Iranian Masculinities Gender and Sexuality in Late Qajar and Early Pahlavi Iran

The transition from Qajar rule in Iran (c.1789?1925) to that of rule by the Pahlavi dynasty (1925?1979) set in motion a number of shifts in the political, social, and cultural realms. Focusing on masculinity in Iran, this book interweaves ideas and perceptions, laws, political movements, and men's practices to spotlight the role men as gendered subjects played in Iranian history. It shows how men under the reign of Reza Shah dressed, acted, spoke, and thought differently from their late Qajar period counterparts. Furthermore, it highlights how the notion of being a "proper Iranian man" changed over these decades. Demonstrating how an emerging elite of western-educated men constructed and promoted a new model of masculinity as part of their struggle for political, social, and cultural hegemony, Balslev shows how this new model reflects wider developments in Iranian society at the time including the rise of Iranian nationalism and the country's modernisation process.

Introduction: changing masculinities in a changing Iran; 1. Ideals and practices of masculinity in Qajar society: Javanmard, Luti and Pahlava; 2. Western knowledge and education and the emergence of a new Iranian masculinity in the late nineteenth-century; 3. Gendering the nation: patriotic men and endangered women in the constitutional revolution discourse; 4. Farangimaabs and Fokolis: masculinities and westernization from the constitutional revolution to Reza Shah; 5. Marriage reform in interwar Iran: regulating male sexuality to maintain male hegemony; 6. Male dress reforms under Reza Shah; 7. 'Strong spirits, strong arms, strong hearts': sport, scouting and soldiering under Reza Shah; Conclusions.

Sivan Balslev is a lecturer at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Tel Aviv, she was a fellow at the Polonsky Academy for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She has also translated two of Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad's books from Persian to Hebrew.