Veiled Men and Gender Identities
About 7 days ago an Iranian student (Majid Tavakoli) who was
anti-government activist was arrested. After his arrest, state-supported
media organizations in Iran published photographs of Mr. Tavakoli wearing
women’s clothes — supposedly proving that a story about him attempting
to flee the authorities disguised as a woman was true. Instead of proving
anything, the images enraged supporters of the opposition who pointed to
eyewitness accounts that said he was dressed normally when he was arrested,
and charged that the images had been staged by the authorities to embarrass
the student leader.
Soon after those photographs were published, Iranian men who wanted to
show their support for Mr. Tavakoli started to take photographs of themselves wearing the kind of head scarf they believe the student leader was forced to wear — and all women in Iran are forced to wear and posted
many pictures in their Facebook profiles and twitter.
I recommend this short clip on YouTube as well:
Now many Iranian bloggers start writing about the issue and talk about this fact that why Iranian men have being remained silent on compulsory veiling on Iranian women after Islamic Revolution in 1979.
I also think this event is amazing because as an Iranian woman, I am
extremely surprised of what Iranian men who are raised and grown up in the totally patriarchical context are wearing veil! I am actually would like to study on this case from women’s studies perspective and how recent changes in Iran contribute to the concept of gender equality and how it has made men to be more sensitive on “women’s issues”. It’s also interesting that how the strict gender boundaries are becoming vague as a result of a bigger social change.
