Mahdokht Parhami used to work as a teacher and assistant principal, to Mr. Ehteshami. He liked her and invited her to attend a cinema screening at night. Mahdokht was caught unawares, even though she saw her teacher colleagues smirking when the principal spoke to her. She resigned from her job without serving any notice.

Mahdokht didn’t understand herself. She thought hse was taking the moral high ground, but actually, she hurt herself. One year after she quit her job, she heard news that Mr Ehteshami married Miss Atai, another teacher in the school.

She “felt such a tightness in her chest as if her heart was about to burst out.”

(Parsipur, p. 5)

Mahdokht spent her time knitting for Houshang Khan’s children, for 11 years. Imagine how she could have allowed herself to be wooed by Mr Ehteshami and maybe married him and have her own children. A woman without a man, without an outside job and without direction, has spent the prime of her youth knitting for a man’s children. This short story illustrates the title of the book, Women Without Men.

Towards the end of the book, Mahdokht was portrayed as a tree. This is an allegory. She was fertile and scattered her seeds (goodness) to the world.

“The tree was now a mountain of seeds. …… The seeds traveled with the water to all corners of the world.”

(Parsipur, p. 112)

Perhaps Mahdokht did some things to spread her good deeds, to all over the world.

The second story is named after a woman called Fa’iza. She has been fighting with her sister-in-law and gossips to her female friend, Munis, a married woman, about how she has won another round of fight. Fa’iza is a woman without a man and she fights with her sister-in-law. According to Fa’iza, it is because Parveen criticizes her.

About the author Shahrnush Parsipur

She was born in Iran in 1946. She started getting noticed when she worked as a producer and writer for Iranian National TV and Radio. She was a feminist who pushed the boundaries of her culture and religion in her works. Unsurprisingly, she was jailed for five years. After her release, she had this book, Women Without Men published. It was banned in Iran, but has been selling via the underground network. She was again jailed. She decided to exile herself to California.

I have not visited Iran. I would say that in any country, culture and religion, there are boundaries. Even social boundaries would expect limits on publicly acceptable behaviors.