Anecdotes from an Iranian-American Woman on Life in Post-Revolution Iran

I worked in close quarters with a middle-aged Iranian-born woman for about 18 months. During slow times at work we conversed on basic life issues. I have a curious mind regarding different cultures, so some of my questions went beyond friendly banter and sought to gain information about a society that is generally closed to direct American observation. The current prominence of Iran in many of the foreign policy problems the United States faces today made me even more curious. I had been acquainted with a few Iranians over the years, but never to the extent that I was able to ask them these questions. The insights I gained were quite interesting to me and I hope they will be interesting to you too.

One day she brought pictures of her family vacation to Europe to share with her coworkers. I noticed none of the women in her family wore the characteristic Muslim headscarf, so I used that as a starting point. I remarked that I thought it was a good thing that they did not wear head coverings, my implication being that it is an oppressive practice. She shrugged it off, and did not seem to take any pride in it or regard it with much significance.

As I mentioned she is middle-aged, I believe around 50, so she went to college shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. She said she had to wear a black cloak (chador) from head to toe. The general population of Iran was much less strict about religion than the Islamic regime that had seized power, so she actually stuck out at first. Going to the university she came in contact with official agents of the regime who enforced the laws from the very beginning, but she remembered that a local shop owner was put-off by her religious dress remarking, "are you mourning a relative or something?". At some point during her college career, she was confronted by a religious policeman (yes, they have police to enforce the religious laws) for leaving a small patch of skin uncovered on her neck. She was kicked out of school for the infraction, and never finished her degree.

She recounted another disturbing incident regarding mixing of the sexes at the beach. Her extended family was at the beach and the women were without head-scarves, which is apparently acceptable as long as the men present are all family members. One young man among the party made a gesture towards his sister that someone interpreted as "inappropriate," and it caught the attention of the religious police. The mother insisted, "they're my children, they're brother and sister". The police arrested all three of them and they spent the night in jail.

She stressed that the strict enforcement of the laws have generally loosened over the decades since the revolution. For example, at first men and women had to be partitioned by a wall or curtain in the classroom. Now they still sit separately but without a physical partition. It seems that pragmatism starts to break up even the strictest orthodoxies over time. Of course this is still a shockingly discriminatory practice to the Western eye.

My overall impression was that she was very blase about the whole situation. A few times she referred to the changes as "funny rules." I remarked that "funny isn't the word I'd use to describe those rules". She did say most of the people are disconcerted with the current government, which has been remarked upon often in the Western press. But she was sure to point out that this was mostly for economic reasons such as massive unemployment of young adults, rather than a chafing against the religious laws.

The purpose of this article is simply to convey some first-hand information about conditions in post-revolution Iran. I have strong political feelings about the situation between the West and Iran, and I may address those on this site in the future.