Not that they have a choice: Under Iranian law imposed after the Islamic revolution, all women — visitors included — must cover their heads and dress modestly.
Officially, that means either a full-length chador (a shapeless, tentlike cloth, usually black) or a headscarf, trousers and long-sleeved, lightweight coat called a manteau. But as foreign tourists chafing beneath their unaccustomed garb discover, the country's shifting interpretations of acceptable attire illustrate the complex realities of Iranian women themselves.
On the streets of modern neighborhoods in cities such as Tehran and Shiraz, young fashionistas wear thigh-high, figure-hugging manteaus, their peroxided tresses spilling out of skimpy silk scarves, while visitors push the envelope with ball caps and gauzy Indian tunics.
In the ladies' room of a restaurant in Isfahan, a treasure-trove of Persian architecture that's a top draw for Iranian and foreign visitors, a trio of drop-dead-gorgeous women shed their scarves and snap photos of one another. When they meet an American, they do a double take and ask why in the world she came.
"How can you put up with this?" they say, pointing to their temporarily discarded headgear. (Like other Iranians, they would not give their names for fear of reprisal.) "We hate it."
But a few days later, a tourist asks a young salesclerk in Kerman whether she resents being forced to cover up whenever she leaves the house. Not at all, she responds: "It makes me feel more relaxed."
Iranian women may literally travel at the back of the bus. (In Tehran, they also can use women-only subway cars, taxis and a public park.) At the same time, they drive cars, own businesses, serve in the country's parliament and make up more than half the university population.
