Too Sexy For Her Veil?

Too Sexy For Her Veil?

One of the chapters in Azadeh Moaveni's memoir Lipstick Jihad (2005) is titled "I'm Too Sexy For My Veil," and she's not kidding. The book is enlightening about Iranian cultural complexities, and some of it's surprising. Young people in Tehran and in other places Moaveni travels to (she was a Time correspondent living in the Middle East) are as fashion and sex-obsessed as Americans, but with some twists. Because women have restrictions on how they appear in public, they focus on their faces. Trying to avoid beatings by the Basij is a daily routine. The Basij, or Mobilized Resistance Force, a para-military ring used to crack down on dissidents, keep order, and keep people in proper Islamic footing, is sometimes nicknamed the morality police. But under the veils, anything is possible.

In fact, even some of the Basij women have fashion sense. Take the picture above, for instance. She's a member of the defenders of strict Islamic dress and behavior codes, and has her hands begloved, head covered, and no doubt her feet and legs are covered, too. But there's style regardless: she seems to be wearing lip stick or lip gloss, and certainly has worked carefully on her eyebrows. They must be waxed or touched up, right? And besides, who doesn't like the look of a woman carrying an AK-47?