Inside Iran

by Jane Mary Howard

"Former BBC correspondent Jane Howard made her home in Iran for five years, raising her two young children there. Her experience took her beyond the headlines and horror stories and into the lives of everyday women. Her brilliantly observed report, Inside Iran: Women's Lives takes the reader from dinner in a presidential palace to tea in a nomad's tent. From women working in rice paddies and tea plantations to highly educated women in Tehran who have been banned from working in their professions... While many women haven't regained the Western-style freedom they lost in the revolution of 1979, others have won rights they never had before. Practically every girl has access to primary education now, and even remote villages have clean drinking water, a paved road and a school. Yet Islamic law continues to impose many inequalities and constraints... Howard describes how the atmosphere changed with the election of the reformist president Khatami, and Iranians dared to demand more freedom a