Dr. Shahla Haeri is the director of the Women's Studies Program at Boston University. She holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology and is the author of No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women (Syracuse Press, 2001). Through her book Dr. Haeri hopes to offer a fresh perspective on the lives of Muslim women which challenges the stereotypes of Muslim women being generally oppressed.
Dr. Haeri has lived and researched in Pakistan. No Shame for the Sun includes detail interviews with six educated and professional Pakistani women, as well as Dr. Haeri's analysis of these women's status in Pakistani society.
The women in the book come from diverse backgrounds. Readers get an intimate look at each of their lives. Quratul Ain Bakhteari talks about growing up in a refugee camp after independence and the partition of India and Pakistan. She becomes an active participant in the community and goes on to obtain her PhD despite pressures of marriage and children. We get to know Rahila Tiwana, her political activism, her imprisonment, and her struggles in police custody. Through Ayesha Siddiqa we learn how the feudal conscience develops. Ayesha is well aware of her vulnerable status as a female feudal lord. She is constantly striving to be better or stronger than a man in every aspect. Pakistan’s internationally revered feminist poet, Kishwar Naheed, tells us about her troubled marriage, her start in literature, and her status as a feminist and activist. The amazing Sajida Mokarram Shah tells us about the stigma of becoming a widow. She discusses her struggle to raise her children independently despite intense family opposition, getting a job, getting a law degree, and having a promising law career, all after becoming a widow. Last but not least we get to know, Nilofer Ahmed, the Sufi feminist, her stance on women’s rights in a religious context and her work to raise awareness of these rights.
Each woman tells a fixating and inspirational story. This is Dr Haeri's second book. She hopes to translate it into Urdu (official language of Pakistan) and Persian. In 2001, she also produced a documentary film called Mrs. President: Women and Political Leadership in Iran.
(Interviewer's note: The following is an excerpt of an interview which that was conducted mostly through telephone conversations, as well as, some e-mail exchanges.)
Dr. Haeri, you were born and raised in Iran and came to the US by yourself at a young age in order to attend college. What was that experience like for you, having come from a conservative culture like Iran’s?
It was difficult because I was emotionally very much attached to my sisters and brother, my [whole] family. I was very close to my siblings and my cousins, you know, and [we] got together often. So, in that sense it was hard. But in the sense of discovering a new world, It was very exciting. You know, I quickly picked up things, I rented my own apartment, I started painting it and doing things that you would never do [back home]. Then I became involved in my school and tried to learn English. I was very much determined to learn English because you know, unlike Pakistanis, Iranians don’t learn English from childhood. So I needed to put a lot of effort in my English, which I did.
Did your parents encourage you to go abroad for studies?
Not particularly. But when I did not pass the university entrance examination [in Iran], primarily because of my English, the only option at that time was to go abroad [for further education]. I had a cousin at Harvard University [so] my mother thought it would be okay for me to come to Boston. You see, almost everybody in my paternal extended family had gone to college. My mother was a teacher, so higher education was not considered a luxury but a necessity. My mother wanted me to become a physician… So, to her credit she encouraged me to come to Boston and go to school here even though she didn't want me to leave her.
So why did you decide to study Sociology instead of Medicine after you got to Boston?
I studied sociology, which was really not a very wise thing to do because I could hardly speak the language. But I was excited about this new world… I was always socially and politically conscious. My father encouraged us to be politically aware of what was going on around us. Then, you know, I arrived in the United States in the late 1960s, which coincided with the beginning of the third wave of the feminist movement. So, I became very much impressed and excited about sociology. But later on I switched to cultural anthropology.
 | You state in the book your reasons for choosing Pakistani women for the subject of No Shame For the Sun. Can you speak more about that. Why did you decide to go to Pakistan as oppose to Iran for the research for your book? |
So I went. I had a short stop in Pakistan. I was pleasantly surprised, because as you know, in 1987, Pakistan was under General Zia. Despite that, it seemed to be relatively freer than what I had experienced in Iran, and that the people were just wonderful, very helpful, excited to see me. From there I went to India and similarly I found Indians just as warm. Sometime I would forget where was I, whether in Pakistan or in India, because people were really nice. Whether they were Hindus, Jains, or Muslims, didn’t make any difference. They were just all very friendly, going out of their way to be helpful to me.
Did you know anyone in Pakistan before you went there?
Not a single soul! Now when I think about it, I wonder, “How did I manage to do that?” When I arrived in Karachi, I got there early in the morning and my suitcase got lost. I kept on thinking, “how am I going to make it to the hotel?” Finally, I [found] my suitcase and walked to the bus early in the morning. I was the only woman in that bus - and at that hour. The guys in the bus just stared at me - which was pretty nerve wrecking.
So going to Pakistan, after having grown up in Iran, where women are required to veil, did you find Pakistani society to be a little more liberating?
This is really very interesting. If I ever get a chance I will write about it [laughing]. You know, before the revolution, of course, [Iranian women] didn’t veil. So we had the experience of not being [forced] to veil. Women wore skirts and sleeveless dresses. So I was brought up under [those] conditions... When I went to Pakistan, on one level I found it liberating, in the sense that I didn’t have to wear the veil [head scarf and long overcoat]. But in another sense I found it very oppressive. Even more so than what you may find in Iran under the present conditions. That is very paradoxical! Because in Iran once you have [on] the veil, the scarf and the long robe, you can basically go anywhere and do anything. Where as in Pakistan, even though I was always dressed in shalwar qameez, if I were to walk out on the street [by myself], I would be stared at. It was apparently something not done. And then, of course, I realized that many of the Pakistanis [from] upper-middle class and middle class have drivers who drive them around. Karachi is a little bit different, in Karachi it was okay but Lahore was oppressive on some levels.
When you went to Pakistan, was it with the intention to go and interview women and talk to them?
No, no, I didn’t have the idea at all. Actually, after that year (1987-88), I applied for another grant, which I got - a small grant for a short period - to be in Pakistan and that had to do with the tension between the fundamentalists and the secularists within a democratic state. I wanted to see what roles women played and how they engaged with institutions of power. So I was more interested in the development of fundamentalism and in how women responded to that. So when I first went to Pakistan it was with a different project.
The women whom you interview in the book are all very strong and inspirational figures. Each has gone through her own trials. They speak about some very personal and intimate experiences from their lives. Was it difficult to get them to open up?
Well, these women did not all react the same way to my inquiries and interests. Some were my friends [after having lived in Pakistan over multiple trips there] and I knew them for a while before they agreed to talk to me about their personal life. With some others, we seemed to have hit it off quickly. Our interactions were more like open ended conversations rather than a structured interview. Perhaps that's why they felt more comfortable to delve into their emotions.
One thing that stands out about the book is that the women whom you interviewed, they are all from affluent, privileged backgrounds. Did you purposely do that?
Yes, I intended to do that because if we look at all the [anthropological] books on women from the Muslim world -- most that are published in the US at least, I don’t know about Europe -- are primarily about peasant women, tribal women, rural women, urban poor women. [They are] seldom, if ever, about the lives or activities of educated, professional, upper-middle class women who have all along been very important in their societies, engaged in various institutions of power, have been participating in the public domain and trying to influence some change.
Do you think you have succeeded in your mission, which was to reveal the professional and working Muslim women to the Western audience. In other words, who is reading your book now? Is it being read in colleges?
Well to some extent I have been successful if only to introduce the idea into the discourse. Even the fact that I have in the subtitle ‘Lives of Professional Women,’ that by itself created a lot of interest. In fact, I was just attending a conference in Canada, an international conference, and one of the themes that was proposed was to have more research done on the lives and activities of professional women in the Muslim world because this is the category of women who are in fact trying to influence change or supporting women’s human rights. Since my book was published, I have been invited to give many talks on Pakistan. Many professors at Universities have been using my book. So, I guess it is reaching a wide audience.
Before you wrote this book, you have written another book? How long did it take you to write that book? |  |
source:www.jazbah.org
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