In Iran, the exclusion of women from the public sphere is nothing new. Sports stadium bans, government-imposed limits on university entry and increased gender segregation in the workplace are just some of the obstacles women have faced in recent years. And the music industry is no exception.

After last year’s presidential election, many hoped things would change, that Hassan Rouhani might even stand up to discrimination once he took on the presidency, but this has failed to materialize. In fact, some of the widely covered attacks on women’s visibility in public life have happened under Rouhani’s watch.

In some of Iran’s most important cities, including Isfahan, Tabriz and Mashhad, women musicians face increasing censorship. Despite efforts to reverse restrictive laws and prejudice, the Director-General of Isfahan’s Bureau of Islamic Culture and Guidance, Mohammad Ghotbi, recently told reporters that things were unlikely to change. Even if permits for female singers to perform to women-only audiences are re-instated — the norm in many cities across Iran — Ghotbi said “issuing permits for concerts where women perform does not mean that every woman can perform. We will act in a way that is in the best interest of Iranian traditions and norms, and if this cannot be done, we will stop the law. After all, laws that permit women to perform only specify that they can perform, not that they must.”

IranWire spoke to Ghotbi, who is also a cleric, about talks between musicians and local officials. “As before, we do not give permits to women,” he said. "We will not change the law until Tehran tells us otherwise. If the law is approved by Tehran, then we will implement it.”

Ghotbi believes that women’s musical contribution should be confined to the home. “Women must study their own special kind of music,” he said, “like the lullabies they sing to their kids at night.”

Taking Women out of the Picture

A member of the celebrated Shahnaz group of female musicians says people who commission public performances are increasingly afraid to employ women. “This has led to masculinization of the music scene,” she says. “In Isfahan, women musicians are banned from performing in public spaces,” she says, and recently, in Tabriz, a band was not allowed on stage because it included female musicians. In Mashhad, there are not only restrictions on women performers, but on all musical acts, as the leader of Friday prayers has banned performances within 20 kilometers of the city.

“Unfortunately gender segregation is happening in music as well as in the offices,” the Shahnaz musician says, referring to the mayor of Tehran’s recent moves to segregate government workers along gender lines. “Those with the power to make decisions about music and music events have nothing to do with the industry or with promoting the values of music,” she says. For those who play more traditional Iranian classical music, like the Shahnaz group, it’s getting tougher, because the audiences are smaller. Major concerts are concentrated in big cities like Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad and Tabriz, and as restrictions on musical venues increase, audience numbers shrink.

“If this problem could be solved it would be one of the best things to happen in the past decade,” says Leila from Isfahan, who plays Iranian string instruments the tar and setar and teaches music. “I see myself more as a musician and stage performer than a teacher. I have performed on stage since I was 10 or 11 but it has been more than a decade since I was allowed to appear on stage in my own hometown”.

When Leila asks the local branch of the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance for the reasons behind the bans on female performers, she says she is not given a logical or coherent reason. Often she is simply told “it is not customary or normal” for women to perform, despite the substantial contribution women have made to Iran’s musical heritage. “For the past few years we have not been even able to get a permit to perform for a women-only audience," she says.

“Many female students do not want to study with female teachers because they don’t see them perform,” a student named Arezoo says. “They want to go to male teachers because they see them performing all the time.”

Leila’s students ask her why she does not perform in public so often that she says it has affected her teaching. They say that when they go to a male teacher, they have the opportunity to see him in public, so it’s a demoralizing disadvantage in many ways.

“Students don’t really understand about how hard it is to get a permit, until they encounter it themselves,” Leila says.

“Until two or three years ago, when working in Isfahan, I did my best to solve the problem,” says Sara, who plays the goblet drum. “My colleagues and I pursued the matter repeatedly, but officials never gave us a clear answer. ‘Don’t expect an answer,’ they said. Presenting my work was important to me so I moved to Tehran.”

Male Musicians Bear Responsibility Too

“Men’s attitudes — even our male colleagues — are part of the problem too,” says Sara. “After a law making it illegal for men to teach women was passed, a wave of protests followed. The number of young women who want to study music is significant. Considering the money that can be made, men felt the law was an insult and decided to fight it in every way they could. And they got their way: all but one music center in Isfahan now permits men to teach women. And yet, last year when it was announced that women were forbidden from teaching men, male musicians regarded it as something unremarkable. They even said, ‘your protests make you look bad. And why do you insist on teaching men anyway?’”

“This is a big cultural issue,” says Sara. “I don’t understand how men can protest when they can’t teach women but are okay with it when women are not allowed to teach men. Many of our colleagues only think about the money they can make. This becomes even clearer when it comes to performing. Many keep silent and stage performances without female musicians. If music companies, especially those that are famous or well known, object and refuse to perform without woman musicians in cities like Isfahan, then I am sure things will improve and the number of female musicians will not dwindle more and more each day, as is happening at the moment.”

“We study music because we love it and we hope that someday we can present our work,” says music student Arezoo. “But many students don’t realize that we will not be able to perform in our own hometowns. When we are finally made aware of it, we either despair and give it up completely, or content ourselves with playing at family gatherings within the confines of our homes. It is a great injustice that we are not able see the fruits of our labor.”

Piruz Arjomand, Director-General of the Music Bureau at the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance — himself a composer, musician and musicologist— has appealed to musicians to be patient. “We are working to solve the problem but there are no quick solutions,” he tells IranWire. “We believe in the value of music,” he says, and insists he has been trying to persuade others that women play a big part in the industry by raising the matter with local officials. “Some decision makers feel uncomfortable with the new music scene in Iran and women’s presence on stage. We must educate them, and at the same time, help them resolve their concerns.”

“In an Islamic country like Iran, there are many people who worry about culture,” Arjomand says. Like many women musicians, he is well aware that in most cases, those who wield the power to make decisions lack knowledge about Iran’s rich musical heritage and its future. “Financial concerns might be on the shoulders of the man of the family, but everybody is allowed to judge cultural issues. These worries are not limited to music alone and they must be addressed.”

Unfortunately for Iran’s women musicians, those in charge have a narrow view of music and its value. “Music has many applications,” says Isfahan’s culture chief Mohammad Ghotbi, following on from his comments about women singing in the home. “For example, in cow farms they play music so that cows will produce more milk; women listen to certain rhythms when cooking so that food will be more delicious and look more beautiful. Driving in the rain needs one kind of music and driving through desert needs another kind.”

Iran’s female musicians are gradually losing heart. Confronted with a range of laws – official and unwritten — implemented by ill-informed administrators and made worse by officials’ double-talk, many are abandoning their art and the industry altogether. Ultimately this is bad news for the music scene in Iran, and terrible news for the preservation of one of Iran’s most precious cultural traditions.