Persepolis Gender Roles

Words: 907
Pages: 4

Women Arise Against Roles
In Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis, Marji lives during the time of the Islamic Revolution and has to go through many changes to fulfill what the government wants. Marji and her family are not the only people that face problems with the changes because of the revolution. The revolution impacts mostly women and all the changes that each must face because of the Regime’s new laws, which includes the veils. Young children do not understand the reasons for these new laws and the separation of the schools. Marji gets into trouble because she expresses herself and breaks the rules of the government. Marji is the main character and she tells the reader how it was to grow up during the Islamic Revolution. Ebi and
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Marji gets in trouble by the Guardians of the Revolution who see the clothes that Marji wears (133). Marji disobeys Iranian women roles when she does not wear the veil properly and decides to not wear traditional Iranian women’s clothes. Marji defies these roles when she does what she wants to do and not what the government tells her to do. Marji gets in trouble because she wears a bracelet to school, and the women says: “I’ve told you a hundred times that it is strictly forbidden to wear jewelry and jeans” (143). Marji knows that she can get into serious trouble when she wears jewelry, but still decides to wear it even though the consequences. Women are supposed to behave in public, but Marji breaks Iranian women roles when she wears prohibited jewelry because she wants to be herself and not who the government tells her to be. Author Kay Hymowitz talks about how women’s rights has changed over the years: “Women presidents and prime ministers, like their male counterparts, run the gamut when it comes to political and social priorities...spoke forcefully throughout her career about women's rights and human rights” (Hymowitz 1). She realizes how women do not have to follow the rule of men and women are not seen as weak as they are during the Islamic Revolution. Men are now aware that women take part in society. In Persepolis, women stand up for what they believe in and they do not care for the consequences that can take place if they are