Sunday, November 2, 2008
Lolita in Tehran Question 5
The Islamic Republic enacted a number of laws that were extremely oppressive towards women, telling them what they can wear, who can accompany them in public, and how they can act around members of the opposite sex. As a result, men seemed to view women more and more as sexual objects, being aroused at the mere sight of hair or a naked toe. Why would the regime be so oppressive towards women and not towards men? Why were men not expected to live up to equally oppressive standards?
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2 comments:
I think this is one of the hallmarks of an oppressive regime. When a government starts taking power away from its people, one of the things that it can do to secure its position is to replace the power that they are taking away with a false sense of empowerment against a subgroup of the population. By oppressing women, the government was able to keep a large part of the population (namely, the men) compliant by giving them a false sense of power and security. I think they did the same thing by creating a distorted image of America. This way the women knew that even though they might feel like second-rate citizens in Iran, they were still better than citizens of the Great Satan and were in turn given an inflated sense of pride and power. It is an interesting concept to think about when people start wondering how important equal rights movements are. When any group of people is targeted, we often fail to realize that the consequences reach far beyond that group of people alone.
Very interesting James. I agree with you, but had never put much thought into it. In order to stay on top, the regime needs a pyramid below them of ever-shrinking layers to support them. If they treated all citizens equally, then the gap between the regimes leaders and the populace would be even greater and their situation more precarious. (I'm picturing a pyramid versus a skinny tower supporting the Ayatollah, with the tower being much less sturdy - does that imagery make sense?)
I won't get into any other issues with this, as I'm sure Blair will have some strong opinions on this.
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