this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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Witches VS Patriarchy

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I've not checked the legitimacy of the photo, but the premise is important to note

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[–] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 128 points 1 month ago (1 children)

When Margaret Atwood wrote the Handmaids Tale she made sure not to include anything that hadn't actually happened in recorded history. A lot of plot points were taken from this situation.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 38 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Wow. I didn’t know that.

[–] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 59 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I can't find the interview where she speaks in depth about Iran, it was important for the novel because it was a situation where women experienced going from modern equality to having absolutely no rights.

In this interview she briefly mentions Ayatollah Khomeini (the leader of the Iranian Revolution that created a theocracy and removed women's rights), but she's going over dozens of newspaper clippings of other events that inspired the story.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/discover/articles/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-testaments-real-life-inspiration

[–] RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That was a nice read. Now i'm interested in checking out the series.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It was just one novel.

Later: scuse me turns out there was a 2019 followup I didn't hear about!!

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[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 8 points 1 month ago

The TV show isnt as good as the books

[–] rezad@lemmy.world 63 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (18 children)

I am from Iran. whatever point you want to make about Iran with Pahlavi dictatorship, this aint it.

the parliament in Pahlavi era was literary just rubber stamp the king orders.

when shah (king) came back with help of CIA it reversed all the mashroote (conditional monarchy) progress and became a absolute dictatorship.

Iranian women condition are way better now than under Pahlavi (outside of dress code laws).

sorry to hear about trump fucking up your rights.

[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 47 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Worth pointing out, these photos you see of women in pre-revolutionary Iran are a very tiny percentage of urban, professional, women of the ruling class at the time. These photos are not universally representative of women's lives in Iran in that period

[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 month ago

Excellent point. You could say the same thing about places like Dubai and Saudi Arabia.

And some rural places in America.

Society does the oppression before the government does. Anywhere religion is used to oppress women's rights.

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[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 30 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Or, you know, getting stoned in public, or never having equal rights in cases of rape or infidelity.

Not saying it was better under Pahlavi, but it certainly is not equal now.

[–] rezad@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

in my whole life living in iran the only stoning I saw was on a American drama movie about stoning a woman in Iran.

"equal rights in cases of rape" ?? what? you know Iran has one of the harshest punishment for rape which unfortunately they only define as rape of women (not men). so maybe you are a mens' rights activist in iran??

[–] RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

It's estimated stoning isn't used that much ( if at all anymore), but there's an interesting inequality about it too

Individuals sentenced to stoning are placed in a stoning pit, buried to the neck (women) or waist (men), and others hurl stones at them until they escape the stoning pit, are incapacitated, or are killed. Because men (unlike women) are only buried to the waist, men occasionally do escape the stoning pit, which terminates the penalty.

Mohammad-Javad Larijani, chief of Iran's Human Rights Council (in 2010), rejected international condemnations of stoning, saying that, "in the eyes of some people, stoning is a lesser punishment than execution because there is a chance you should survive."[66] However, there are at least two newspaper reports of women managing to pull themselves out of their hole while being stoned, but being killed nonetheless after being forced back into the hole.

Overall death penalty seems to be really popular in Iran, estimated to be the biggest death penalty country per capita. And no wonder when you look at the offenses that merit death penalty

Death sentences in Iran are, in theory, legal for a variety of crimes, such as armed robbery, treason, espionage, murder, certain military offenses, drug trafficking, rape, homosexuality, sodomy, sexual misconduct, incestuous relations, fornication, prostitution, plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime, political dissidence, sabotage, apostasy, blasphemy, adultery, producing and publishing pornography, burglary, recidivist consumption of alcohol, recidivist theft, rebellion, some economic crimes, kidnapping, terrorism and few others.

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[–] Juice@midwest.social 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Good thing propaganda doesn't work on you, you might have some pretty weird ideas

[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Propaganda works on everyone. Especially those who think it does not.

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[–] DistrictSIX@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Even the rubber stamp parliament of the Shah had less women. Ffs, women gained the right to vote only in 1967! And there are currently 17 women in the Iranian parliament. Abysmal, but still far ahead of the era in the picture. That's not even mentioning the extremely low levels of education among women pre-revolution. Don't fall for this kind of propaganda, there's more to women's rights than getting to wear mini skirts as an urban elite. Women are still fighting for equal rights in Iran, and they are still far from reaching that goal. But don't think that they haven't made progress since the time of the picture.

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Not relevant to politics, but: I've been watching Youtube videos from Iran on the food, and holy crap does abgoosh/dizi (sp?) look incredible. I bought some dried whole limes to try making it myself but haven't gotten around to it yet.

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[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 48 points 1 month ago

From 1979, it took 4 years.

[–] hushable@lemmy.world 39 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

In my country there's a guy running for president who wants to revoke women's right to vote. He is not super popular in the pools, but for some mad reason both my sisters support him.

edit: I'm keeping the typo

[–] RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip 23 points 1 month ago (3 children)

What is the mad reasoning? I'm curious.

[–] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 month ago

"aww, but he is a nice leopard! So we'll spoke, so handsome. He wouldn't eat my face"

[–] hushable@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

one doesn't believe he will actually do it, the other one, idk

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

At a guess... propaganda?

[–] wieson@feddit.org 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

not super popular in the pools

Now I'm imagining old ladies in swim caps treading water and talking smack

[–] hushable@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I'm keeping the typo just because your comment made me laugh, thanks, I needed it

[–] DistrictSIX@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 month ago

The current secretary of defense of the US just made a post arguing for revoking women's right to vote, among other things. The supposed leader of 'the free world'. And the Europeans still call Trump daddy.

We'll probably be looking at pictures of US women in a couple of decades and wondering how it could turn into a shit hole.

[–] mrdown@lemmy.world 35 points 1 month ago (1 children)

because the united snake and the British destroyed it's democracy

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (4 children)
[–] Homesnatch@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The entire thing started because Iran wanted to wrestle control of their oil back from British Petroleum. The British convinced the US that Iran was going to join forces with Russia.

[–] beejboytyson@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Pretty sure the Dutch were in that too

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[–] PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 32 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Don't forget that August 28th is women's equality day, the day that the nineteenth amendment was certified, giving women the right to vote.

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Considering people don't turn out to vote anyways; they should move it to October 28th to remind people that it wasn't until 1974 women were allowed to get bank accounts without their husband/father thanks to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

I'd like to see how many women who say they're fine losing their right to vote would also be okay with not having their own bank account.

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[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Ok, but does anybody really think that women's rights can't get rolled back under a religious autocracy?

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 10 points 1 month ago

Right women?

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago

If you asked 20 years ago, you would have gotten totally different answers.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 6 points 1 month ago
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[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago

Religious doctrination is the strongest influence towards radical acceptance of certain principles. Too bad if God was real he would hate you pieces of shits.

[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Have you heard of a place called Senegal? They didn't even need fundamentalist psychopaths. They just had the IMF rewrite their laws after a bad loan and now women carry buckets of water on their heads for miles instead of attending university. (Haven't read up on it in 20 years, could be out of date)

[–] guy@piefed.social 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Are they required to do so by law?

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[–] thedruid@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (4 children)

No need to. I have national Geographics from that time showing this exact type of image.

Iran was a more progressive place in the seventies.

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[–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

This is a picture from Afghanistan before 1970:

Lord that's depressing

[–] okamiueru@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Unfortunate that it was the pro USA party that wanted to get rid of women's rights. Unfortunate that USA has had a habit of overthrowing governments that want good things for their people. Unfortunate that social media nowadays makes it a lot cheaper to manipulate voters towards right policies, and this is happening everywhere. Fucking sucks.

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[–] SpaceCadet@feddit.nl 4 points 4 weeks ago

You don't need Iran to prove that. Women's rights have already been rolled back in the US, it's a mistake to assume it will stop here.

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