Women

Marriage at 10

It is said that in the slums of Zahedan, there are many houses where several families each occupy a single room in a house. There was an opportunity for us to enter one of these houses. The mother, sister, wife, sister-in-law, father and two brothers of the man who has asked us to go in, as well as several little children all live in a single room. One of the women is 27 and has a 12-year-old son as well as a little girl who is only a few months old. When I ask her at what age she got married, she replies: "At the age of 10!" And later other people tell me that in some of the towns in this region 10 to 11 is indeed the usual age of marriage>>>

Same job, same pay

Women in the United State , working full-time, year-round earn only about 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. The median annual earnings of women ages 15 and older are $31,858, compared to $41,386 for their male counterparts. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States). The gap between the earning of minority women and white men is significantly worse. An African American woman earns just 64 cents for every dollar earned by a white man, while a Hispanic woman earns only 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white male counterpart.>>>

Women=Men

For nearly three decades now, we have been struggling to achieve the right to divorce and equal rights in marriage for women. We have repeatedly claimed that polygamy rights for men create an unbearable and disgraceful reality for women. But these patriarchal laws have sustained. For years, we have objected to unequal diyeh, or compensation for bodily injury, and have wondered why it is that being a man or a woman determines the amount of compensation to be paid to accident victims? We ask why our laws recognize men as full human beings, setting them as the standard, and value women at half the male standard, and sometimes even less>>>

گناه

گرچه مترجمان بسیاری هم سعی داشته اند تا شعر فروغ را به زبان انگلیسی برگردانند و گاه ترجمه های غنی از ایشان خوانده ام اما بی شک شعله ولپی با حس شاعرانه و ممتاز خود یکی از زیباترین ترجمه های اشعار فروغ را در گلچین گناه برای خوانندگان به ارمغان آورده است. شعله با انتخاب و ترجمه این اشعار در عین حال به آگاه کردن مردم به وجود سانسور در ایران پرداخته است. بسیاری در جهان در مورد نقض حقوق بشر و استبداد حاکم بر ایران می دانند. با این وجود وظیفه هنرمند آن است که باز به افشای ستم بپردازد و توجه هر چه بیشتر جهانیان را به آن جلب کند. شعله با داشتن نامی آشنا در جامعه ادبی انگلیسی زبان به این مهم پرداخته است. وی در این تلاش یکی ازموفقترین ترجمه ها از شعر فروغ را ارائه داده است.>>>

Ladies first

1350 - 1300 BC. Politically Influential Queen Napir Asu, Elam, Khuzistan: Wife of King Untash-Napirasha who built many great buildings and temples in the area including, the Choga Zanbil near Sush (Susa). Her well preserved and headless status was discovered at Susa and is currently at the Louvre Museum in Paris. She is dressed in the same outfit as the Elamite goddess Pinikir and very likely served and represented this divinity at the temple of Ninhursag where she was discovered>>>

اکنون زمين زير پای زن است

اکنون، جوامع متمدن با باروری زن به عنوان امری کاملاً طبيعی و تحسين برانگيز روبرو می شوند؛ روابط جنسی را نيز همين گونه زيبا و طبيعی و زمينی می بينند، پوشش زن را نيز. اکنون تن عريان يک زن همانقدر جاذبه دارد که تن عريان مرد، و گيسوی زن بود و نبودش همانقدر مهم است يا مهم نيست که گيسوی مرد. و چنين است که خانواده ی بشری در قرن بيست و يکم رفته رفته، در متن اين روابط آزاد از توهم، شکل تازه و بديعی بخود می گيرد. و انسان امروز به ابتدای جهان باز می گردد، زن همان «حوا»یی می شود که برای رسيدن به، و پا گذاشتن بر زمين، نافرمانی کرد و شادمانه حتی از بهشت گذشت تا بتواند به راحتی دوست داشته باشد، به راحتی عشق بورزد، و بی ترس و نگرانی از تبعيض زندگی کند و مرد هموزن او همان «آدم»ی باشد که در درک ارزش اين نافرمانی و همسانی با او همراهی و همفکری کند. >>>

Second to none

As a proposition of the Socialist International in 1910, International Women's Day (March 8) was celebrated for the first time in many industrial nations. It demanded the right to vote and to hold public office, right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job. Since then, the International Women's Day is commemorated and is a national holiday in communist countries. It symbolises a long struggle of all women on all continents, with different ethnics, religions, cultures and social classes, who have been deprived from the equal right with men>>>

An Apology to a Woman I Didn’t Know

The violent crackdown of the Islamic Republic’s security forces on how women dress in public was well on its way when I arrived in Tehran last spring. One morning a few days after my arrival I decided to walk to the nearby Super Jordan food market , located at the corner of the famous Jordan Boulevard (aka Africa Blvd) and Golazin street, and do some food shopping. As I was approaching the store I noticed there is some commotion on the street not far from the store. The security forces had set up makeshift apprehension stations on both north and south bound direction of the boulevard>>>

What we want

The One Million Signatures Campaign seeks to bring Iranian law addressing women’s status in line with international human rights standards, these demands are in no way in contradiction to Islam. Iranian law is based on interpretations of Sharia law, but these interpretations have been up for debate by religious scholars for some time, not only in Iran but around the Islamic world. Shiite Islam, on which the interpretations of Sharia rely with respect to Iranian law, claims to be dynamic and responsive to the specific needs of people and time. Iranian society has changed much since 1400 years ago, but the interpretations of Sharia on which the Iranian law is based remain rather conservative>>>

V for Voice

My unselfish and greater wish is to represent the voice of our repressed Iranian people, of the women of Iran who endure human rights abuses that should not even be occuring in this day and age... I would love to use our current production of "The Vagina Monologues" as a springboard for both a show in solidarity with women's and children's rights from you, my community, and as a compassionate vehicle of greater involvement of our Iranian community within the American community at large. This is a fabulous video where Jane Fonda and Eve Ensler, the playwright and women's rights activist extraordinaire, passionately and so eloquently explain our cause >>>

قدرت و شوق

چه ارتباطی میان حقوق زنان و ارگاسم وجود دارد؟ از نظر فیلمساز و فمینیست های کارکشته و موفقی مثل وندی اسلیک و امیکو امری، همه جور ارتباطی! داستان از کتاب "تکنولوژی ارگاسم" نوشته دکترریچل مینز شروع شد . این کتاب به تاریخ اختراع وایبریتورهای الکترو مغناطیسی می پردازد که از دهه 1880 برای درمان هیستری زنان به کار گرفته می شدند. این فیلم مستند Power and Passion در واقع داستان این کتاب را پی می گیرد که تاریخ این اختراع ساده و ارتباط آن با یکی از رفتارهای پیچیده انسان یعنی ارگاسم را بررسی می کند. دکتر مینز مسیر گاه شهوت انگیز و گاه خنده دار زنان "هیستریک" و تلاششان برای آرامش جنسی را از روزهای ریاکاری ویکتوریایی تا امروز نشان می دهد>>>

Missing the point

Perhaps Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury thought his statement about Sharia Law will be received enthusiastically as well-intended and an effort to reduce racial tensions in the society. However, his proposal got him into trouble. He was attacked from right and left. Those who saw their “white Christian culture” under threat asked for his resignation. Women rights activists, secularists and such like attacked him for the negative effects of Sharia Law on human rights, particularly the disastrous effects of such a practice on women in so-called Muslim communities. In response to harsh criticism he tried to qualify his proposal by stating that he did not mean the whole Sharia Law, but in family matters. He has just missed the point>>>

زنی که دو بار اعدام شد

کتاب خانم وزیر تالیف منصوره پیر نیا آخرین شاهکار در بدنام کردن یکی از خوش نامترین زنان آزادی خواه، روشنفکر، دانشمند و مبارز ایرانی است که نامش در تاریخ اجتماعی نه تنها زن ایرانی، بلکه در جهان نیز می درخشد. شیوه محاکمه و اعدام این زن لکه ننگی است جاویدان بر پیشانی حکومت اسلامی. خانم فرخ رو پارسای را تنها به این دلیل که هرگز حاضر نشد در جلسات دادگاه یا حتی به هنگام اعدام چادر بسر کند در یک گونی بزرگ نهاده، سر گونی را محکم گره زدند و او را به دار آویختند. این واقعه ننگین البته در پرونده عدالت اسلامی ابدی است. آیندگان اگر هیچ چیز از کمالات و مبارزات آزادی خواهانه بانو فرخ رو پارسا که من و ما شاهد آن بوده ایم نخوانند و ندانند فاجعه اعدام او یادشان نمی رود و چه بسا زیر تاثیر این رویداد به دنبال شناخت حقایق تاریخی که او و پشت سر او ما ساختیم برود.>>>

Beyond elite demands

One of the main criticisms against the Iranian women’s movement is that it advocates for the demands of elite groups and disregards the demands and needs of women at the grassroots. Critics claim that the Iranian women’s movement is an elite movement rather than a grassroots movement, and given the fact that the discourse of elite classes differ from that of the masses, ordinary women cannot participate in this movement. Women’s rights activists in recent years too have heard criticisms that claim that the demands of the women’s movement are in reality the demands of a group of Tehran-based and educated women>>>

For men only

"You mean you would be willing to allow your husband to take on a second or even a third wife while married to you, with the law supporting him in doing so?" I ask. "What’s the problem with that?" She responds abruptly and forcefully. "I am the second wife to my husband." All the women surrounding us on the Tehran metro car are now staring at me. There is something in their gaze, waiting for me to put this woman in her place with a strong and reproachful response. But the woman does not allow me to respond, she continues: "I fell in love with my husband. I am still in love with him. If it weren’t for the law, I would not be allowed to be with him. Even if it is for one day a week, it is legal. This law gives us greater freedom of choice, why should I oppose it?">>>