Tergiversations of a Traveling Mind

I had a strange dream last night. I dreamt I was a woman in a Middle Eastern country, perhaps Iran shortly after the revolution, when they first started making women observe hijab and were trying to enforce separation of the sexes. I remember that, for me (in the dream), hijab was a strange concept. I was in my late teens or early twenties, and I had been one of those women who under the Shah had led a very western life-style, so adjusting to the new rules was difficult for me (as it was for many of my female and male friends).

I dreamt that I was in a large gathering of people of both sexes. There was a rock band performing in an abandoned building (I was friends with the band and had a crush on the lead guitarist), and we were all there illicitly to enjoy the music and party. But there was a raid on the building, and I remember all of us -- all the women, that is -- hurrying to cover ourselves up properly. Those that didn't cover up quickly enough (and those that didn't have valid male chaperones with them) were arrested.

After the raid was over, many women were upset -- and the worst part was, we felt like we couldn't do anything about it. But one of my male friends said that all the men would help us lead a protest. The women would wear proper coverings and be accompanied by male family members as chaperones, so they could have no reason to legally chastise us. And the men would make sure they were the first ones that got arrested, not us. It sounded like a beautiful idea.

It was only when I woke up that the strangeness of the dream occurred to me. ( Do Men Really Lead Women's Rights Protests? )