Professor Bowers
Writing 01
12 December 2014 The importance of the Veil In the graphic autobiography, “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi takes place roughly ten years after the Islamic revolution which includes a lot of information regarding femininity during the Islamic revolution. As Satrapi describes from a ten-year old perspective, she talks about how shortly after the Islamic Revolution the girls are asked to wear the veils over their heads and cannot look a man in the eye. The Islamic revolution was a revolution that had created major changes in terms of the Iranian culture and society. It enforced women to wear veils which was supposed to act like protection because not wearing one meant that the woman was promoting …show more content…
This ideology can be described through the graphic and quote given in page 6, “I really didn’t know what to think about the veil, deep down I was very religious but as a family we were very modern and Avant-garde,” (Satrapi 6) She explains through a picture that there is half of her that is religious and respects the ideology that she has to wear the veil but on the other hand because of her upbringing she doesn’t have the veil and tries to depict that she would want to be free and not oppressed. Throughout the book, Satrapi is able to see changes that women have to go through in order to live a normal life. During the revolution the Shah, enforced that the women should be dressed more conservatively for safety from rapists and to not become westernized. Satrapi explains that there were two ways that women dressed. On page 75 there is a picture classifying that the rebellious way to dress was to let a few strands of hair show and dress with trousers and a buttoned coats. Satrapi makes a point that wearing the veil was not an act of justice as she quotes,” But let’s be fair. If women faced prison when they refused to wear the veil, it was also forbidden for men to wear neckties (that dreaded symbol of the west). And if women’s hair got men excited, the