Azar Nafisi Essay On Gender Roles

In 1995, Azar Nafisi created a safe-haven for reading literature with seven of her best female students. Prior to the Iranian Revolution, the male dominant Iranian government required every female to wear the traditional Muslim robe and headscarf. It was in the privacy of Nafisi’s home where these girls traded their traditional clothing for bright colored garments and literary discussions. By sheading their required dress, Nafisi and her students defied the totalitarian rules of the Islamic Republic that constricted their means of self-expression, which they combatted against through changing their clothing. But this is just ones example of the many different means of self-expression. For one, it is a means of expressing ones’ religious beliefs, as seen in Nafisi’s “Selections from: Reading Lolita in Tehran”. For others, it is something as simple as defining one’s gender, as seen in “The Naked Citadel” by Susan Faludi. As the authors demonstrate, religion and gender are the vehicles that …show more content…
Dominance over females, dominance over individuality, dominance over status, and male dominance are common themes in which leaves room for little to no individuality for males or females. By defining gender roles for females, males inevitably define their own roles as well, putting themselves into an all male category leaving also little to no room for originality. Although it is a paradox, (Exlpain) it is still true that a commonality within these texts is male domination over females. Females since the beginning of time have been seen as the “stereotypical housewife,” but today that is no longer fact. What is fact is that all of the women in these texts are being suppressed by an all male rule. Within these texts, males hold dominant authoritative positions that create laws promoting male dominance and defining gender roles within society through segregation, which controls all female means of