Veiling is a gender question involving men also. Historically, men in Middle Eastern societies were also supposed to be “veiled” (see El Guindi 1999: 117–28). Men are concerned, even if to a different degree, with veiling in a more abstract sense, and in the concrete sense of covering bodily parts seen as immodest. Like women, men are not allowed to exhibit their bodies or to adorn them by wearing ties or bow ties, sunglasses, necklaces, or earrings. Having long hair is taken as a violation of the Islamic order. Wearing short-sleeved shirts or shorts is against normative modesty. Men’s averted gaze is also a consequence of veiling. As Abu-Lughod has noted, modesty means more than veiling according to strict Muslim reading. It means hiding your natural needs and passions, for instance, by not smoking, laughing loudly, or talking too much. Modesty is about “masking one’s nature, about not exposing oneself to the other” (1986: 115). Covering “sexual shame,” the veil makes sense of the dichotomy between related and unrelated people. A woman should cover her sexual shame for men she is not related to, that is, men who might be potential sexual partners.
Both men and women must be protected from being seen by unrelated persons of the opposite sex by following a set of rules of modesty that apply to architecture, dress, behavior, eye contact, and forms of interaction (Milani 1992), but they must also veil themselves in more indirect ways. Women must to some extent veil their voice. “Veiling of the voice includes using formal language with unrelated males and females, a decorous tone of voice, and avoidance of singing, boisterous laugher, and generally any emotional outburst in public other than the expression of grief or anger” (Naficy 2000: 562).
The salient side of normative modesty is effacement. In the Iranian culture, face (rou) is a common metaphor for self-assertion and is used as a symbol in measuring the social ethic. Kam-roui (little-face, shyness) or rou nadashtan (not having a face) is a sign of humbleness, while rou dashtan (to have face) or pour-roui (full-face) stands for self-exposure, brashness, and free expression, in what is perceived as an aggressive and arrogant manner. The expression roum nemishe means “my face does not allow me to say or do it.” A person’s honor and reputation are his/her aberou (water of face). Similarly, the expression sharm-e hozour (shame of presence) refers to the same high-valued self-effacement. One who has sharm-e hozour (one who is ashamed of his/her presence) is a meek and respectful person. The mahjob (veiled one) is a courteous person. Thus self-abasement (symbolic self-sacrificing) and self-effacement (veiling) are main features of the social ethic that the Islamic state has constructed.
Moral Space
The norm imposed on Iranian youth is that they have to be “veiled” in the abstract meaning of the word, to be modest. In their social practice they should maintain the distinctions and segregation between related and unrelated (mahram and namahram) people. This protects the moral values of society from corruption, by evil lusts or “cultural invasion” by the earthly Great Satan, the United States. Another feature of the politics of veiling is strict gender segregation, which is enforced in public places such as beaches, swimming pools, schools, hairdressers, or sports halls. According to the law, there should be separate sections for the sexes at political meetings, conferences, weddings, funerals, demonstrations, and even different queues in front of a bakery. Buses are divided into two parts separated with a metal grille. Men should get on and off through the front door; the rear section and rear door are for women. Women are excluded from sports halls, where “unveiled” men play football or wrestle in shorts. Mixing the sexes was seen by Ayatollah Khomeini as a plot “designed by foreigners to propagate promiscuity, and to weaken the Muslim youth’s determination.”19 All places where segregation cannot be imposed, for example, in the street, shopping centers, or parks, are under the supervision of the moral police.
Another noticeable feature of Iranian normative modesty is the division of space into public and private spheres. Private space (andaruni) is associated with women and family relations (mahram). Public space (biruni) is associated with men and unrelatedness (namahram). Traditional urban house designs use high walls and inner rooms to protect the family from the public. In southern Tehran, the quarter (mahalleh) still functions in its traditional role, as an interstitial space between private and public, under the control of neighbors. If this moral geography is violated, it might cause stigmatization. One way of understanding the chador—the black veil that covers the body from head to foot—is to see it as a “mobile andaruni.” Just as the walls of a house protect the inhabitants, the chador protects women moving through public space from being looked at by unrelated men.
Imposition of the Islamic order has transformed traditional definitions of space. The urban sociologist Amir-Ebrahimi (1380/2001) argues that after the Revolution even public spaces in the cities have to some extent been transformed into andaruni. The patriarchal father’s attention to the female virtue (namous) of his family is now part of the way the state manages space (Foucault 2000: 207). Although traditional principles of marking off public space from morally controlled “private” space are not followed in modern architecture and urban planning in Tehran, the attitude maintaining them is still powerful in some places. For instance, in all public places such as cinemas or restaurants there is a section “specifically for families” (makhsous-e khanevadeh), which is separated or “protected” from the single male’s (afrad-e mojarad) erotic power.
I experienced this “spatial morality” personally several times when I was asked to leave restaurants in Iran because I did not respect the “family space.” Once I was refused entrance to a well-known traditional teahouse. “It is only for families. We do not want to have mojarads [single people] here,” the doorman told me. Mojarad generally means single, but usually refers only to a single male. The discrimination against mojarads does not include women. While single men are not allowed to enter “family spaces,” single women can do so. A single man is called azab, an Arabic word which means unmarried but also “to be distant.” So, the dangerous single men are supposed to be distant, unattached, and isolated. At the entrance to the traditional teahouse, upset by being discriminated against, I insisted on entering, and the porter repeated: “Here is only for family-possessed [khanevadeh-dar] persons.” Being “family-possessed” brings connotations of morality, civility, or virtue. To call somebody “without-family” (bi-khanevadeh) is an insult, meaning that the person is vulgar and undignified. The moral geography in Iran is thus organized in a way that segregates the family (read women) from unrelated, particularly single, men, who are supposed to be potential challengers of the order of sexual purity that is upheld and protected by the omnipresence of the patriarch. The most blatant discriminations against young bachelor men are done by the basij.
Once I asked Bahman, a basiji in the Shahrak-e Gharb (I shall return to him in the next chapter), “Why do you stop only cars in which there are young people, while cars in which there are families can go through?”
Bahman: “Families usually are not a problem. But be honest and tell me don’t you become suspicious, if you see three well-dressed young men in a car at midnight?”
To summarize, the personal modesty that is designed and imposed from above implies a social control of the body that acts not only by covering hair and skin but also by desexualizing the body in public and by imposing a normative poverty. Modesty in appearance and behavior thus operates