"How can you put up with this?" they say, pointing to their temporarily discarded headgear. (Like other Iranians, they would not give their names for fear of reprisal.) "We hate it."
But a few days later, a tourist asks a young salesclerk in Kerman whether she resents being forced to cover up whenever she leaves the house.
Not at all, she responds: "It makes me feel more relaxed."
Iranian women may literally travel at the back of the bus. (In Tehran, they also can use women-only subway cars, taxis and a public park.) At the same time, they drive cars, own businesses, serve in the country's parliament and make up more than half the university population.
In October, a United Nations report on Iran noted discriminatory laws and "widespread" gender-based violence — the same month an American-Iranian student was arrested in Tehran while researching a film intended to show the progress of women's rights.
In 1935, when Iran's ruler issued an edict banning chadors and other traditional dress in public, "many Iranian women didn't leave the house for six months," says Iran Riahi. The Zurich travel agent left the country 25 years ago and now leads tours back to her homeland.
“The solution to women’s issues can only be achieved in a free and democratic society in which human energy is liberated, the energy of both women and men together. Our civilization is called human civilization and is not attributed only to men or women.”
