Blind Obsession
I journeyed to Iran in our brief window of freedom between travel bans, with the political uncertainty of our upcoming election looming darkly. As I traveled I observed women there, listening to those I met.
Seen from my perspective as an American woman, these photographs simply observe women navigating their own culture in a country we seem to be both obsessed with and infinitely confused about.
In the current socio-political climate of extreme nationalist narrative, Iran has again been rolled out as archenemy to rally public support for military spending, dire economic sanctions, foreign aid to Israel, hatred of Muslims, and our own, homegrown form of repression-the travel ban.
We sometimes see women in other cultures as more repressed than we are. But, with the deeply entrenched misogyny in American society, are they really? Or do we simply see unfamiliar cultural manifestations of the same oppression?
Maybe it’s just our blind obsession.