The Lion Women of Tehran: What Does Liberation Really Mean?

By Sunaina Mannan | Decoding Desis

★★★★☆ 4/5

I finished The Lion Women of Tehran on an unexpectedly emotional note.

Kamali's ability to evoke emotion toward the end of the novel left me imagining Ellie, Bahar, and Mehrdad watching the violent protests in Iran, only to recognize Homa among thousands of women fighting vehemently for their rights and equality.

There was something profoundly moving about that image: the intersection of friendship, memory, political upheaval, and a woman who had spent her life navigating the consequences of speaking out.

It also left me with a question that extends beyond Iran: What does liberation actually mean when political freedom, women's rights, and religious identity are in tension?

The Shah, the Revolution, and the Illusion of Liberation

One of the most interesting aspects of the novel is the opportunity to reflect on Iran before and after the Islamic Revolution.

It can be tempting to look at the restrictions imposed on women following the Revolution and conclude that women must have been better off under the Shah. In some respects, women did experience legal and social reforms during the Shah's reign. However, modernization and women's rights did not necessarily translate into political freedom or equality.

A government can introduce reforms that appear progressive while simultaneously restricting dissent and punishing those who challenge its authority.

And this raises an uncomfortable question:

If you cannot speak against the Shah, are you truly free?

What about when you cannot speak against the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah?

The political systems differ in their ideologies, structures, and forms of control. Yet the question of whether people can openly challenge authority remains relevant to both.

The novel's portrayal of Homa's experiences offers a particularly painful reminder that women can be subjected to violence and repression when they challenge those in power. The existence of modernization or legal reform does not automatically mean that a society has achieved equality.

Progress in one area does not erase oppression in another.

Moving Beyond the Assumption That Islam Alone Explains Women's Oppression

As a South Asian woman, I found myself reflecting on how easily people can make assumptions about Muslim societies without engaging with their histories or the diversity of their political and religious experiences.

It is easy, particularly from a Western perspective, to reduce the oppression of women in Iran to Islam. But that explanation is incomplete.

Iran's history is shaped by political authoritarianism, foreign influence, class divisions, cultural identity, competing interpretations of religion, and the aspirations of its people. The Islamic Revolution itself emerged from a complex set of political and social circumstances.

Many Iranians opposed the Shah for reasons that extended beyond a simple rejection of religion or a desire for a secular state. Different groups held different visions for the country's future, and those visions did not necessarily align.

This is where I found myself asking:

Can a country preserve its religious foundations while evolving with the times and protecting the rights of its citizens?

Is it possible to maintain an Islamic foundation in governance while ensuring that women and people of all faiths can exercise equal rights and freedoms?

These questions are not exclusive to Iran. They extend to Muslim-majority countries navigating the relationship between religious identity, state power, and modern governance.

However, I think we need to be careful not to treat Muslim-majority countries as though they share one political or cultural experience. Nor should we assume that a particular Western model can simply be transplanted into a different historical and social context.

The challenge is not merely whether a country is religious or secular. It is also how power is exercised, how rights are protected, and whether individuals can challenge authority without fear.

The Privileges We Inherit and the Ones We Fail to See

One of Kamali's strengths is her portrayal of everyday life across different socioeconomic classes.

The novel encourages us to think about the privileges people experience, the ones they may be blind to, and the beliefs that shape what they are willing to fight for.

What did the characters believe in? How did they practice their faith? What did they resist? And what changed for them following the White Revolution and the Islamic Revolution?

These questions matter because political change is never experienced uniformly.

The same transformation can represent opportunity for one person, loss for another, and a complicated combination of both for someone else.

Women's experiences, in particular, cannot be understood through broad political narratives alone. Their access to education, family rights, employment, safety, and autonomy is shaped by the intersection of law, class, ideology, and personal circumstances.

This is one of the reasons I appreciated the novel's attention to the different facets of Iranian society.

A Story of Friendship, Memory, and Political Identity

While the historical and political questions were compelling, the book did not consistently keep me on my toes.

The moment that stayed with me most was when Homa walked into the classroom, leaving Ellie caught between her past and the social role she was expected to occupy in her future.

That scene felt particularly significant because it brought the political questions of the novel into a deeply personal space. History is not only experienced through revolutions, governments, and protests. It is also experienced through friendships, classrooms, families, and the decisions people make when their values come into conflict with their social expectations.

The ending brought those threads together in a way that genuinely moved me.

Final Thoughts

The Lion Women of Tehran is an accessible and thought-provoking read that prompted me to reflect on women's rights, political freedom, religious identity, and the complicated meaning of liberation.

I appreciated that it encouraged questions rather than allowing Iran's history to be understood through a simple before-and-after narrative.

For me, the most important takeaway was this:

A society cannot be understood solely by the freedoms it claims to offer. We also have to examine who is allowed to speak, who is protected by the law, who is excluded, and whose rights remain conditional.

Liberation is not simply about replacing one system of authority with another. It requires an ongoing examination of power, equality, and the dignity afforded to every individual.

Rating: 4/5 stars.Unable to display this message due to an error. Reload the page to try again.