Mateo Mohammad Farzaneh’s book is a meticulous chronicle of the lives of Iranian women who contributed to the eight-year war between their country and Iraq. Overcoming prescribed gender roles and cultural taboos, many women flocked to the war zone to be part of what they believed a “holy defense.” They volunteered, with mostly no financial compensation, to take up arms, nurse the wounded, gather intelligence, and work at mortuaries, laundry facilities, kitchens, and so on, yet their work and sacrifices have been either not recognized by the general public or trivialized by the very men they worked with. Considering the paucity of material regarding women’s contributions in the war either by or about them, Farzaneh’s book is a welcome intervention in a field that takes men’s stories of heroism for granted and looks at women’s with skepticism.
The first two chapters provide the much-needed background for the war and establish...
