VEIL DISCARDED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22628, 20 July 1935, Page 23

VEIL DISCARDED

WOMEN OF PERSIA FREEDOM FROM CHAPERONS In a typically English flat in London recently a woman who is a pioneer in women’s emancipation in her own country of* Persia sat and talked. She is Mine. Zohra Heidary, who has served in the Persian Ministry of Public Works and represented the Persian Ministry of Fine Arts in the United States. Handsome, dark-eyed, and vivacious, dressed very smartly from head to foot in jade green, she had an eye veil on her jade turban toque. She speaks perfect English with a pretty foreign accent, and has command of four other languages. And she is the first Persian woman to travel about the countries of the world unchaperoned. “ I LIVE ON A BRANCH.” “In my country, under the present Shah’s rule, everything has become very different for women,” she said. "The changes have all happened during the last 10 years. Girls and women have greater , freedom than could have been thought possible for them.

ENGLISH GAMES TAUGHT. " There are schools in Persia to-day run on Western lines where English games are taught, and there are a number of Persian women school teachers. In my country we put education first. That has reached a high standard, and now freedom has the second place. “ I would not say that, as yet, there is the mixing between the sexes anything like on the lines of Western countries, but modern Persian girls may meet men friends and even go to tea with them, and they may choose their life partners. “ But they are still more or less chaperoned in social life, though I think this applies to girls in good families in any country. I find that even in America some families practise this custom, and surely America is as free a country as any in the world. “Women in Persia do not as yet work in offices. They may dress as they like, and only those wear the veil who wish to When I discarded the veil I did not

notice any special feeling against me from the women of my country.’’ Mme. Heidary, who, for all her youth, is already a widow, said sadly, “ I have no home. . . I live on a brjmch.” Then, flinging up her dark head in the vivacious way which is hers, she said, “ But I love travel and seeing the world... “ I am busy writing a book, my autobiography, and I shall not leave England until it is finished. I love England, and I admire Englishwomen very much. They are so intelligent, and they have such beautiful complexions. Persian girls do not make up so much as the women in European countries, and yet _ my country is the source of many cosmetics. ■ “ Powder, for instance, is made in Persia from rice, and we have henna there. Then rouge is made from a little insect found in our country.” IN RUSSIAN PRISONS. This charming woman has been a prisoner twice under the Bolshevist regime—once for two weeks and once fop two months, "It was dreadful,” she said, with a shudder. “It all happened so suddenly, and for no reason at all. It seems to be the fashion in Russia to go to prison. They were so hard to me. the food was dreadful, and I was cut off from all communication with my family and the world. “Always we were being threatened. One got used to the terrible regime of fear. One of the times I was in prison was at the same time as the American journalist Margaret Harrison. Finally I was repatriated as a Persian.” Asked about America, the Persian woman’s beautiful eyes softened. “America is a wonderful country. Everyone was so kind to me there. I have spent seven years there. When I first went I could not speak a word of English, yet I had to lecture. I learnt my lectures off by heart, and it took me three months to do it. When I was delivering the lectures I was always afraid I should forget a word. I could not replace it, as I had learnt each passage off like a parrot. In America they don’t let you have notes. They want you to talk. In England and France you may read from your notes if you .like.” Mme.' Heidary’s secretary, friend and companion is an Englishwoman, a sister of the Persian Minister’s wife. To her, she says, she owes much of her liking for England and the English. She even likes English kippers! “ They are just delicious,” she said. “And there is another thing I enjoy too—your porridge. When I am alone in my flat sometimes, I lunch off kippers and porridge! ”