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Reconstructed Lives Women and Iran's Islamic Revolution (Woodrow Wilson Center
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Reconstructed Lives Women and Iran's Islamic Revolution (Woodrow Wilson Center Press) Hardcover - 1997

by Haleh Esfandiari

From the publisher

Iranian women tell in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded.

The Islamic revolution of 1979 transformed all areas of Iranian life. For women, the consequences were extensive and profound, as the state set out to reverse legal and social rights women had won and to dictate many aspects of women's lives, including what they could study and how they must dress and relate to men.

Reconstructed Lives presents Iranian women telling in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. Through a series of interviews with professional and working women in Iran--doctors, lawyers, writers, professors, secretaries, businesswomen--Haleh Esfandiari gathers dramatic accounts of what has happened to their lives as women in an Islamic society.

She and her informants describe the strategies by which women try to and sometimes succeed in subverting the state's agenda. Esfandiari also provides historical background on the women's movement in Iran. She finds evidence in Iran's experience that even women from traditional and working classes do not easily surrender rights or access they have gained to education, career opportunities, and a public role.

First line

I LEFT IRAN in the winter of 1978, when the country was on the brink of a revolution, its very social fabric being torn apart by the struggle between the old order and the new, between the monarchy and its enemies.

Details

  • Title Reconstructed Lives Women and Iran's Islamic Revolution (Woodrow Wilson Center Press)
  • Author Haleh Esfandiari
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Publisher The Johns Hopkins University Press
  • Date June 11, 1997
  • ISBN 9780801856181

About the author

Haleh Esfandiari, an independent scholar and writer, has taught Persian language and literature at Princeton University. She worked as a journalist in Iran and served as an official of the Women's Organization of Iran and of a foundation and cultural center in Tehran. Her articles on Iranian women have appeared in numerous publications. She was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1995-96.

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