mswyrr:

flirtingwithparadox:

insaniyat:

Currently Reading: Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards by Afsaneh Najmabadi.

“Drawing from a rich array of visual and literary material from nineteenth-century Iran, this groundbreaking book rereads and rewrites the history of Iranian modernity through the lens of gender and sexuality. Peeling away notions of a rigid pre-modern Islamic gender system, Afsaneh Najmabadi provides a compelling demonstration of the centrality of gender and sexuality to the shaping of modern culture and politics in Iran and of how changes in ideas about gender and sexuality affected conceptions of beauty, love, homeland, marriage, education, and citizenship. She concludes with a provocative discussion of Iranian feminism and its role in that country’s current culture wars. In addition to providing an important new perspective on Iranian history, Najmabadi skillfully demonstrates how using gender as an analytic category can provide insight into structures of hierarchy and power and thus into the organization of politics and social life.”

Read it! Download the free PDF.

hellloooo

:DD

well, quite a compelling read.

derradiokopf:

yay it’s here it’s here

Window, by Forough Farrokhzad 

One window is sufficient 
One window for beholding 
One window for hearing 
One window 
resembling a well’s ring 
reaching the earth at the finiteness of its heart 
and opening towards the expanse of this repetitive blue kindness 
one window filing the small hands of loneliness 
with nocturnal benevolence 
of the fragrance of wondrous stars 
and thereof, 
one can summon the sun 
to the alienation of geraniums.

One window will suffice me.

I come from the homeland of dolls 
from beneath the shades of paper-trees 
in the garden of a picture book 
from the dry seasons of impotent experiences in friendship and love 
in the soil-covered alleys of innocence 
from the years of growing pale alphabet letters 
behind the desks of the tuberculous school 
from the minute that children could write “stone” 
on the blackboard 
and the frenzied starlings would fly away 
from the ancient tree.

I come from the midst of carnivorous plant roots 
and my brain is still overflowed 
by a butterfly’s terrifying shriek 
crucified with pins 
onto a notebook.

When my trust was suspended from the fragile thread of justice 
and in the whole city 
they were chopping up my heart’s lanterns 
when they would blindfold me 
with the dark handkerchief of Law 
and from my anxios temples of desire 
fountains of blood would squirt out 
when my life had become nothing 
nothing 
but the tic-tac of a clock, 
I discovered 
I must 
must 
must love, 
insanely.

One window will suffice me 
one window to the moment of awareness 
observance 
and silence. 
now, 
the walnut sapling 
has grown so tall that it can interpret the wall 
by its youthful leaves.

Ask the mirror 
the redeemer’s name. 
Isn’t the shivering earth beneath your feet lonelier than you? 
the prophets brought the mission of destruction to our century 
aren’t these consecutive explosions 
and poisonous clouds 
the reverberation of the sacred verses? 
You, 
comrad, 
brother, 
confidant, 
when your reach the moon 
write the history of flower massacres.

Dreams always plunge down from their naive height 
and die. 
I smell the four-petal clover 
which has grown on the tomb of archaic meanings.

Wasn’t the woman 
buried in the shroud of anticipation and innocence, 
my youth?

Will I step up the stairs of curiosity 
to greet the good God who strolls on the rooftop?

I feel that “time” has passed 
I feel that “moment” is my share of history’s pages 
I feel that “desk” is a feigned distance 
between my tresses 
and the hands of this sad stranger.

Talk to me 
What else would the one offering the kindness of a live flesh want from 
you? 
but the understanding of the sensation of existence.

Talk to me 
I am in the window’s refuge 
I have a relationship with the Sun.

Translated by: Leila Farjami (source)