We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Chapter 2 examines Morteza Moshfeq-e Kazemi’s Tehran-e Makhuf (Horrid Tehran), which portrays the corruption of the sociopolitical structure of the country and its impacts on female sexuality, particularly in the context of sigheh and sex work, at the end of the Qajar and early Pahlavi eras. In this novel, we hear the life stories of four female sex workers, among whom two, Ashraf and ‘Effat, reference their sigheh marriages. I argue that Moshfeq-e Kazemi pushes back against the political and social system that supports the practice at that time. By foregrounding the vulnerable socioeconomic status of women, Moshfeq-e Kazemi illustrates the ways that sigheh marriages stigmatize women and allow society to exploit them. I postulate that while these sigheh/sex-worker women are socially marginalized and stigmatized, they occupy a significant space in the social imaginary of Iran that points toward their symbolic and sexual power. I focus on the ways the female body can be a subject of reclaiming power and countering discourses of oppression. Through the embodiment of these sigheh/sex workers, I explore how the female body simultaneously fluctuates as an object of power, a site of social inscription, and a threat to the status quo concerning women’s subjectivity and autonomy.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.