(condensed rough transcript)

DL: What effect do you think it has had on your development as a woman, living in a number of different cultures?

AM: I spent all my childhood in Iran. I always felt men's and women's roles were right, because that's the way people were. When you go outside the country, in the beginning it's a shock. You think the foreigners are different, wrong. But once you get to know them, you get a different perspective. You try to keep your moral values, because that's a big part of you. But then you try to pick up the good points of the other cultures.

MA: I lived in Iran till I was 17. I considered myself an adult then, because most of my friends were much older. And I got to know a lot about the problems of women in my country. That really affected me.

DL: As a young girl, when did you first sense that there was something about what you were supposed to be that disturbed you?

MA: I was fortunate as a girl. My family was Moslem, but not at all fanatic. They let me practice Islam in my own way. But not all families were like mine. Most would insist that the woman follow religious requirements, like wearing a veil. If they didn't, it would mean they had lost their honor. The other thing that really had affected me was the attitude toward marriage. It's the parents who decide about the future. The couple would not be allowed to go out alone, or get to know each other. When I first left my country, I was around 17 or 18. My first impression was that women in Europe and the U.S. were much more free, and could do whatever they wanted. I forgot that there were still beautiful aspects of my country -- customs, culture, even ways of thinking, that are not comparable to Occidental society.

DL: Let me switch back to you, Atoosa. Looking back at your own childhood, what were the first social restrictions on you as a girl that bothered you?

AM: I was brought up in a family that was very different from other families. My mom was a working woman, so that made things a lot easier for me. She gave me the sense that it is important for a woman to have a career. She's a nurse, and is very independent. But there were many little things. It was always the girl who had restrictions, not the boy. I remember I wanted to go out and play soccer, for example. But my father said, "Girls don't play soccer. You can't go out in the street and play with boys. You're a lady." A lot of times I wished I was a boy, because I saw that they were so much freer. They didn't have any responsibilities. There was the assumption that little girls are much more mature.

MA: Most of us were educated differently from boys. Most families believe that an Iranian man should be the leader in the family, that he should have the say as to what is done in the house. But what was woman's role? We were educated to cook and take care of the house. To have kids, be a proficient housewife, and listen to your husband -- always, always, to defer to your husband. It was also important in our society, to have a boy child, especially first. A son was the pride of the family, because he would grow up to have a job.

AM: And preserve the family name.

MA: So the boy was actually first in everything. My brother was much younger than me, but he got to do all sorts of things. For example, my friends would invite me to their birthday parties. But my parents would never let me go. I don't think it was just a matter of trust. They let my brother go, even though he was only a boy of 8 or 9.

DL: When I was about 12, my brothers were allowed to put up the tent in the back yard and sleep overnight. And I wanted to sleep in the back yard too, but my parents wouldn't let me. And I was outraged.

AM: A lot of women in my country don't have confidence. They are always looked down on. I'll give an example that I observed a couple of years ago. A nice woman from Isfahan, very traditional, had a little girl and a little boy. I noticed that the little girl was feeling jealous, because they would hug him but not her. They would say, "You're a lady, sit down, watch what you're doing, eat right." But the little boy could do anything. I remember once he came in naked, and they pointed and laughed and said, "Look how cute he is!" While when the little girl was sitting with her skirt a little bit up, the mother hit her on the leg and said "Put your skirt down!" She could see the difference.

DL: "His body seems wonderful to everybody, and mine seems horrible..."

AM: Yes. "Why shouldn't he be ashamed? Is it because I am a girl? Why is he getting so much attention? Everything he does is right." I could see that it affected her. She was shy, and they always called her stupid because of that. "Look at your brother, he's always running around doing things. He is so smart." As you grow up, you always remember that.

MA: When I was a little kid, I started listening to other people and learning from them. One of our neighbors came to our house with the news that a friend of the family had had a baby. The first thing my grandmother asked was, "Was it a boy?! or a girl." When the neighbor answered "a girl," my grandmother's reaction was, "Oh, poor woman, she had a girl. Too bad." I was listening, and I couldn't believe my grandmother would say that. I wondered if she felt the same way toward me. Immediately I began feeling much more sensitive about their attitude toward me and my brother. I was about 7 or 8, very young.

AM: I remember the same sort of thing. I was sitting with my grandmother one day, and I said, "Do you like girls better, or boys?" And she said, "Well, I like all my children. But what is a girl? A girl just reminds you of your own pain. I would rather have a son."

MA: I'm glad you mentioned that. It's not that they are ignorant people. It's that they had such a hard time being women that they don't wish it on anyone else.

AM: There's a difference between the way we see things and the way other women see them. There are a lot of Iranian women who are happy with the way things are. They don't see any other way. We have traveled. But for women who live in the villages, this is their life, and they are happy with it. My grandmother got married when she was 13, and had never seen her husband. She never complained about it. When I said, "That wasn't fair!" she said, "No, that's just the way it is. The world is not always fair." She believed it was important first of all to be a good mother.

MA: In my view, you can divide the women of Iran into three groups. The first group would be the typical, classical Iranian woman. They live in a very closed environment, and never really had a choice. But they are really happy, because they think they have met all their obligations. They have their husband, they have their kids, they have a happy family; and they don't realize they could do so much more. The second kind of woman has a husband and kids, but is really unhappy. She has the same restrictions, but is more aware of her rights. It really hurts her that the husband is always the one who can make demands on her, and say "This is your role, this is what you have to do." She sees that her husband doesn't have to dominate her. But society puts pressure on her. She says, "I am sacrificing myself for my kids." If you tell her anything, she says "How can you say this to me?! I sacrificed my life for you!" They are really afraid to be separated from their kids, because they live for them. Then there is a third class of women, most of them of the younger generation, women who had the choice to be educated and go to school, and know other cultures and other people. These people knew their rights, and they chose to get marries and have kids. And they took the chance to get to know their husbands before they got married. But they discovered that their husbands changed absolutely once they were married. The woman probably felt her husband would understand her because they were friends before, and decided to get married because they were really in love. But once they got married, she saw that the man started to dominate, as her father had with her mother.

DL: In what ways?

MA: "Don't get this job", or "We should have a kid right now." What the woman is really after is to participate in the decision-making in the family, in choosing the future life that she will share with her husband. But the husband is under social pressure. He wants his wife to have equal rights. But when he goes out in the street the neighbors would say, "You are crazy, letting your wife do such-and-such." Or his family would remind him constantly that he should be in charge.

AM: I think that in parts of Iran, like Tehran, women see the outside world and are really influenced by it. I know a lot of Iranian women whose ideal is the European woman. On the other hand, men see women on Western tv and think, "They are dirty. They are selling themselves. They are impure." There are times when I'm sitting in a group in Iran and want to talk about certain things, and I disagree with the others about everything because I've been out of the country. But when I'm in the U.S., I don't feel what Americans are saying is completely correct.

DL: So you feel like an outsider to both worlds.

AM: Yes. I don't know what I really believe, where I really belong.

DL: It sounds as if you do know what your values are, and they don't completely fit either of these worlds.

AM: That's true.

DL: I wanted to ask both of you another question. If you could have chosen to be born and brought up in this country, what would you have lost?

AM: What I see in this culture is that there is not enough closeness. Family is so important to us, people are so important to us. What struck me when I first came to America was how everything revolved around machines. People don't depend on people. In my country, people depend on people. You want to go buy groceries, you depend on people. You ask favors. You do things for people, people do things for you. That's how you get around in the world -- communciation, love. But here, people have everything of their own. Everyone depends on the machine. They go their own separate ways. "Well, I'm your mother - or your father -- we brought you up and you're 18. It's your life. You decide." But it's different in my country. We belong to each other. We have to give love to each other. That's what we are living for. Here, work is so important. It all revolves too much around machines, around things, not enough around people. That's what I miss the most -- sitting in Iran around the korsi*, the whole family feeling so close. Going out, everybody saying hello to each other. Even the gossip, even the fights. Walking through the narrow streets, and people washing the floors and saying "Hello, come in for tea." Just the fact of caring so much for people, showing so much interest. Here, it's like "I'm so busy. I'm sorry, but I just don't have any time."

MA: Absolutely the same thing happened to me. Those concepts, those values, are so strong. I know the problems in my country, but I always feel I belong there, and I really want to do something for my country. If I went right now, I would probably be eliminated. I don't care about wearing a veil, that's not a problem for me. I would go absolutely as a Moslem woman. But what I would never accept would be if they came and told me, "You can't go to this institute because you are a woman, you can't do this because you are a woman, you can't talk to these guys and go and discuss this because you are a woman" -- I would never accept that. Since I've been here, I've changed. I never identified myself with American women, or Spanish. I have my own way of being that I believe is the best. I know I'm not perfect, and I need still more knowledge about things. I have to do a lot of reading, I have to know more people, and I have to analyze things. I can't just go, for example, and tell my aunt, "I feel sorry for you, you had 40 years of marriage, but that was all wrong." She would be very hurt. But what I could do as a first step is to translate books that I think women are really in need of. And even do good dictionaries. And I would dedicate my time to writing about literature, about art, and about women writers. I think it's going to be very interesting for women of our culture to read and find out about other ideas.

DL: So you'll be an interpreter and translator of women's issues for Iranian women.

MA: Yes, for now.

DL: What about you, Atoosa? Do you see yourself going back to Iran?

AM: Yes, the more I stay away, the more I feel that I need to go back. I think I would be happier there, if I could ever fit in again. It's going to be difficult in the beginning. Especially now, women are under pressure at work. I would like to write, be involved helping other people. Maybe share my experience with other women who are like me, because I know a lot of women have been out of Iran. I don't see myself going back now, because I haven't yet learned enough. I would love to travel around the world, to poor countries. I want to go to South Africa, India, Bangladesh, places like that. I've seen Europe. I've been really lucky. But I want to see the values of other places. People say, "Country women are dumb." I see certain values in them. They don't see themselves as being dominated. They think what they're doing is right.

DL: Are you drawn to live that lifestyle yourself, to live as a village woman?

AM: I'd like to for at least a couple of years. I'd like to go and discover that part, because I think I'm missing something.

MA: That's what I'd like to do. If I'm lucky and have enough money, after I finish my studies I want to spend at least one month a year in my country in a real small village. To experience the way people live, how the people of my country work and talk.

DL: You wouldn't want to go back to a village in Iran, for example, and marry a villager and have 12 children ...?

AM: I couldn't do that, because I'm not a part of that any more. That wouldn't make me happy. Half of my life I've been brought up to think differently. But I think there are wonderful things about that culture, those values.

MA: We can't live that style of life, but at least we can experience it. For two years, I spent all my summer time living with other farmers, in Spain, in Catalonia. I learned so much from them -- how to be a woman of a village and live the way the Spanish people do. And I know those values exist also in my country.

DL: For me too, there's something that really draws me to the life that's closer to the earth, closer to a sense of rootedness in the community, and in a particular place. I very much want to spend more time in Iran.

AM: Another thing is, we should never compare two different cultures. We should just see the differences and enjoy them. If I go back to Iran and start comparing -- for instance, taxi drivers, or how you have to stand in line to get bread.... It's important to see the beauty of it. To go to the baghghali [corner grocer's] and buy cheese, and then come home and spread out the sofreh [cloth] on the carpet to eat.... Before, I saw Western luxury as a wonderful thing; I wanted to eat at a table. Now I see the difference -- the qalyun [water-pipe], and samovar these are the symbols of the country. The narrow streets, the little kids running around playing, the akhunds in the mosque. I miss those things. Going on picnics with the family, going to Karaj where there is a waterfall, and you all sit on the takht [wooden platform out over the water] and eat kabab, and have tea--

DL: Or traveling by bus to the north, when you stop at a village in the morning and have a bowl of hot milk, and put fresh bread in it.

AM: I've noticed people's lives here, and it's incredible. They wake up at 5 o'clock and go to the office, and there's so much pressure. They go to work, and work till 6 o'clock, and by the time they come home at night they're all tired. They eat, they make food for their kids, they watch tv -- that's it. It just goes on. That's the life they have. I think they're missing so much. I do not want to live like this. I think there's a lot of beauty here; you learn so much about the world, the new world. But I think the traditional world has its beauties too. And I think I'd rather live that traditional life.

(At this point Mojgan had to leave)

There is a class of Iranians who are not really Iranian. They have been so influenced by the West I can't stand where they are. You go to an Iranian concert and see them showing off their clothes, as if to say, "We are rich; we came here because Iran is ruined." They don't feel what's good about their country. They are constantly comparing themselves to the West. It's a loss of identity.

DL: But that doesn't mean that you as a person have to go back and take on the whole cloak of traditional values, and wear it without question.

AM: No. It really doesn't bother me to wear the chador [the floor-length veil]. When you are not wearing it, you're pointed at. When I wear it, I feel I belong.

DL: I had a similar experience when I was in Iran. I had no trouble at all wearing the chador. Except that sometimes it slipped.... I enjoyed the freedom it gave me to come and go. But one of my Iranian friends got terribly upset at my wearing the chador. She's a writer. She said "We've been trying for years to achieve equality for women. And here you, who are American and don't understand our struggle, come like a tourist and think it's cute to wear a chador!" The issue for me is, if by adopting the surface customs of a people I can understand what is valuable in the culture, then it's no big deal. I don't mind making those adaptations. But there are other things that are more central, that really do matter to me.

AM: You don't have to change those, your moral values. You just have to see what's different in different cultures. Understand them, see the reasons. Look not from your perspective but from theirs: what is it they see, and why do they value it? I've been given a lot of freedom compared to other Iranians. For my father, I'm like a son. He says "I want you to be successful." But he always says, "Don't forget -- a good life is not having a name, and being famous, but being happy and loved." I'm always saying, "Oh, I want to do this, I want to do that." And he says, "Don't put yourself under so much pressure. Get what you really want from life. Do you think these people who are rich are really happy?" I've tried to adapt myself a lot to American culture. But I don't think I could quite be happy here. I have seen both sides, and I see so much goodness in the other one, my own.

DL: But isn't that one of the advantages we have, you more than me? Having seen different cultures from the inside, we have the advantage of being able to choose. So I can take what's good out of my mother's rural farm culture in North Carolina, for example, and what's good out of the life I lived in Berkeley, and what I saw that was good in Iran. And I can weave them together into a fabric that's mine. And keep weaving.

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