The news quickly spread around the world, and once again the Islamic Republic of Iran has become the butt of jokes.
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Recently, Iranian cleric Kazem Sedighi stated that women’s immodest clothing leads to promiscuity and is responsible for earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Sedighi, by no means a seismologist, was taken to task and his assertion put to the test by a Purdue University student who organized an event on Facebook called Boobquake.
Jennifer McCreight tried to test Sedighi’s theory. She asked women to bare their cleavage on the social network on April 26 to see if volcanic eruptions and tsunamis would ensue.
A week later, two Iranian women, Negar Mottahedeh and Golbarg Bashi, launched Brainquake. They asked women to show off their resumés, honours, prizes and accomplishments on Facebook.
“Every day women and young girls are forced to show off cleavage and more in order simply to be heard, to be seen or to advance professionally,” they wrote.
Although they may have intended to demonstrate that women are more than their boobs, unlike Boobquake, which exposed the absurdities of the ideological underpinnings of Iran’s theocracy, Brainquake was formed as a response to Boobquake, nothing more and nothing less.
In fact, their statement of intent makes an unnecessary and illogical comparison between the words of Sedighi and those of evangelical preacher and 700 Club leader Pat Robertson, who has also blamed marginalized groups, women, the poor or Third World nations for natural disasters.
What Brainquake conveniently fails to acknowledge is that preacher Pat and the 700 Club do not run the United States government – well, not entirely anyway.
Sedighi speaks for the Iranian regime, a system of governance mandating that all girls, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, cover their hair and dress in a modest manner from the age of nine.
Let’s talk about the sexualization of prepubescent girls. Women’s bodies in Iran are legally not their own. Women have no freedom of mobility, no freedom to clothe themselves as they see fit.
Brainquake’s churlish comparison between a woman showing her cleavage and being forced to wear the hijab is irresponsible and a further slap in the face to all those women subjugated under such misogynistic and patriarchal laws. It is as reprehensible as comparing breast augmentation to female genital mutilation.
Bashi and Mottahedeh go on: “Mr. Sedighi and the Islamic Republic of Iran are afraid of women’s abilities to push for change, to thrive despite gender apartheid. (Did you know that over 64 per cent of students studying at universities in Iran are women?)”
The regime that they assert is afraid of their accomplishments repeats this same statistic ad nauseam to show how advanced it is!
Sedighi never said that women’s brains and academic activity are disturbing to Iranian society.
The Islamic Republic occupying Iran does not care how educated or employed we become.
In fact, the more educated and accomplished women are, the more the government will claim it as a victory of the revolution. Mandatory veiling of women was the first imposition on Iranian society after the revolution.
Boobquake rightly made a mockery of a comment by a moronic cleric. Brainquake is pandering.
I am not interested in being invited to join the Islamic Republic at its table. I want to cut its legs off.
news@nowtoronto.com
