FROM THE VEILED EAST

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19374, 24 December 1932, Page 11

FROM THE VEILED EAST

PERSIAN WOMAN EMERGES. Mme. Zohra Heidary, the first Persian woman who had the temerity to discard the veil and reveal her beautiful face, recently came to England. She usually wears smart European clothes, but when alone she loves to change into Persian costume. She travels all over the world, by permission of the Persian Government, to encourage Persian handicrafts. As she expressed it: “I want to take back ideas so that my people will not make things beautifully useless but usefully beautiful.” She said that in Persia women are discarding the veil and going about the streets with their husbands—but this is very recent. She also wants Persian women to become educated, but is afraid they will change too much. “We still have our peaceful life,” she added, “our gardens, our nightingales, our wonderful roses; but there is a restlessness in the air.

“But we have learned a philosophy which you women of the West either never knew or have forgotten. It is that a woman who wants to rule and influence will always do so, whether she is in a harem or on a platform.”