Mateo Mohammad Farzaneh, "Iranian Women and Gender in the Iran-Iraq War" (Syracuse UP, 2021)
Eighteen months after Iran\u2019s Revolution in 1979, hundreds of thousands of the country\u2019s women participated in the Iran-Iraq War (1980\u201388) in a variety of capacities. Iran was divided into women of conservative religious backgrounds who supported the revolution and accepted some of the theocratic regime\u2019s depictions of gender roles, and liberal women more active in civil society before the revolution who challenged the state\u2019s male-dominated gender bias. However, both groups were integral to the war effort, serving as journalists, paramedics, combatants, intelligence officers, medical instructors, and propagandists. Behind the frontlines, women were drivers, surgeons, fundraisers, and community organizers. The war provided women of all social classes the opportunity to assert their role in society, and in doing so, they refused to be marginalized.\nDespite their significant contributions, women are largely absent from studies on the war. In\xa0Iranian Women and Gender in the Iran-Iraq War\xa0(Syracuse UP, 2021), Farzaneh chronicles in copious detail women\u2019s participation on the battlefield, in the household, and everywhere in between.\nMateo Mohammad Farzaneh\xa0is associate professor of history and the Principal of the Mossadegh Initiative at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. He is an expert in the history of Iran and the modern Middle East. His first book,\xa0The Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Clerical Leadership of Khurasani\xa0won the National History Honor Society Best First Book Award in 2016. For more info visit\xa0https://www.mateofarzaneh.com.\n\nAmir Sayadabdi\xa0is a lecturer in Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington. He is mainly interested in anthropology of food and its intersection with gender studies, migration studies, and studies of race, ethnicity, and nationalism.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies