Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian ModernityDrawing from a rich array of visual and literary material from nineteenth-century Iran, this groundbreaking book rereads and rewrites the history of Iranian modernity through the lens of gender and sexuality. Peeling away notions of a rigid pre-modern Islamic gender system, Afsaneh Najmabadi provides a compelling demonstration of the centrality of gender and sexuality to the shaping of modern culture and politics in Iran and of how changes in ideas about gender and sexuality affected conceptions of beauty, love, homeland, marriage, education, and citizenship. She concludes with a provocative discussion of Iranian feminism and its role in that country's current culture wars. In addition to providing an important new perspective on Iranian history, Najmabadi skillfully demonstrates how using gender as an analytic category can provide insight into structures of hierarchy and power and thus into the organization of politics and social life. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
BEAUTY LOVE AND SEXUALITY | 9 |
CULTURAL LABOR OF SEXUALITY AND GENDER | 61 |
Feminism and Its Burden of Birth | 232 |
Notes | 245 |
Glossary | 307 |
| 311 | |
Credits | 341 |
| 343 | |
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Common terms and phrases
adult Akhundzadah al-Dawlah al-Mulk al-Saltanah amrad amradnuma argued beard beardless beauty became become beloved century chapter concept Constitutionalist cultural Diba discourse domain Edited emblem Europe European farangi farangi'ma’ab Fath‘ali Shah female feminism figure fukuli gaze gender and sexuality ghilman girls Habl al-matin heteronormalization heterosexual heterosocial hijab homeland homoerotic homoeroticism homosexuality homosocial honor Hushang I'timad instance Iraj Mirza Iran Iran-i naw Iranian modernity Isfahan Islamic Kashani Khan Kirmani Khanum khawrshid king language lion lion-and-sun male homoeroticism marriage masculinity men’s Mihrangiz Mirza Abu al-Hasan Mirza Aqa Khan modernist mother Muhammad Musavat Muslim mustache Muzaffar al-Din Shah Najmabadi narrative Nasir al-Din Shah Nida-yi vatan nineteenth nineteenth-century niqab nishan object of desire one’s patriotic Persian poetry political representations Riza Safavi same-sex practices schools Shah’s shaving Shaykh Shukufah social story Sufi Suwayda Talibuf Tavakoli-Targhi Tehran tion transformed unveiling vatan veil visual wife woman women young male zard