After having watched Shirin Neshat’s enchantingly poetic version of Women without Men, I decided to read Parsipur’s novel for the second time. Again, I was blown away by how relevant this story still is today.

Shirin Neshat has worked six years to finish her movie Women without men, a long and difficult process that she described as giving birth, and its delivery comes at a time where Iranians are, once again, highly sensitive to political content. Today, Iranian artists have no real choice to act otherwise. If politics cannot be avoided, then they are forced to seek a balance between political content and artistic form, with its own, usually sensible, content.

Women like Shirin Ebadi, Shirin Neshat, Shadi Sadr, Neda Agha Soltan and Azar Nafisi have become symbols of the worldwide struggle for women’s rights and emancipation. On this International Women’s Day, they deserve more than ever to be honored.