Bibliofreakblog

Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni

I just finished this book today.  I have a lot to say about it.  The first thing though, is that I highly recommend it–especially for book clubs.  It’s a book that you’ll want to discuss.

Azadeh Moaveni was born in California in 1976.  Her parents had recently emigrated to the U.S.  Three years later, the revolution took hold of Iran, which became wholly under the control of the religious right.  The clerics were not the revolutionaries, but jumped on the bandwagon, securing their position.

In 2000 Moaveni moved to Iran, to live as a reporter for Time.  She expected a homecoming and to find herself complete for the first time in her life.  While her relatives were happy to see her, she did not find the emotional completion she longed for.  This is her story of her struggle to balance her American and Iranian selves and come to terms with the Iran that is.

She doesn’t get into the nuances of politics, though being a journalist, I am sure that she is well versed.  Instead, she comments on her day-to-day activities, and the modicum of change that was creeping into Iranian society under President Khatami.

These changes may sound stupid as I list them, but in her words they make sense.  But so you get an idea, I will list them, especially concerning women:

• Unwed couples could now hold hands in public
• Women could wear make-up
• women could push their veils a little farther back on their heads
• Women could show their feet in sandals and ankles in capri pants

All along women were able to hold jobs and drive cars.  They could leave the house unescorted.  Moaveni more than once reminds the readers that Iran was no Saudi Arabia, though it seemed to me a rendering of the age old grudge between Shiite and Sunni, Persian and Arab.  She did at times refer to the regime as Taliban-Lite.

In the chapter “I’m Too Sexy for My Veil”, Moaveni gets insightful about the oppressive nature of being forced to veil one’s head and body in yards of fabric.  I remember that shortly after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan reading an article in Vogue about women newly liberated from the Taliban.  The Vogue article that one of the things they liked having again were hair-dryers.  I thought at the time, good for Vogue making their liberation accessible to its readers instead of talking about lofty ideals.  But after reading this book, I’ve realized that it’s far less crude than that.  The fact is that the world over, whether women wear couture or make their own clothes, physical appearances are a form of expression.  And it’s the little things that go a long way.  Look at Catholic school girls who challenge the system by dying their hair and wearing neon tights.  

My point is, little things add up.

Sadly, for Moaveni, and the rest of Iran, it just doesn’t move fast enough.  One of Moaveni’s main points is that Iranians are actually quite secular and would prefer a democratically-elected government.  The militia that policies people in public are usually made up of young males from very poor, low-educated provinces.  Your average Iranian does not want to wear a veil.  But they don’t want to be set back yet another twenty years from another revolution, or being invaded, either.  

Just like many Americans didn’t see eye to eye with President George W. Bush, neither do most Iranians see eye to eye with their government.  

Moaveni doesn’t talk much about the state of Iran after 9/11.  She moved back to the U.S. shortly thereafter because after being branded part of the “axis of evil” the government, who had always pestered her, pressured her to let them censor her articles.  What is it like under the rule of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?  I don’t know.  I guess I’ll have to read the sequel to find out.

If you like this book/author, you might like:

Persepolis (CNF) by Marjane Satrapi
Girls of Riyadh (F) by Rajaa Alsanea
The Bastard of Istanbul (F) Elif Shafak
Three Cups of Tea (CNF) by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Infidel  (CNF) by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (F) by Mohsin Hamid
A Room of One’s Own (CNF) by Virginia Woolf
Kabul Beauty School (CNF) by Deborah Rodriguez and Kristin Ohlson
A Thousand Splendid Suns (F) by Khaled Hosseini
The Inheritance of Loss (F) by Kirin Desai
Reading Lolita in Tehran (CNF) by Azar Nifisi
Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America (CNF) by Firoozeh Dumas
Iran Awakening: One Woman’s Journey to Reclaim Her Life and Country (CNF) by Shirin Ebadi 
My Sister Guard Your Veil, My Brother, Guard Your Eyes (CNF) by Lila Azam Zanganeh (editor) 
Veils: Short Stories (F) by Nahid Rachlin
Pagan Spain (CNF) by Richard Wright 

Other works by Azadeh Moaveni:

Honeymoon in Tehran (CNF)

With Shirin Ebadi:

Iran Awakening (CNF)