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Iranian Womenlectuals and dissidents.Today’s generation of Iranian womenreporters are doing big things. Theirmark will be left on history. Let theprofessor not accept their papers. Letthe heartless professor tell them thatin writing a report they have to beobjective. Objectivity only had meaningwhen Fereshteh smiled at her guardwhile being taken to prison, teachinghim that he was not her enemy and,if she had any enmity, it was with thetradition of misogyny.She had learned this lesson fromlife. Telling the Stories of Iranian Women’s Lives‘Anyone who did research on women’s issues benefitted from hundreds ofarticles, stories and interviews that were featured in Zanan.’BY SHAHLA SHERKATIwas 10 years old and every weekmy mother would buy Zan-e Rooz(Today’s Woman), Iran’s highest circulationwomen-oriented publication,from the neighborhood newsstand. Shealways said that when I read a magazineI can speak better. My sisters andI would wait for the magazine everySaturday, and I particularly enjoyedreading its illustrated stories.In those childhood days I neverimagined that I would one day becomethe chief editor of that magazine. Forme, that job seemed like a succulentfruit on an out-of-reach branch, onethat a small girl like me could notpossibly reach. So when at 21 mysister called to ask if I wanted to bea journalist, I suddenly felt that themissing piece to the puzzle of mybeing had been discovered. Withouthesitation I began to make my quietand snail-paced move into the worldof women’s press.For a decade I slowly and incessantlytraveled this road, and witheach issue of Zan-e Rooz published—despite our many limitations—wepaved a rocky road smooth, so thatthe women’s movement in Iran couldprogress along it. When accused of“promoting modernist, Westernizedand feminist tendencies,” I was firedfrom the semipublic organization thatpublished Zan-e Rooz.However, I did not step aside fromwomen-related journalism. Withouthesitating, I set out to publish Zanan(Women) magazine for which I becameThe first issue of Zanan, published in 1991.the license holder. With greater controland speed, I was moving forward.Now I was in the arena of maximumexpression of views and desires ofwomen no matter their ideology,perspective, taste and approach. Andour magazine welcomed them, notjust a minority of women who hadofficial legitimacy and whose thoughtsand needs coincided with commonlyprescribed standards.Along this road, new pathwaysopened one by one. Women, as wellas concerned and well-skilled men,warmly greeted my attempt to publisha magazine that searched for solutionsto the problems women confrontedin intellectual, social, legal, political,educational and other arenas. AtZanan, we practiced collective work,democracy and tolerance for opposingviews. Our governing principle was theelimination of sexism and the gainingof understanding of the problems facingwomen working in double shiftsin public and private spheres. Zanandid not discourage anyone whosegoal was to flourish; everyone couldgrow in accordance with her talentsand capabilities. There was no placefor hopelessness. Our answer to selfdoubtin the fulfillment of objectiveswas “nothing is impossible.”This intimate, unified and collaborativefamily worked—or, better put,lived—together for 16 years. Throughjoys and pains, opportunities andthreats, poverty and prosperity, andhighs and lows, the magazine’s resolvedid not break, and its efforts did notdiminish. It was with this blossomingsynchrony between stories we publishedand the goals of Iran’s women’smovement that had just taken a newbreath for which Zanan served as itsplatform. Anyone who did research onwomen’s issues benefitted from hundredsof articles, stories and interviewsthat were featured in Zanan. And themagazine served, too, as an indicator ofthe progress made by Iranian women,which was something authorities inIran could also take advantage of inthe international arena.Nieman Reports | Summer 2009 29