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Farnoosh Moshiri was born in 1951 in Tehran, Iran to a literary and secular family. Iran is located between Afghanistan and Iraq. This was during the Reza Shah’s rule in Iran. He modernized his country by developing infrastructure such as building roads and railroads. Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi modernized Iran through reforms when he “implemented civil laws instead of using Islamic codes. Women were no longer to permitted to wear veils and burqas in public (before modernizing under the Reza Shah) because the veils were supposed to protect the women from the wandering eyes of the men” (Maxson p.1) which was a controversial topic between reformists and traditionalists who wanted women to walk in public wearing their hijabs and felt that it was wrong to expose women in the open and reformists who wanted to utilize Western ideas in their country. During an interview, Farnoosh describes herself as a “secular and nominal Muslim ” (Lanham p.5). She wanted a state where religion is separate with the government issues thus women could walk in public without being covered from head to toe. Farnoosh’s family was a literary family which wrote books, plays and poems which included “Her uncle, Fereidoon Moshiri, is one of the most famous lyric poets in Iran. Her father wrote fiction; her mother was an avid reader” (Lanham p.5) who mainly wrote about social injustices that happened in Iran under the Shah. This influenced and created who Farnoosh was to become because she became a playwright. She attended University of Iowa to study Drama and literature. She had, “her plays, short stories, and poems published in Iranian literary magazines before the 1979 revolution” (Moshiri p. 1). Farnoosh was disgusted by the Shah’s actions when he spent the country’s revenue to lavish himself while poor citizens were faced with starvation and poverty which led her to protest indirectly as she explains in an interview when, “Everybody stood and hailed him when he was in a carriage. I didn’t stand up. Later, I thought what a dangerous thing I had done. They could arrest me. But I thought that everything was such a masquerade, everything was a terrible lie-to the Iranian people. So I didn’t stand” (Wendland p.5). Farnoosh “was the only woman at the time (before the revolution) who was writing full-length plays and only one of them got published outside of the country” (Wright p.9). Farnoosh spoke of the injustices and wanted women to gain more freedoms and rights and hoped women would be involved in literature and publish books in an industry where male dominated that occurred because Iran “gave free speech and public education to all resulting in political ideas, newspapers and poetry” (Beck p. 4) however “writers and intellectuals would get arrested and tortured if they would not follow the lines of the regime” (Beadle p.19). Women in Iran feel that talking about oneself and writing books about one is impolite however Farnoosh built herself and defied the culture that women grew up with when she became the first women in her country to publish and write books, poems and plays. Farnoosh also, “taught at the College of Dramatic Arts and worked as a dramaturge for the Theatre Division of the Ministry of Culture and Art” (Wendland p. 1) because she could make plays about the social life of the people and try to have reforms for her people and also she could educate others the conditions that existed in Iran. During the Shah’s rule people enjoyed a secular state with some rights and freedoms although people lived in poverty however when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power the conditions that existed were totally the opposite of the how people lived during Reza Shah’s rule. When the Islamic Revolution began Farnoosh Moshiri was a very active person towards reforms and changes that she hoped would take place in the society. During an interview conducted by Wendland, Farnoosh Moshiri describes herself and role in the revolution as, “I was a very active person. I was a playwright and also involved in many cultural and political activities. Of course I was a feminist and had Marxist ideas” (Wendland p.2). Moshiri describes herself as self-militant and leftist who wanted to be there to help push for her vision of her country's future. Her ideas were mainly influenced by western ideas when she came to study in the United States. She wanted a society where people were equal and eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor. The conditions she experienced and witnessed such as limited women’s rights and poverty which shaped her ideas as a playwright and help her built herself to what she felt was right and just for the people of Iran. During the summer of 1979, religious leaders (mullahs) led by “Ayatollah Khomeini, who was in exile for 15 years in Iraq and Paris for his opposition to Shah, gained control of Iran and forced the Shah to flee converting Iran into a theocratic state” (Dowling p. 8). Ayatollah Khomeini wanted a state where religion and government were hand in hand because Islamic laws and principle had been abolished and discarded during the Shah’s rule. He believed people had forgotten the fundamentals of Islam such as women were allowed to walk in public without wearing a burqas and hijabs, and they could also hold jobs instead of their normal duties of staying at home and teaching the children the Quran and Islamic faith. This affected Farnoosh Moshiri because she taught at Tehran University and wrote and published writings which diminished her from being an active person who wrote about social injustices to a stay home woman. She could not also go in public without company of a man which conflicted to her beliefs she was from a secularist and nominal Muslim family which did not practice the Islamic faith. Ayatollah Khomeini wanted to eradicate any western influence in the country. People who were, “Secularists, feminists and political activists were arrested and tortured because they posed a threat to the government. Theatres were closed. University departments were renamed. Professors were fired. Newspapers were shut down as an attempt to wipe out any sign of culture that was not in line with Islamic dictates” (Beadle p. 5) because mullahs viewed westernization as an insult to traditional values of Islam. Farnoosh Moshiri fell under this category such that, “She was a politically active and a member of The Council of Writers and Artists of Iran and Women’s Organization. When the fundamentalists seized power by 1981, she was labeled an “enemy of God” and was forced to flee with her two-year-old son. This marked the end of her career as an Iranian playwright” (Wendland p. 1). Moshiri did not want to flee her country even though her fellow actors, writers, friends and family were arrested or disappeared. She wanted to stay and fight for the rights of women and create a society where everyone was equal during the revolution. Her parents had to beg her in order for her to save herself and her two-year-old son from the torture and oppression of the revolutionary guards. Her life was in danger and she was named “an enemy of God” which threatened her security because she was against the Islamic government since she wanted rights for the Iranians which were influenced by studying abroad and also the social injustice that had taken place earlier and which still continued occurring. Political ideologies present in Iran helped d influence Farnoosh Moshiri’s identity because during Shah’s rule she wanted social justice for everyone and made plays while during the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the coming of power to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini she had in mind Marxist and feminist ideas to create a change in Iran. When the Islamic regime came to power, both Farnoosh Moshiri and her character Roya in Against Gravity, “Went underground, staying with friends and relatives. They both feared what might happen to their son and daughter respectively if they were captured which spurred their decision to leave the country. They paid to have themselves smuggled into Afghanistan” (Lanham 16). They both stayed in Afghanistan for four years. Those four years were rough for the both the Iranians who had fled there, and native Afghans because the country was in a turmoil since the mujahideen were fighting the Soviets. The Soviets wanted to control Afghanistan and had appointed the president who acted as a puppet for them. In Afghanistan the women’s rights were denied and even basic human rights stripped off from them such as “women were banished from the work force, schools were closed to girls and women and women were expelled from the universities, women were prohibited from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative, publicly visible windows of women's houses painted black and forced women to wear the burqa (or chadari) - which completely shrouds the body, leaving only a small mesh-covered opening through which to see, and women and girls were prohibited from being examined by male physicians while at the same time prohibited female doctors and nurses from working” (Feminist Foundation p.2) Roya and Farnoosh both lived in Soviet camps after escaping into Afghanistan. People in the camps could only leave the camps when they wanted to do shopping or even go to the hospital. Women were not allowed to walk alone in the public without being accompanied by man. Their freedoms were limited such that the camp refugees could only travel into the city by bus under a Soviet guard, and in the camps they had curfews often dictating the time they should go to sleep such as the electricity went off leaving them no choice but to sleep hindering the refugees from reading or even having their own writings. Women were not permitted to walk alone so “Roya cut her hair and wore slacks and a windbreaker, woolen hat, and dark sunglasses, she easily passed for a young man” (Moshiri 110-111) in order to go to bazaars in order to buy some supplies for her and her friends in the camp. Roya had to change her identity and disguise herself as a man because women’s freedoms were suppressed which was similar to what was happening in her native country, Iran. Farnoosh was safe although bombs exploded day and night because she was not being targeted by the revolutionaries who wanted to kill because she was considered an “enemy of God”. During an interview Farnoosh describes her stay in Afghanistan as a prison since she could not leave the camp. Both Farnoosh and Roya worked as a translator of Farsi into English when they were imprisoned in Afghanistan because at the station where they worked there was always a Soviet guard hovering over them every minute of their life. Farnoosh’s identity changed from being a playwright in Iran to being a translator in Afghanistan where she changed from being a woman with feminist ideas and pushed for a better society to being a political refugee who had to stay in a camp all the time and occasionally she left to go to the market only under the security of a Soviet guard. It was also mandatory for women to wear hijab in Afghanistan which comes from Arabic root word “hajaba” which means to hide from view or conceal. Women had to wear this from head to toe only revealing their face. She was secularist and did not practice Islam however she had to wear the hijab because it was a custom for all Afghan women to do so. Moshiri and Roya both had to work from dawn to dusk leaving little time for them to focus on their lives such as Moshiri stopped writing and publishing poems, books or even plays which she had been doing before the revolution while Roya who was still in college could not attend school because the camps did not offer any education leaving her to work as a translator after being exposed to Farsi and English when she studied at the University of Modern Languages. Living in Afghanistan changed both Farnoosh Moshiri’s and Roya’s identity because they had escaped the tortures and oppression of the Islamic regime which most of their friends and family faced however in Afghanistan they both had to live with limited freedoms and rights which was similar to Iran’s, and also changed because Farnoosh could not continue being a writer because that would be hard to do in Afghanistan where women could not write or even publish their own books, and Roya could not continue with her education and they both had to work as translators. After spending four years in a prison kind of life both Farnoosh Moshiri and the character in Against Gravity Roya moved to India where all Iranian refugees out of Afghanistan using Red Cross Passports. Some of the people remained such as an old man in Against Gravity reasons that, “he could not change his country (Iran) anymore and he was contented in living at the camp in Afghanistan” (Moshiri 123). Western ideas conflicted with the Indian women’s rights. Indian women were described “as "powerless" and are accommodated into patriarchal culture through their religion, Hinduism” (Devi 2). A patriarchal culture has built the “Foundation for women's inequality today; these, in turn, are founded on patriarchal religion. Women are simply not valued as fully equal human beings deserving of the same dignity, rights, and treatment as men. Women are instead, valued for providing sex to men — whether as wives or something else — and then for their ability to spend their entire time keeping house, preserving the family, and raising children” (Cline p.1). This influenced Roya when she had stayed in India; she met a man named Jean-Marc a French diplomat who saw her as a beautiful woman and wanted to make love to her which meant that he was cheating on his wife. Jean-Marc took advantage of a poor political refugee who had been displaced since her country viewed her as a threat to the government. Later on, Jean-Marc dumps her saying, “You are a young and beautiful [he lied to bribe her so that she’d leave him alone]. You should meet a young man and begin a new relationship. If there was any way for us to see each other I’d do everything to make it possible, but I can’t risk my position at the embassy” (Moshiri 129). This situation changed her because she discovered that Jean-Marc was a pervert who wanted to take advantage of her. Islam is another major religion in India that has affected the women about who they are. Muslim “women have had their constitutional rights neglected, and are denied equal protection of the law as citizens because of inefficient implementation of law. The Muslims subject themselves to Sharia laws, which for them override even the Indian Constitution” (Devi p. 17). Although Indian women have equal rights as men their religions have held them back from acquiring freedoms and rights, and also equality among men. They are viewed to be stay at home mothers who take care and teach the children about their religions. Women in India had movements which would help them gain rights and achieve a place among men which relates with Farnoosh’s and her friends’ feminists ideas during the revolution in Iran. It was hard for women to move ahead with their movements in search of rights and equality because “they are accused of undermining the natural order of the universe, established by God” (Cline p.2). Their religion of Hinduism was similar to the Iranian’s dominant religion, Islam, where women’s rights have been suppressed and denied, and any grant to women’s rights is viewed as disrespecting their beliefs and teachings of Rig-Veda and Quran respectively. Indian faith and cultures view women as, “worthless. Today suttee is illegal, but women still aren't valued without a husband, and they were women are eminently dispensable” (Cline p.3). Widows in Iran are seen as, “Unwanted baggage in a patriarchal society, widows were once encouraged to fling themselves onto their husband's funeral pyres. The majority who did not were forbidden to remarry, and often corralled into beggar colonies at pilgrimage places” (Cline p.4). While in India, Roya could not find a job and had to wander all day, and had to sell some of her belongings to pay rent, support her daughter and herself, and had provide food. After the money she had saved from her selling of belongings ran out her sister “Mali sent her money and transcripts and insisted that she enter graduate school” (Moshiri 139) in order to keep her busy which would improve her chances of getting a job. Roya had earned a degree from University of Modern Languages however she could not find a job because women were supposed to stay at home and teach the children about their religion and take care of them. Life in India was hard for both Roya and Farnoosh and were, “living with several other refugees in one room; she was able to find some privacy in a closet. There she went to sit and write."I would write and translate just to keep my sanity, to be able to go on," she says. She translated short stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez into Farsi and adapted one as a play” (Lanham p. 18). Roya suffered depression leading to her “contemplating suicide. The only obstacle was her daughter Tala” (Moshiri 130) because when she reminisced the torture she faced in Iran and the hard living conditions she had faced in the countries she had fled to. Roya’s sister, “Mali was fired on her job as a nurse in Tehran hospital because of being blasphemy” (Moshiri 132) who helped her cope while living in India by sending her money. This lead to Roya “walking in the streets, stepping in and out of schools, looking for a job. Mt. Carmel Catholic Schools gave her a few hours teaching in the afternoons” (Moshiri 132). This did not help since it could only cover a portion of her expenses. Farnoosh’s life had been influenced by the rights and laws in the three countries i.e. Iran where she was born and Afghanistan and India as displaced political refugees whose lives were in danger of facing oppression or even death because she was exposed to western ideas which was a dangerous aspect of the theocratic state that existed. In the three countries, Iran, Afghanistan and India, women were denied their rights and had suppressed their voice and actions in being involved with government and society because of the religions (Islam and Hinduism) they practiced which felt offended if women held any rights being offensive to traditional values they followed and believed in. Roya’s character in Against Gravity and the author Farnoosh Moshiri felt that they were in their thirties while in India after “their twenties were gone, wasted-in deserts, wars, shared rooms, storage rooms, without love and happiness, or with love and lost happiness” (Moshiri 133) having spent half of their lives in hardship under no freedoms and rights. After spending a year in India, Farnoosh decided to go to the Red Cross for help. Here she was got a sponsor and a country to travel to. Her cousin in the United States invited her there giving her hope to have rights and able to get a job. Her former job in Iran was being a playwright which she divorced when the revolution began and had to flee and settle in other countries. Farnoosh shares the same experiences with her character Roya who “traveled to America with empty pockets and a ticket bought with loaned money” (Moshiri 134). Moshiri says during an interview that she “preferred to settle in Europe, however she and her son made the trip halfway around the world. Looking back, she says she made the right choice, because she already knew English - it had always been her second language. She could make it the language of her creative work; by contrast, her friends in Germany are still writing in Farsi” (Lanham p.21). In the early 19th century women had not been granted rights in the United State. They “were not allowed the freedoms men enjoyed in the eyes of the law, the church or the government. Women could not vote, hold elective office, attend college or earn a living. If married, they could not make legal contracts, divorce an abusive husband or gain custody of their children” (Morse p.4). This led to women’s rights movements to advocate for equality between men and women publishing the “Declaration of Sentiments which was signed and gave them freedoms including the right to vote” (Morse p.5). The ideas by American women had influenced Iranian women including Farnoosh Moshiri to have feminist ideas during the revolution. Previously American women worked and took care of their homes however after the “stock market crashed leading to the Great Depression, women had a break through to go out and look for jobs in order to aid their families” (Morse p. 7). Roya’s character in Against Gravity corresponds with the story of Farnoosh Moshiri when she was displaced from Iran. When she arrived in America Moshiri describes the difficulty she face during an interview that her first job in Houston, Texas was “painting T-shirts for $2 apiece. For one whole year I was painting Christmas T-shirts and Halloween T-shirts. I was on food stamps and welfare, too. I was living in a little garage apartment with my son. I was going crazy” (Lanham p. 22). Although Farnoosh had received two degrees from the University of Iowa and Tehran for drama and literature, she had to do manual labor to support her son. Farnoosh fell under the middle class however when she arrived in America she was considered of lower class and had to work “two jobs i.e. painting T-shirts and wiping tables from dusk till dawn spending little time with her son” (Moshiri 141-142). This led her to forget about literature. She stopped writing which is what she had been doing before the revolution however after the displacement in other countries she lost the urge to publish books, poems and plays. American women have a lot of rights that have been denied to women in other countries. Girls and women can wear anything they want to wear in the public. Roya sees girls in America wearing, “short shorts and tank tops walking alone” (Moshiri p.169) surprising her since in her country women could not walk in public without a male relative accompanying her. They also had to wear burqas and hijabs to prevent them from the wandering eyes of the men. This showed the freedom the American women which other countries did not have such as in Afghanistan and Iran where Islamic codes forbid walking in public without concealing themselves. United States is a free society where both men and women have freedoms and rights. United States can vote since it is a democratic state and the religion is separated from the government unlike Iran, a theocratic state, where religion influences the government. Women in America can vote after the “19th amendment of the United States Constitution was ratified in on August 18, 1920 which guarantees all American women the right to vote” (America’s Historical Documents p.1) showing the success of women’s suffrage movements. Iranian women had to stay home and could not advocate for their rights after the theocratic state was established however The Quran teaches that “Whoever does righteous acts, whether male or female, while he is a believer, verily, to him. We will give a good life, and We shall pay them certainly a reward in proportion to the best of what they used to do” (Quran 16:97). The teachings of Quran give both the women and men equal rights and rewards however Islamic states including Iran have denied the women their rights and have created a state where women are subjected under men’s control such as women cannot walk freely without being accompanied by a male relative, they can also not communicate in public with men if not related to them, they cannot watch soccer matches in stadiums and men and women had to sit in different places for public events however in United States, women have equal rights to men and do not have restrictions imposed on them like Iranian women. The y can walk freely in public wearing what they want to. They also have freedom of speech and could communicate with anyone without being in the jeopardy of being arrested. Although Americans have freedom of speech, they can have their books banned by the government for several reasons such as “the intention to protect people, especially children, from controversial ideas or opinions that are considered dangerous. The basis for being challenged frequently has something to do with sex, violence, religion, racial views, or profanity” (Pitner p. 1) invalidating some right to freedom of speech. The banning of books in United States is similar to actions taken in Iran because “writers had to write plays, books e.t.c that corresponded with the standards that the regime required. Anything written that showed opposition to the government was banned and the author arrested or even killed by the SAVAK (secret police appointed by the Shah)” (Moshiri 109). This limited Farnoosh’s writing to show the social injustice that occurred in Iran when the people suffered while the Reza Shah enjoyed and wastefully spent the national revenue while aiding his people to stop living in horrible conditions. Freedom of religion exists in United States which does not exist in Iran. Americans can freely practice their religions and every religion is treated equally however in Iran, “Islam is the majority religion making up 98% of the religion and minority religions such as Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Judaism which make up about 2% of the population. These minority groups have been subjected to persecution and discrimination such as when Jews tried to change the text of the Quran” (Rajendra and Kaplan 80,82)