Janet Afary - Drs Fereidoun and Katharine Mirhady Endowed Lecture in Iranian Studies.

Janet Afary, University of California, Santa Barbara
Gender Reforms and Female Sexuality in the Pahlavi Era
7 pm, Friday, 7 October, 2011
Fletcher Challenge Theatre, Room 1900
The modernization projects of the Pahlavi government shattered the old gender and sexual norms of Iranian society in unprecedented ways. Many urban homes had television by the late 1960s and going to the movies was a popular form of entertainment. The advertising industry relentlessly propagated images of a more modern feminine body and a Western lifestyle, while satirical magazines published cartoons featuring half-naked women. This served the dual purposes of lampooning the freedoms of modern women and advertising consumer products using attractive female bodies. As the regime saw it, these changes in gender roles proved Iran's growing proximity to the West. However, these developments also became the key factor cementing a new political alliance between Islamists and leftists, a "Black-Red" anti-Shah coalition of anti-imperialist leftists and conservative Islamists which would have been unthinkable during the first half of the 20th century. This presentation will look at the reasons behind this unusual alliance and its consequences for late twentieth century Iran.

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