“I Feel Sorry for the Garden”: Democratizing the Family, LMEI, SOAS University of London
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 2017-02-13

This lecture titled '“I Feel Sorry for the Garden”: Democratizing the Family' was the fourth of four lectures on Forugh Farrokhzad by Farzaneh Milani. Part of the Yarshater Lecture Series in Persian Literature.
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If defying the age-old patterns of gender apartheid is the central trope of Farrokhzad’s artistic universe, advocating and mirroring the shifting lines of power within the family is its most consequential outcome. No longer playing into her subordination in order to reap the allocated benefits of what Deniz Kandiyoti calls the “patriarchal bargain,” she reassessed traditional codes and conventions regulating gender relations within the family unit and, by extension, in society at large.

Farrokhzad’s message, as I understand it, seems to be simple: a democratic society cannot be achieved without a democratic family. Structural inequities at the political level find their reflection in and are based upon inequities implemented within the family unit. The refusal to accept injustice or the display of gendered superiority within the household not only establishes domestic harmony, it also serves as an instrument for the establishment of collective justice. Without an egalitarian family, where gender equality and mutual respect govern, enduring democracy and genuine advancement of social justice are impossible. Tyranny at home prepares the grounds for accepting and perpetuating political tyranny.

Refusing to be locked within the confines of a predetermined femininity, Farrokhzad has offered a complex and multilayered portrait of Iran from the family level up. She has captured the reality of the Iranian experience during one of the most challenging and exciting times in its history. This is the kind of history that is unavailable in history books. It describes the chaos and vibrancy of a culture in transition. It is a window opening to beauty, elegance, and a different version of Iranian history.

Farzaneh Milani is Raymond J. Nelson Professor and Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures and former Director of Studies in Women and Gender at the University of Virginia. She has published several books, most recently Words, not Swords: Iranian Women Writers and the Freedom of Movement (Syracuse University Press, 2011; co-winner of Latifeh Yarshater Award), and over one hundred articles, epilogues, forewords, and afterwords in both Persian and English. She has served as the guest editor for special issues of Nimeye-Digar, Persian Language Feminist Journal, IranNameh and Iranian Studies: Journal of the International Society for Iranian Studies. She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Ms. Magazine, Reader's Digest, USA Today, and contributed to National Public Radio's All Things Considered. She has presented 240 lectures nationally and internationally. A past president of the Association of Middle Eastern Women's Studies in America and a Carnegie Fellow, Milani was the recipient of the All University Teaching Award as well as Zintl Leadership Award (2015).

Chair: Hassan Hakimian, LMEI