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.
An Iranian citizen journalist, who writes under a pseudonym to protect her identity, wrote the following article from inside Iran.
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Sakineh Pari Hamedani was the first Iranian woman to become a surgeon. She served the Iranian people for more than five decades, yet little is known about her. Accounts of her life are contradictory, and the exact locations of her clinics are unknown. The lack of recognition she has received reflects the prejudices of a traditional, male-dominated society.
Pari was the daughter of Nasrollah Hamedani and an Iranian-Armenian woman whose name may have been Reyhaneh. Sources do not agree on when she was born, but some say 1898. Here place of birth is also uncertain. Some sources say she was born in the Crimean town of Bakhchysarai after her parents moved to Russia. Others say she was born in the Iranian city of Hamadan. They speculate that her parents sympathized with the Bolshevik government that seized power in Russia in 1917.
What is known is that she studied medicine in the Soviet Union and graduated as a surgeon in 1933, specializing in cancer treatment. She worked in Soviet hospitals until her parents died, for reasons unknown, around the same time. She then returned to Iran with her sister.
To practice medicine in Iran, Pari had to get her permit from the newly established University of Tehran Medical School. She passed the test in 1934 and opened a clinic in Tehran. There is some disagreement as to whether Pari was the first Iranian woman doctor, or if this distinction goes to a certain Doctor Kahal, who also published the first Iranian women’s magazine. What is certain is that Pari was the first female surgeon.
In the 1930s, there was a dearth of qualified doctors across Iran, especially in rural areas. When Iran’s state-run Fisheries Company invited Pari to practice in the small northern town of Ghara Su, close to the Caspian Sea, she accepted. She married there, but her marriage lasted only four years. She later established a practice in the Caspian town of Bandar Gaz. She spent the rest of her life there, offering free services to the poor until she was in her seventies.
Pari died in 1978 and is buried in Bandar Gaz. Her gravestone testifies to a remarkable life lost to time.
Shahnaz Zolghadr, Citizen-Journalist
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