“Women Who Cross Iran's Invisible Borders”
HIAA PhD Candidate Mohadeseh (Hosna) Salari Sardari was recently published in The Freedom Frequency, a forum organized by The Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Her article “Women Who Cross Iran's Invisible Borders” speaks to the courageous efforts of female dissidents who refuse to submit to the tightly controlled, secondary lives into which they are born.
The article is part of Liberty Amplified, a recurring series produced in partnership with the Hoover Institution’s Human Security Project, featuring voices that challenge authoritarianism in pursuit of freedom.
Hosna grew up in the Islamic Republic of Iran, under its Sharia law, where a woman is legally treated as the property of a male guardian: her husband, father, grandfather, or uncle. Even by law, the life of a woman is worth half the life of a man. Even though she thought she understood the constraints of that system, it never ceased to find ways to shock her.
Her article is a personal account of life in Iran, where “to be born a girl in such a system is to confront, from the very beginning, a structure that questions your autonomy and equality. You quickly learn that you are considered secondary, excessive, someone who does not fully belong in spaces of visibility, or authority.” But it also sheds light on the many overt and subtle ways women have crossed geographical, intellectual, and political borders to “carry the voices and experiences of Iranian women beyond the limits the state.”
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