Reza Gostar
An independently spirited woman and a graduate of the University of Tehran, Iran, Mitra Hoshiar believes that education is the best tool to bring about social and political change in her home country.
She teaches at Pierce College, her class subjects’ range from American social problems to the sociology of aging to the study of society and personality. Hoshiar’s classes play an intricate role in the sociology department’s catalog of courses.
“Our approach to society is different from that of the capitalist approach to that of the Islamic socialist viewpoint,” Hoshiar said referring to Iranian society.
Hoshiar admits that the completion of her education would have been easier had she been in the United States.
She reiterates that rampant gender inequality in Iranian society motivated her to work even harder to make it through it all.
Her eyes widen and her posture sophisticatedly straightens as the topic of masochism and the cultural subjugation of women in Iran is brought up.
Hoshiar feels that the media have greatly exaggerated the oppression of women in Iran.
Consequently, Hoshiar says a lot of people have a misconception about the role of women in Iran, some even equating it to the Taliban regime of Afghanistan.
She went on to say that such misconceptions arise out of a biased media perspective that depicts Iranian society as barbaric and backward.
However, Hoshiar feels that overcoming the plight of women’s lack of full political rights rests solely on the Iranian people and the women of Iran themselves.
Women there have come along way since the 30-year-old Iranian Revolution with a higher percentage of female university graduates compared to males and a larger number of women in specialist employment positions.
“Woman there have worked hard to make their way through,” she said.
According to Hoshiar, political and sociological change cannot be forced or injected into a nation but rather the citizens themselves must internalize it.
“For any social change, woman have been the best accessible targets to scapegoat and for men to exert their political will,” Hoshiar recalled while reflecting about the political history of her birth nation.
She told a story of how she was detained by Iranian police as a young girl for wearing pink shoes, the color pink being forbidden for women to wear under Islamic law.
Currently in Iran there is something loosely called the “Pink Revolution” in which women are showing their solidarity for the attainment of political equality by wearing a pink scarf or fabrics as accessories, she explained.
“Women have learned how to strategize,” Hoshiar said.
One of Hoshiar’s sentiments is the need to break the submissive and passive stereotypes that many people still have of Iranian women.
Supporting female autonomy in the struggle for gender equality she continues to teach and lecture on campus.
“Men see woman as a threat. Maybe it has always been like that.” Hoshiar said, smiling.