Good morning,

Here is a Fem Friday that is all about Iran.

Surfing is mainly a sport done by women in Iran. You’re probably wondering about the clothes, which this article covers, but it’s also nice to read for the beautiful photos of Iran and Iranian beaches, especially if you wish as strongly as I do that you were on holiday:

"In this case, surfing is a sport that's been initiated and led by women—that is a bit unusual. Because it's not a traditional Iranian sport and hadn't been done before, there were no rules defining how it could and couldn't be done," Dr Britton says. It is accessible despite gender and other social boundaries. This all means the sport had a […] unique meaning and identity attached to it.

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/riding-the-wave-of-feminism-meet-the-female-surfers-of-iran

As you perhaps already know, Iran has a longstanding and substantial tradition of poetry. Allow me to introduce Forough Farrokhazad, whose struggles around domesticity in the mid twentieth century will probably feel familiar. She died young, in a car crash, after a lunch with her mother who later recalled their conversation over lunch as the nicest that they ever had. You can read her story and some poems at the link below:

Sleeping in a dark grave is happier for you

than this abject servitude and misfortune;

where is that proud man..? Tell him

to bow his head henceforth at your threshold.

Where is that proud man? Tell him to get up

because a woman is here rising to battle him;

her words are the truth, in which cause

she will never shed tears out of weakness.

http://www.iranchamber.com/literature/ffarrokhzad/forough_farrokhzad.php

Going further back in history, ancient Persia also had a solid tradition around women warriors. Here’s a very thorough survey:

A Reuters newscast from Tehran in December 4, 2004 reported on the findings of an archaeologist who had been engaged in excavations near Tabriz, in Iran’s northwest province of Azarbaijan. A series of DNA tests revealed that the 2,000 year old bones of an entombed warrior and accompanying sword belonged to a woman.  As noted by Alireza Hojabri-Nobari to the Iran-based Hambastegi Newspaper: “Despite earlier comments that the warrior was a man because of the metal sword, DNA tests showed the skeleton inside the tomb belonged to a female warrior…”

http://kavehfarrokh.com/news/the-persian-lioness-iranian-women-in-history/

Happy Friday,

Alex.