Women In Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

In the past seven months of school, we, as a class, read three different novels that focused on the many aspects of culture around the world. My novel, Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi, may seem like, at first glance, a revolutionary narrative about Iran and how similar it is from everywhere else. Satrapi’s goal in her novel was to defend Iran and try to make readers understand that Iran really, is not too different. It is important to note that it is extremely debatable to say that most people in western societies, especially the U.S, share a perspective, unfortunately a common one, that the country of Iran has a reputation for Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. The information we take in from the news and media feed into our misconceptions and biases about Iran as a country. Some of the many reasons behind why Iran is completely different, if not on the opposite side of the spectrum as other countries, are the war in the country and how that makes people believe that’s why the country is falling behind in society, the

From the beginning, she makes it apparent that the new law of women needing to wear a veil over their hair due to the revolution was very unfair and unnecessary. As a child, Marjane didn’t fully understand why they had to do this. After the veil law was put in place, her non-religious boys and girls school was changed to a religious school where boys and girls were split up. Many, many women did not like the new rule of the veil, so much that once protests began, women were arrested for not wearing the veil. Fashion moved from ideas taken from western culture to more conservative, like the veils or the full body dresses women had to wear. Women were below men at that time and didn’t have very many rights, and some believed that not wearing the veil was an