Paulina Niechciał

Zoroastrian Women in Temples: Places of Worship in the Perspective of the Zoroastrians Diaspora in the USA

In this article, I approach the issue of temple visits by Zoroastrian women living in the USA. I analysed the field material in terms of the motivations and circumstances of these visits. The analysis showed that the women visit both Zarathushtrian places of worship in the immediate area, as well as those located further away, including in their old homelands, although they valorise them differently and motivate the need for such visits differently. Some perform religious practices at temples of other religions.

After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iranian women writers with their feminist issues successfully stepped into mainstream literary discourse, focusing on topics previously omitted, emphasising socio-cultural gender issues and contributing to the development of specific attitudes and values among readers. The article comments on the post- Revolutionary women’s criticism in Iran expressed through literature and art, that has been aimed at not only the political establishment, but also the wider patriarchal cultural patterns. The example analysed in the text is the novel Women without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur – an important contribution to Iranian post-Revolutionary literature that helped to shape feminist discourse and inspired future generations of writers and other artists, contributing to the fact that women’s issues have gained a new meaning in contemporary Iran. On the example of Women without Men, as well as the works of Shirin Neshat – a widely recognised Iranian visual artist – inspired by the novel, the article shows how Iranian female artists have engaged in the struggle for women’s issues and are advocates of change in the Iranian society shaped by the male-dominated culture.