The Martyr's Daughter Analysis

To be a man in Iran during the war really meant being a martyr. This sacrifice made by martyrs became a large part of the Iranian society at the time as well, as streets were named after the martyrs and their status was elevated in death. To further illustrate this point, in the video,” The Martyr’s Daughter”, the daughter of a martyr speaks to a reporter. She read’s off of her father’s memorial saying, “in the battle of good against evil at the front of Bostan, during the war it was a question of good against evil, we were good and they were evil”. She also states that she suspects that no other death would have suited her father.
Religious Policy
Masculinity has been promoted throughout history in different societies through different …show more content…
Shahin Gerami discusses gender roles and norms within Iranian society and how they changed over time. The author suggests that the promotion of masculine identity changed after the revolution and that Ayatollah Khomeini was the main masculine leader in society. She states that he was looked up to as the “stern father figure” in the country. Not only did the clerics and the Iranian regime set the precedent for what it meant to be a man in the wake of the Iran-Iraq war but Ayatollah Khomeini was the ultimate male figure for other males to look up to and emulate. Furthermore, the author claims that there are societal male prototypes that societies value and whom reinforce masculinity, if you are among that group. While bazzaris and military officers are good examples of past societal groups that men could have a more profound sense of masculinity in their society if they were apart of those groups, bazzaris and military officers were purged during the 1979 revolution in Iran. This created a space for mullah’s and clerics to step into the central prototype of masculinity in Iran. Even if claiming and reinforcing masculinity was just a byproduct of the revolution, the religious leaders also portrayed the previous Pahlavi system as soft or feminine, whereas they portrayed themselves as bearded warriors, according to Shahin Gerami. The hyper masculinity created by the religious leaders and elites during this time can also be seen in the religious sartorial reforms they implemented for women. While these reforms were an attempt to get away from Western decadence, the hijab and chador that was to be worn by women was not only meant to be non-feminine but ultimately it put immorality on the shoulders of women. Essentially, if a woman was sexually harassed, it was because she dressed immodestly and as a result, it