Will Iran Get a Feminist First Lady?
Bonnie Goldstein
Woman Up Editor
Posted:
06/12/09
Zahra Rahnavard, the possible new first lady of Iran -- if today's election results favor her husband, ex-prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi's reformist Green Party over incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- has written 15 books, is an accomplished sculptor, was a highly placed political adviser to former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, and, by the way, runs a university.
The outspoken spouse of the moderate opposition leader has become such an icon to 34 million Iranian women that the press in Tehran calls her the Iranian Michelle Obama. Last Sunday, Rahnavard, the first woman to actively campaign for her husband, broke all precedent in the bitter contest by holding a press conference to denounce her husband's hard-line, Holocaust-denying opponent, accusing Ahmadinejad of "lying, humiliating women, debasing his office and betraying the principles" of the 1979 revolution against the Shah. So many people turned out for today's election that polls stayed open for four extra hours.