Beyond the Veil

2 Pages 605 Words

“Beyond the Veil”

As a result of the Islamic Revolution that took place seventeen years ago, a series of forces were unleashed which have transformed and reshaped the face of Iranian soci-ety in every aspect imaginable. These changes have rocked not only the political and economic spheres of Iran, but even more fundamentally, culture and society. These changes have negatively affected women’s social, political, and economic status in Iran.
When the new government achieved power, women were once again subjugated and restricted to the confines of their homes. Not only did women have to wear their tent-like veils, the mentality that wives existed only to take care of their children and serve their husbands was encouraged by the government. This is very similar to gender roles. Gender roles are the rights, responsibilities, expectations, and relationships of women and men in a society. In every aspect of their lives, women were discriminated against. Women were seen as sexual objects, obsessed with luring men to fulfill their own sexual desires. The veil became a good way to cover up these “sexual” beings, so that men could be protected from falling prey to temptation.
Their belief is that women enjoy wearing the veil and welcome the restrictive na-ture of Islamic rule because it provides security and structure for them. The hijab is seen as liberating because through it, women were no longer viewed by men as sexual beings but rather as equals. The reasoning behind this view was that since men were not tempted by a woman’s figure and shape, they could conduct themselves as equals.
On its face, such an argument is clearly lacking any logic or common sense. Taking indices such as the position of women within marriage, the treatment of her sexu-ality, her position in the eyes of the law, employment, and education, one can easily con-clude that the majority of women are not equal and in fact, are discriminated ...