Iran is changing. Not all at once but bit by bit in small increments. The behavior of the people today would have not been tolerated 35 years ago in the immediate post-Revolutionary period. The cumulative effect of these behavioral and cultural changes is a transformation of Iranian society that will likely never be reversed.
I have just returned from a trip in Iran from Tehran to the Central and Western cities of Zanjan, Hamadan, Kermanshah, Khorramabad, Ahwaz, Shiraz, Yazd, Isfahan, Na;in, Kashan and back to Tehran.
I am an anthropologist with a long history in Iran. It is part of our profession to notice social change and to try and interpret it. In many cases, very small things and subtle changes indicate much larger shifts in social attitudes and behavior.
On this trip, almost the first thing I noticed was that women's dress is far more colorful and innovative than in the past. In particular, women are wearing fashions that would have been impossible just a few years ago. There are black all-encompassing chadors to be sure, but also red, pink, purple, orange full outfits with diaphanous head scarfs set far back on the head -- a mere gesture to the hijab of yore. Asking women about this, they are quite frank in saying that they are pushing the envelope on personal dress. Even women wearing black chadors would add a colorful scarf to their outfit. Footwear was always a means of personal expression, and you see not only low heels but also sneakers in wild colors and designer flats. This is not just in affluent North Tehran -- it is everywhere. One of the most fashionably dressed women I saw was in Behbahan -- a Luri town between Ahwaz and Shiraz.
Even the Arab visitors from the Gulf are affected. I met a group of Bahraini women all wearing huge sunglasses. I asked them about the glasses. They said, "In Bahrain we would be wearing a neqab (face mask) but people in Shiraz think that is too conservative, so we found these big sunglasses instead, and now we are fashionable!" They came to Shiraz to shop because "the fashions are so much better than in Bahrain."
Makeup for women as well as blonde hair coloring is ubiquitous. This would never have been tolerated even a few years ago.
The color red is especially noticeable. In the past no adult would be wearing red in Iran because of the association with the villains in the story of the martyrdom of Imam Hossein, the grandson of the prophet Mohammad, whose death is the central symbolic event in Shi'ism. The villains who killed him and his family are depicted in popular culture wearing red. Now you see red clothing everywhere in large cities, and occasionally in small towns. Even female television commentators are wearing all red (and orange and yellow) outfits.
Men are no less adventuresome. Short-sleeved shirts were first allowed during the Khatami period in the late 1990s, and now men are branching out with bold form-fitting t-shirts, Ralph Lauren polo shirts, tight jeans and fashionable sneakers and shoes. Hairstyles for both men and women are adventuresome, as are creative facial hair styles for men.
Television satellite dishes are everywhere and openly evident now, even in small towns. In the not-too-distant past the police were raiding households and destroying them. I asked one gentleman outside his home about his satellite dish, and he said that a kid in the neighborhood was manufacturing them and selling them to the neighbors. He then suddenly recognized me as someone he had seen on the Voice of America Persian broadcasts. I asked if the VOA signal was ever blocked, and he replied that he had "a program" that bypassed the block, supplied by his nephew, adding "He's an engineer!"
Google apps, including gmail have been blocked in Iran since 2012, but I obtained a proxy server software program that bypassed the block by just asking a hotel concierge, who provided one on the hotel business center public computer that I could download to my laptop. Problem solved.
Sometimes changes are not even subtle. For example, I went to lunch at the home of a family in Shiraz I know only slightly. My host was a woman -- a social scientist with whom I had corresponded on the Internet but never met. The family home would be considered a designer home in the U.S. with an open kitchen (very atypical), unusual lighting and a "loft-like" feel, as opposed to the strict division between public and private spaces found in a traditional home.
My host's brother is a chemical engineer. He showed up in a suit and a tie. Ties have been considered decadent since the Revolution. He said, "Well sometimes the police 'advise me' about my dress, but then there are so many Europeans with ties they can't say much." He didn't take his shoes off in the house (the only one who didn't), as is traditional. The women were all appeared without hijab except the mother -- atypical for women in the presence of a non-related male (me!). The youngest son, finishing his final exams in his graduate architecture course, wore a beet-red, short-sleeved shirt and had shoulder length hair, half of which was tied in a ponytail. The middle son, a mechanical engineer working in the huge, booming international natural gas and petrochemical complex in Assalouiyeh on the Persian Gulf, did all the cooking (with his mother, sister and sister-in-law in the house).
Men and women are walking the streets holding hands everywhere -- even in smaller cities. We were in the Nasrollah Mosque in Shiraz. A couple was there with a friend who was taking pictures. They were posing for what looked like pre-wedding photos. But what photos! They were hugging, and lying together on the carpeted floor of the mosque. In one photo, the woman was entwined in the man's lap -- all in public and in a mosque with the public around, not taking any particular notice. Not so surprising for LA but very different for Iran.
My Iranian friends don't always see many of the changes I am noticing as positive. One man complained that women getting professional degrees and working so extensively erodes the family, and "besides, there are no jobs." People comment on the abundant food supplies by saying "yes, there is a lot of food, but no one can afford it," or "they are exporting all of it to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon." Of course, these same people complaining about the food prices are often the ones with groaning tables and food everywhere.
No one would deny that there are serious economic problems in Iran today. But it is noteworthy that there is no real attempt to cover them up as might have been the case in the past. Discussions of social problems are prominent in the press and on TV. The theme that I heard all the time was upset over unemployment for university graduates. Here's how the older generation put it: "In my day you could get a job with just a diplom (high school diploma). Now you get a lisans (undergraduate degree) and even a fogh-e lisans (masters degree) and you still can't get a job." A survey presented on TV claimed that 60+ percent of unmarried young people said that economics was the principal reason they couldn't marry. The situation is exacerbated by the rising pressure to privatize public industry in accordance with Article 44 of the Iranian 1979 Constitution requiring privatization of government industry. "As soon as they get these concerns into private hands," one man said, "they start firing people."
President Hassan Rowhani had a very lively press conference while I was there. It was broadcast live and unedited on television, in which the journalists really put it to him. One young female journalist asked about Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post correspondent currently on trial for "espionage." Others asked about the failures of the privatization mandate, on ISIS/ISIL and how Iran is coordinating with the United States in Iraq. On unemployment, the inevitable questions about lifting of economic sanctions were raised along with a range of other very tough topics.
It was not President Rowhani's answers that intrigued me, but rather the intrepidness of the questioners, which was breathtaking. Half of the journalists were women and they asked the most penetrating questions. I felt a bit sorry for President Rowhani because he was being asked about things that were above his pay grade. He did a good job fending the questions off, but clearly the press is reaching a new level of candidness and boldness -- at least in the questions they are asking. Talking to a press interviewer later I asked about this. She said, "Yes, we can ask anything now, except we can't question the basic legitimacy of the leadership." This may seem to Americans like not much progress in a country where Congresspeople can shout "You lie!" at the president in the State of the Union Address without consequence, but it is a new level of press freedom in Iran.
It is impossible to avoid the topic of the economic sanctions being imposed on Iran. Iranians fantasize about an emerging Golden Age in a post-sanctions era. One 19-year-old told me that after the talks are successful he will go to America to find a wife. However, most Iranians emphasized the need for renewed friendship between the United States and Iran, something almost everyone greatly desires. I encountered a Qashqa'i tribal woman in the Shiraz bazaar. She was a widow with two grown sons. We were both drinking a sharbat (natural fruit drink) at a bazaar stand. After a few pleasantries she suddenly said: "So why can't the US and Iran stop this fighting! Why can't we get together? All this talk of war. Enough!"