I would like to encourage you to watch a documentary, available on

[Skidmore]

Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime right now.

http://www.youtube.com/movie/googoosh-irans-daughter

It is well worth the time spent and you will learn much about the cultural underpinnings of the Iranian revolution and the status of women before and after, and you will learn about the life and art of an artist. You will also learn to understand the depth of of the antipathy toward the U.S. and why the notion of backing "teams" in the Middle East is a geopolitical game with no winners. Iran is just one example of how outcomes rarely pay off. I as a young foreign wife of an Iranian living there during the last 5 years of the Shah's reign and during the first 5 years post revolution, and through a significant portion of the Iran-Iraq war so this film has brought back a wealth of memories.

The film is in both English and Farsi, but subtitled in during the Farsi language parts.

[dkf]

1. I would never have guessed this movie would tell me all that...

I appreciate your pointing this out. Will add to the "to see" list.

[Warpy]

2. Another good resource for understanding what happened

Is "Reading Lolita in Tehran," a first person account by an English professor who found herself unable to teach literature officially and who formed an underground US literature study group in her home. It details how the revolution was derailed by well organized religious zealots and the whole country poisoned by their ideas.

It's well written and an excellent if deeply scary read.

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Lolita-Tehran-Memoir-Books/dp/081297106X

[Skidmore]

3. Just prior to the closing of the universities before Khomeini's return to Iran,

I took some courses at a women's college. One of these classes was on western fiction. The class was reading the works of Bronte, Austen, and a few other female writers. One day, in a discussion of one of the writers, a young lady made the observation that Iranian women had just arrived at the point described by one the of the earliest of feminist writers--awareness of the limits of culture and still held prisoner by the chains of it. This has stuck with me all of these years.

[dkf]

4. I'm not sure I can handle a deeply scary read right now.

At least our own authoritarian problems aren't led by religion.

I do love my kindle app though. Will note for further review. Thanks!

[MicaelS]

5. Mind giving us a synopsis of why

"the depth of of the antipathy toward the U.S. and why the notion of backing "teams" in the Middle East is a geopolitical game with no winners"?