if that's possible).
Tired of being asked the most basic questions about Iran, all based on stereotypes and lies, Parisa just wanted to provide a pure image of what life is like in Iran...what is it like to be an Iranian woman. Now, Parisa brings her I Heart Iran section from IranStories.com exclusively to Aslan Media.
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