The Transformation of Gender in Iran

Gender notions of Iranian modernity have undergone a significant transition since the first ten years of the twentieth century. These developments were characterized by women's desire to assert their position in their society, which sparked the participation of women in matters of nationalism, which were mostly presided over by males who participated as members of the Islamic brotherhood. Prior to this, the role of females was to cultivate the family and the homeland by caring and loving it. The roles of the brotherhood and the sisterhood were merged in this specific decade of the 20th century, due to the integrity of the nation and the purity of the woman, which brought about the honor of both the gender and the nation, which became subject to the protection and possession of the males. Iranian modernity was achieved when masculinity in the traditional Iran was abandoned and dubbed backward, by the hetero-normalization and socialization of genders in the society, leading the family unit in the society to be reconfigured to meet these new definitions and insinuations of masculinity. The result of this hetero-socialization was a contribution to the concept and notions of gender in the society, which also promoted new definitions and specializations of beauty in the society (Najmabadi 6). The perception of gender based beauty in society was also expected to change, thus the traditional notions of beauty and gender greatly varied. Thus, AfsanehNajmabadi thus expresses through images the transformation of gender together with the concept of modernity in Iran.

Before the 19th century in Iraq, beauty was acceptable for both the male and the female genders, but the Iranian modernization brought the differentiation of beauty for both the females and the male genders. These changes in gender are clearly depicted in the representations of the Iranian visual culture, which took a more natural and real approach from the original representations that were phantasmic, as a result of the shift in the gender based representations of beau ty in the Iranian community before the 19th century. These changes have been greatly attributed to the contribution of the camera and photography, which influence realism in the painting of the features and beauty aspects of the people. This greatly contributed to the feminization of beauty and the transformation of the concept of beauty within men which also led to the disappearance of the masculine desire object, from the paintings after the 19th century. For instance, passionate couples also disappeared from being painted while the feminine objects of desire continued to replace the masculine ones. This also clearly depicted in figure 4 below which represents a set of desires, such as that expressed by the female for the male in the image, causing the viewer to also develop a sense of desire for the males (Najmabadi 26). This contributed to hetero-eroticism is shown to express the depiction of both male and female genders with desire, which was different before the 19th century when homoerotic visual depictions of males were common. Male beauty is also represented by young men without any facial hair, unlike their after 19th century counterparts that represented female male couples with heavy signs of facial hair, be it a beard, sideburns or even a mustache.

With regard to the gaze, male beauty is symbolized before the 19th century by an averted gaze, where the subject is neither looking at their partner in the portrait nor its viewers. This gaze serves to expose to the viewer all the aspects of beauty and desire from the young male including his smile, facial features and a wanting pose. This strongly resembles a depiction of a female object of desire after the 19th century when only female beauty was made mainstream and the male beauty was completely downplayed. In figure 4, the beauty aspects of the male are similar to those of the female depicted, such that the gaze and his pose allows the viewers to see the same iconic posture as that female objects desire could get after the 19th century, thanks to the interactions and influences of the Europeans after the camera and photography were introduced.



Figure 4 Embracing lovers(Najmabadi 29)

This is also true for the image named as figure 3 in Najmabadi’s book, which also depicts a painting of Prince Yahya to depict the impact of Iranian modernity on gender and its depictions of beauty. Like in figure 4, figure 3 depicts a single male figure without any facial hair and instead with a tall slim frame that is even tinier at the waist, a beauty feature that has been commonly associated with females especially after the 19th century. The man is also clearly very well accessorized with the different Iranian ornaments that he is dawned in, with an aim of making him more presentable, and setting him apart as a prince in the traditional Iranian society that occurred before the 19th century. This depiction of the prince also paints him without any mustache, sideburns, or even a beard, to highlight that the man depicted in the image was of a certain age and social class, which, as has been explained before was only depicted using very young beautiful men.



Figure 3 Prince Yahya (Najmabadi 28)

In addition, the gaze and pose used in the painting serve the purpose of inviting the audience to view the subject as an object of desire, as the prince is painting looking at the viewer, to expose all the aspects of beauty in his facial features. This convincingly makes it easier for the viewer to be convinced by the beauty of the prince. The gaze goes ahead to express the ambivalence of the concept of male beauty which is only achieved in a certain phase of their lives when they become young adults and have no facial hair to become an object of desire coveted by both men and women. This promoted hetero-eros in the society, which completely brought about Iranian modernity and hetero-eroticism in that society, thus alienating men with beauty and promoting beauty among women. The beautiful man depicted in this figure served to remind the male viewer of male beauty art of the divine perfection of male creation, encouraging the outside world, especially the Europeans to see this as a homosexual society,and thus the society had to shift toward heterosexual tendencies to promote normalcy in society according to these outsiders. This contributed to the concept of hetero-eroticism becoming a new normal in the 19th century making the traditional concept of male beauty to become unnatural and less popular in the days ahead. Female figure began to become more proliferated in the 19th century in the Iranian society, to encourage a sexual modernization. Beauty after this point became completely feminized such that the images and paintings of sexuality being utilized reflected the feminine beauty other than male beauty as had been expressed in the Iranian society before the 19th century. It became more popular to find depictions of human beauty being represented by the female gender, thus transforming gender in the Iranian society as a result of modernization from Europeans. The society’s concept of beauty existed in all genders but the modernity only enhanced the concept of beauty for the female and this concept became completely faded away for the males.







Works Cited

Najmabadi, Afsaneh. Women with Mustaches Men without Beards-Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity. Carlifornia: University of California Press, 2005.