For years, Iranian academics, writers, and scholars have equated national development and progress with the reform of men\'s sexual behavior.
About the Author: Wendy Desouza is PARSA CF visiting lecturer in Iranian studies in the Middle East and South Asia Studies Program at University of California, Davis..
In addition, she explores a cross-pollination with Europe, identifying how the "East" shaped visions of European male identity.
Desouza presents the larger implications of Pahlavi hegemonic masculinity in creating racialized male subjects and "productive" sexualities.
Moving beyond rigid portrayals of Islamic patriarchy and female oppression, she analyzes debates about manhood and maleness in early Twentieth-Century Iran, particularly around questions of race and sexuality.
Desouza offers an alternate narrative of Modern Iranian masculinity as an attempt to redraw social hierarchies among men.
Modern intellectuals repudiated native sexuality in Iran, just as their European counterparts in France and Germany did, arguing that transforming male identity was essential to the recovery of the nation.
For years, Iranian academics, writers, and scholars have equated national development and progress with the reform of men\'s sexual behavior
