Fatemeh Keshavarz, a professor of Persian and comparative literature at Washington University in St. Louis, lectured on representations of Muslim and Iranian women in the Western world on Saturday.

In her lecture, “Victim or Agent? Iranian Women Greet the 21st Century,” held in White Hall, Keshavarz spoke on “the way the situation of Muslim women is understood in the Western world,” saying it is damaging when an “entire group of Islamic women is lumped together … as being totally ignorant and repressed.”

Keshavarz analyzed the history of women’s rights movements in Iran, and said Western feminists tend to have a “very narrow vision of freedom.”

“They go on and on about the head scarf or veil as being the manifestation of their oppression,” she said. “But so many other rights for women — [the right to] education, divorce, employment — are never discussed.”

Keshavarz said she wishes to see the Iranian law that requires women to cover their heads and bodily contours changed to give women the right to choose to wear scarves.

Another theme noted multiple times in her lecture was the “us and them” belief held by Westerners, which treats the Islamic world as if it were entirely different.

“For example, the British government is creating classes for Muslim women to teach them how to teach their kids not to become terrorists,” Keshavarz said. “No mother would want their kid to become a terrorist.”

Pakistani Muslim Madiha Raees, a College junior who helped organize the lecture, said she has experienced this “us and them” phenomenon first-hand.

Raees said she does not understand the blanket categorizing of Islamic women as oppressed and Islamic men as always angry, when this is limited to a small percentage of Muslims.

She also used to wear a head scarf while living in California and Georgia when she was younger.

“I was often asked by people if I was oppressed,” Raees said. “I don’t know why they made that assumption.”

Keshavarz discussed achievements of Iranian women today — including 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, feminist directors of Iranian cinema, sports players, artists and literary figures — to accentuate progresses being made by Iranian females, often ignored by the West.

Keshavarz wrote a book Jasmine and Stars: Reading more than Lolita in Tehran in response to Azar Nafisi’s 2003 novel, Reading Lolita in Tehran. Keshavarz felt Nafisi’s book, a New York Times bestseller for more than 100 weeks, misrepresented Iran and its people, depicting only negative images without accurately portraying the diverse viewpoints of the country’s citizens.

For example, the cover of the book is a cropped photograph that shows two women looking down appearing submissive, Keshavarz said, when in actuality they were just reading a newspaper.

Keshavarz said that there must be social and political change in Iran and the Muslim world, but that the West needs to stop focusing on only negative images spread through the media, which are “cropped so you always see dark things.”

Lily Ghavi, an Iranian Muslim sophomore in the College who has visited Iran before, agreed, noting she is troubled by the assumption in the press that Islam is a violent religion.

“What disturbs me about the press is that you will never see a newscast of peaceful Islamic movements, or good things that so many Muslims are involved in like charity, or fundraising for the betterment of their communities,” Ghavi said. “All you see are images of death, violence and destruction.”

During the question-and-answer session, an audience member asked about a recent report in the Washington Post about a women’s rights movement group in Iran that was permanently disrupted.

Keshavarz responded, saying she had not heard of that specific report, but that the New York Times and Washington Post sometimes publish information that is “completely false.”

“In the May 27, 2007, issue of the New York Times, they said that bookstores do not exist in Iran anymore. We sent images taken of bookstores in Iran and never got a response back from them,” Keshavarz said.

The event was held by the Islamic Society of Atlanta and American Friends Services as a part of Islam Awareness Month, created to increase dialogue and awareness about the Islamic faith. It was sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, Pakistani Students Association and Persian Club.

— Contact Mithu Maheswaranathan