My name is fear

I was seven years old when I got sacred for the first time. I was getting back from school when my friend told me: “Did you know that if you reveal your hair out of your scarf, God will punish you by hanging you from it?” When I was 26, after all those fears and tragedies, I decided to stop saying my prayers and fearing God and Hell.

One day my husband locked me up in the house to stop me from reading books, going to the university, seeing my family, and involving with society. It was the same day when an earthquake hit our city and I was locked up in a house on the 10th floor. The thing that I was most worried about was finding the safest place to stand on but at once I felt an empty space beneath my feet and now that is how I am afraid of people and events like quakes.

As if “fear” is the other name for me.

I had not paid attention to the rules and traditions before my marriage, which ended up to a tragic divorce, shortly after. I was living in a swamp, alive but unaware. I was just like grass that had grown in a swamp, with no roots and identity. My whole identity was defined by my father’s name, my husband’s name, and my future unborn son.

The focus in my story and photos is on the rules and the traditions that are stemmed from religions, and the religious principles. Some of these religious teachings have established the inequality between men and women. These religious principals have been implemented to the constitution by the Islamic Republic of Iran. For example, based on the inequality between men and woman, men inherit twice the women, and also are entitled to the blood money twice the women.

Unquestionably, these unjust laws have contributed tremendously toward violence and discrimination against women.

Many women are in the government prison as guilty of showing their hair. All they wanted was to let the breeze dance with their hair. Singing is forbidden for girls and women. Some girls dream of going to college, but found themselves in the bridal gowns being forced to arranged marriages. In this swamp, freedom is suffocated in the womb. There is no space to develop and grow. The tyrant governments always use the religion as the best and strongest lever to control the people.