Women from the Caspian Sea region have always had a reputation for having more freedom than women elsewhere in Iran. Now as before, they work next to the men in the rice fields, their backs bent, and drink tea with them in the humid darkness of the chaikhanés (teahouses). Major family decisions, from expenses and purchases to marriages and sales of property, are rarely made without these women’s input. So much so, that popular jokes mock the men’s “submission” to these distinctive and powerful Shomali (Northern) matriarchs, from this northern part of Iran.
Hailing from this verdant region, Molouk was a girl with a strong temper. Her children and grandchildren – whose anonymity is necessary in these times of political crisis and repression – all remember hearing about the famous day when their grandmother dared to say “no” to the authorities. In a familiar refrain, the country was going through yet another political crisis. In addition to everything that was happening, the young woman’s headscarf had already been deemed “inappropriate.” Today, some of her descendants are demonstrating in the streets, chanting “Woman, life, freedom.” All of them are in solidarity with the ongoing protest.
Molouk’s birth coincided with the year of the military coup in 1921 that swept aside the corrupt Qadjar dynasty (1789-1925) in Tehran, which had already been weakened by Russian and British interference. It marked the start of the meteoric rise of Reza Khan (Reza Shah Pahlavi), the colonel of the Persian Cossack Brigade and the future Shah of Iran. At a time when ordinary families would prepare their daughters for marriage from a very young age, Molouk had been diligently applying herself to her studies, with the blessing of her parents. That is, until her graduation day. That afternoon in June 1936, the teenager had donned, for the occasion, her prettiest headscarf, like all the schoolgirls. Then, standing onstage, her pride turned to confusion when the director ordered them all to remove this piece of fabric that hid their hair, by “order of the Shah!”
Only Molouk refused to do so, and was sent home without the coveted certificate. “In the absence of her parents, exposing herself was unthinkable,” reckoned Massoud, one of her grandsons, who is now in his sixties. “It was a time when, regardless of their social background or religion, the vast majority of women covered their hair out of modesty.” Faced with what he considered to be an insult to his family’s reputation, Molouk’s father withdrew his daughter from school. She had just turned 15 and would now never finish her studies. Instead, she watched, jealous and powerless, as one of her friends “stole” her dream by becoming a doctor of medicine.
You have 88.46% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
Read the full article here