Iranian Women you Should Know: Fakhrafagh Parsa

September 10, 2015

6 min read

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Fakhrafagh Parsa

Global and Iranian history are both closely intertwined with the lives and destinies of prominent figures. Every one of them has laid a brick on history’s wall, sometimes paying the price with their lives, men and women alike. Women have been especially influential in the past 200 years, writing much of contemporary Iranian history.

In Iran, women have increased public awareness about gender discrimination, raised the profile of and improved women’s rights, fought for literacy among women, and promoted the social status of women by counteracting religious pressures, participating in scientific projects, being involved in politics, influencing music, cinema... And so the list goes on.

This series aims to celebrate these renowned and respected Iranian women. They are women who represent the millions of women that influence their families and societies on a daily basis. Not all of the people profiled in the series are endorsed by IranWire, but their influence and impact cannot be overlooked. The articles are biographical stories that consider the lives of influential women in Iran.

IranWire readers are invited to send in suggestions for how we might expand the series. Contact IranWire via email (info@iranwire.com), on Facebook, or by tweeting us.

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Among Iranian women, Fakhrafagh Parsa has the distinction of being a pioneer journalist. She was the first woman journalist in Iran to be exiled for speaking the truth to men in a patriarchal society and defending gender equality in education. It was during this exile that she gave birth to Farokhru Parsa, the first and the only woman cabinet minister in Iranian history.

Not much is known about her life prior to her career in journalism. She was born in 1898 and was home-schooled until she was 14, when she started teaching at one of the newly established schools for girls. A short while later she married Farrokhdin Parsa, the school principal’s son.

After her marriage, Fakhrafagh Parsa continued teaching but was also appointed to be the internal manager for the newspaper Ershad (Guidance) until her husband, a civil servant, was transferred to the holy city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran.

In Mashhad she taught at the city’s first school for girls. With her husband’s assistance she received permit to publish a magazine. The first issue of Jahan-e Zanan (The World of Women) was published in 1920, a short while before the coup d’état that brought Reza Khan, the first Pahlavi king, to power.

Her weekly publication declared its mission to be to inform women about their rights and “educating ourselves, to teach ourselves good manners, to prove our high standing, and...not to suffer or die from beatings by our husbands and guardians.” The publication stated that these aims were all based on the teachings of Islam and sharia.

In Tehran, Parsa came to know groups including the Society of Patriotic Women, who supporting women’s rights. She had learned that Western woman had achieved a great deal and that Iranian women must make strides to join them. Women activists believed that the best way to do this was to inform middle class and underprivileged women through publications.

Before the Constitutional Revolution of 1905, a small number of women had written for the press, but it was only after the revolution that the number of schools for girls increased. For the first time, numerous publications by and for women were produced.

After four issues of Jahan-e Zanan, Parsa’s husband was recalled to Tehran, so this is where she published the fifth issue. Like other magazines for women, Jahan-e Zanan published articles about housekeeping, childrearing, girls’ education and health issues. The weekly was well received in Tehran, though it received criticism because it was more outspoken than other publications of its kind: it was critical of government policies that restricted women’s freedom and demanded equal education for girls.

Parsa and other writers on the magazine did try to avoid provoking the government, but at this juncture in Iranian (and world) history it was almost impossible to disentangle women’s issues from politics. When the magazine published an article about not wearing hejab, and told women to be prepared to work alongside men as equals, a group of religious zealots attacked and vandalized the magazine’s offices and Parsa’s home. At the time of the attacks, Parsa was pregnant. She managed to escape and protect herself and her children by taking refuge at a friend’s home.

The new Pahlavi king eventually ruled that hejab was not compulsory, though during the time when debate led to attacks and unrest, he opted to avoid trouble. To soothe religious opponents, his prime minister ordered the closure of Jahan-e Zanan magazine and banished Parsa to Arak, south of Tehran.

After the attack on her home, Parsa’s pregnancy and her physical condition meant she could not travel to Arak, so she and her family traveled to the holy city of Qom, where she spent her two years of exile outside Tehran. She later said, “I had just arrived at Qom when I heard that the people of Arak had tortured a number of heretics. Since at the time a group of hoodlums were leveling unjustified charges again me, I got scared and decided to remain in Qom. I sent a telegram to the then prime minister, telling him that I could not travel any further because my feet hurt badly. Within 12 hours I received a positive answer and we remained in Qom.”

Her exile in Qom, however, proved to be a difficult time for her. None of the women’s groups supported her or responded to her exile. This silence prompted her to write a letter to her subscribers. “Women did not behave honorably,” she admonished them. “Nobody made a sound. Perhaps if they had gathered in front of the parliament to protest, I would not have been forced to suffer this banishment and misfortune.”

“Not only have women not been educated properly, but even men have lost the freedom to argue and criticize,” she wrote.

Upon returning to Tehran, she did her best to publish Jahan-e Zanan again, but the government did not allow it. Nevertheless, she persisted, became a member of the Society of Patriotic Women and continued her activities in support of women’s rights, publishing another magazine.

It is not known when or how she died . But it was women like Fakhrafagh Parsa and their daughters after them who helped secure women’s right to vote in Iran in the 1960s, a right that not even the Islamic Republic has dared take away.

Also in the series:

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Jinous Nemat Mahmoudi

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Simin Behbahani

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Forough Farrokhzad

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Parvin Etesami

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Farokhru Parsa

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Jamileh Sadeghi

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Fatemeh Daneshvar

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Fatemeh Moghimi

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Googoosh

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Sima Bina

50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Tahereh Qurratu'l-Ayn