Today I was listening to the song ‘Taghsir’ which is on Iranian.com. The singer seems to be another Angry Iranian male. But he is not angry about IRI and its atrocities. He is angry about some woman who has done injustice to him. Then it dawned on me that I am starting to hear more and more songs from Iranian male singers which are songs against women and all the wrongs that they have done to our men. Meanwhile, our women are singing about the eyes of the lover and we are writing poetry about candle and butterfly.
Iranian men, be it in Iran or Diaspora are writing against Iranian women in their poetry and music and their facebook postings more than one would expect. After all, Iran is a “maardsalari” society. So when in this society, the men are still complaining about the women, what does that say? Surely, these men are not going to bring this mardsalari regime down. They probably don’t even recognize it as maardsalari.
Decades ago, we had songs in setayesh of women by singers like Vigen, and Andy and others. But, the new generation’s music treats the women as people who have betrayed the men, it is their “taghsir”, they should “vardar bebar”. On the contrary, women are still singing the praise of the men. Something is not right in this equation. We need young women in our music to have a voice like “Ziba Shirazi” who is assertive, and we also need our men to realize who the real enemy is and foucus their energy on the real enemy. Afterall, art has a special place in motivating people into actions, and what kind of actions do you think men who hear music against women will be motivated to take?
