Letter

Right after I read the new article ["Loving an Iranian man"] by Laleh Khalili in The Iranian, my mind started looking for a suitable all-encompassing description for it, to no avail, though; neither in my Farsi vocabulary, nor among the few English words I knew.

I found myself asking if the article was just "offensive", reducing all men (except for the writer's mighty father, of course, and later also the object of her love), Iranian and otherwise, to stupid not-worthy-of-respect creatures terribly falling short of fulfilling her expectations?

Or is it just a "typical femininely sentimental proclamation about why women are equal or even superior to men?" Or can I call it a "pathologically self-praising account at the cost of offending many readers in order to make up for the words she had received in an obscure library years ago, but has failed to get over it"?

Whatever it is, it seems to be a well-written outcome of the anger of a desperate "woman of two cultures" who doesn't find what she desires, neither is she satisfied with what she's got. Fine! You made your point!

(BTW, I'm glad the article was not in any way systematically written, so that I don't feel any pressure about systematically reacting to it; rather, I'm satisfied with this hasty manner of writing which is not far in style from many articles in The Iranian.)

I just want to make a couple of points here. First, it is a sad fact of life that professional women usually find it sort of a challenge to find their soulmates, husbands, lovers, or whatever you will, partly because men, by nature or by culture, do not approve of someone as successful as them as potentially desirable partners of life, let alone superior to them. So, women with careers are simply losers here. Actually, it's kind of an either/or situation: either forget about a career, or else face the challenge of finding your man of dreams! This clash exists for men, too, but not as painfully as it is for women.

Secondly, almost all the negative fluent language used to describe how dumb the men she has met have been (maybe it's just her luck) can be used and modified to apply to women, and more truly so.

But imagine [The Iranian ] accepting such an article for publication. Then wouldn't [the editor] be considered by all parties, to be just one of those so-called chauvinist pigs mentioned in "Loving an Iranian man."

Also, the article suffers from lack of direction. It doesn't point to a solution. It even doesn't explain the problem quite clearly. Oh well; maybe it's not meant to be that sort of a thing in the first place, which is understandable and acceptable.

Now, finally, I think I can at least mention some elements interwoven in this interesting article if not quite describe what it is in a single word: "expressiveness," "complaint," "perfectionism," "hatred for men," "courage," "self-love," and "confusion." And I let others judge about it all. I'm sure others will do a much better job than I did.

Respectfully,

Taqi Yazdanbakhsh
taqi50@hotmail.com