Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 10/11/2007
The Western perception of Iranian women is that they live difficult, oppressed lives. Yet these pictures taken by the British photographer Olivia Arthur show Teheran's young women to be independent, party-loving, and leading surprisingly liberal lives.
By Isabel Albiston
In April, the Western media carried reports of an Islamic crackdown against women in Iran, aimed at enforcing strict dress codes on the streets of Teheran and across the country. Thousands of women were cautioned; many were arrested. Teheran's public prosecutor declared that women who dressed immodestly 'endangered the security and dignity of young men'. After Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was elected president in 2005, he sought to reverse the liberalisation of the state that had happened under the previous president, Mohammed Khatami. Every year, as summer approaches, Iranian state television announces that the police will take action against women who dress inappropriately, defying Sharia law.
Haniye, a 22-year-old graphic design student and Olivia Arthur's translator (sitting against the bed) with her friend Farnoz, 22, also a student, at Farnoz's house, after having dinner with her family. Haniye lives in Teheran with her parents and has a boyfriend – her mother knows about him, but her father does not. As well as visiting Farnoz's house, Haniye took Arthur to her friend Pagol's 23rd birthday party in Isfahan. 'Haniye and Pagol put on tons of make-up and were quite shocked that I didn't want to do the same,' Arthur says.
In the opinion of Olivia Arthur, 27, a British photographer who earlier this year spent several weeks taking candid photographs of young Iranian women from all sections of society – rich and poor, conservative and liberal – the crackdown was a farce. 'The fashion police stop women in the street and tell them to put their headscarves on properly and not to wear make-up. But in Teheran, a city of 15 million people, where most young women wear make-up and nail varnish, the police can only stop a few. The next day everyone will come out and do exactly the same thing.'
The Western perception of young Iranian women is that they live difficult lives under an oppressive regime, but Arthur wanted to present a more balanced view. Sixty per cent of Iranian students are women. In a country where more than half the population is under 25, many young Iranians watch pop videos on illegal satellite channels and find ways to express themselves by pushing the boundaries of Sharia law. 'Behind closed doors, the women in Iran create a world for themselves away from the conservative ideology of their leaders,' Arthur says. 'I had the overwhelming sense that they know what they want and are going to get it.'
Fatima is 11 years old and lives in a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Teheran with her mother and three aunts. Her father was a drug addict and left the family. 'As I was talking to her mother and aunts, Fatima took herself away and went upstairs to say her midday prayers,' Arthur says. The poster on the wall is of Fatima's uncle, a local wedding DJ who plays 'cheesy Iranian pop music' and lives elsewhere. 'As a group of women living together they struggle in a very conservative community, because it is considered strange not to have a man in the house,' Arthur says.
Born in London, Arthur has worked as a photographer for four years. Her father's job as a diplomat meant that she travelled widely as a child. While studying maths at Oxford she took photographs for the student newspaper and was named the 2001 Guardian Student Photographer of the year. She then took a course in photojournalism at the London College of Printing and spent the next two years taking photographs in India, followed by projects in Kashmir, Turkey, Georgia and Russia.
While working in Turkey last year, Arthur met an Iranian woman living in Istanbul who complained that widely published photographs of Iranian women dressed in black chadors were unrepresentative. The idea of photographing the ordinary lives of young women in Iran seemed timely to Arthur, given the widespread interest in Iran's strained diplomatic relations with the West.
Staying mostly with a photographer friend, Newsha, in Teheran, Arthur also visited the nearby city of Isfahan and the resort of Ramsar by the Caspian Sea. She asked a student, Haniye, whom she met through Newsha, to work as her translator. 'It worked well because Haniye introduced me to her friends,' Arthur says. This helped give her photographs a relaxed feel. Over the course of the project, Arthur discovered an ingrained sense of hospitality in the people she met. 'If you visit someone's house, you have to eat their food and drink their tea – it's an insult not to,' she says.
Arthur entered Iran on a tourist visa and was obliged to comply with the same rules as everybody else. 'In public I had to wear traditional dress – a headscarf and an overcoat that comes down to the knee,' she explains. 'Headscarves are compulsory, but most people don't want to wear them.'
Edyanita lives in Teheran and is Christian. She is a graphic design student and a friend of Haniye's. The Christian community in Iran has a special legal status – Christians are permitted to drink alcohol and dance so long as they are not in the company of Muslims. It is normal for Edyanita to have a glass of wine at home and she says that there is a much more relaxed attitude towards drinking in the Christian community. 'Edyanita was fed up with the fact that many of her [Muslim] friends are obsessed with drinking, parties and dressing provocatively. She blamed the authorities for putting so many restrictions on young people, arguing that they rebel against those rules,' Arthur says. 'Maybe she's right. But isn't that how young people all over the world behave?'
Although Arthur hoped to document the similarities between young women in Iran and in the West, she was surprised by the extent to which the Iranians she met were obsessed with their appearance. 'I thought it would be more hidden. Women aren't supposed to wear make-up, but they openly wear so much of it.' A keen interest in fashion is evident – in men as well as women. 'Even in some of the poor villages, I met women who save up to go into town and buy make-up,' Arthur says.
In addition, many young Iranians are under-going plastic surgery; there are an estimated 3,000 plastic surgeons operating in Teheran. Haniye was open about her nose job. 'I said to Haniye and [her friend] Farnoz, "What's this craze for nose jobs?" They said, "Oh yeah, I've had one, she's had one and Pagol is getting her jaw done." It was as though they were talking about what lipstick to wear.'
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