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Stoning A-Okay

I seemed to have missed this news, as did my outraged friend who sent me the link (it must have been an otherwise busy news week), but did you know that the UN elected Iran to be on the Commission on Women’s Rights? What the hell?

The letter draws a dark picture of the status of women in Iran: “women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women’s admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws.”

The Commission on the Status of Women is supposed to conduct review of nations that violate women’s rights, issue reports detailing their failings, and monitor their success in improving women’s equality.

You can read more about Iran’s stunning record on women’s & human rights abuses – there’s plenty more to read, believe me – but this is horrific.

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Crossdressed Protest

It’s kind of amazing, the idea of Iranian men wearing traditional head scarves to show their allegiance to the insurgence, but that’s what they’re doing.

Thus the new protest also speaks to the societal aspect of Iranian women being forced to accept a dress code, according to Dabashi.

“Proud to wear my late mother’s rusari, the very rusari that was forced on my wife in Iran, the very rusari for which my sisters are humiliated if they choose to wear it in Europe, and the very rusari that the backward banality that now rules Iran thinks will humiliate Majid Tavakoli if it is put on him — He is dearer and nobler to us today than he ever was.”

In a speech before his arrest, Tavakoli played on the theme of the day’s historical significance in light of current anti-government protests.

“We Iranian men are late doing this,” Dabashi said. “If we did this when rusari was forced on those among our sisters who did not wish to wear it 30 years ago, we would have perhaps not been here today.”

(thanks to Jade Catherine for the tip)