TEHRAN – A research group will organize the conference Femininity and Masculinity in Persian Culture and Literature in Utrecht University, the Netherlands on April 11-12.
Gender and sexuality are among the most understudied areas in Persian culture and literature. As an indispensable part of Persian culture, poetry has played a major role in shaping concepts such as femininity and masculinity.
For example, one of the major genres of Persian poetry in which male Persian poets have created their masterpieces is the genre of romance. This genre centers around the two key concepts of masculinity and femininity and the interplay between them. Such literary heritage informs us about the male poets’ perspective about gender and power dynamics.
The other players of the arena of poetry, female poets, bring in a different perspective into the scene.
One example is the Īnjūʾīd princess, Jahān-Malik Khātūn (d. about 1393). She wrote a Dīvān of 15 thousand couplets, three times larger than that of her contemporary world-renowned poet, Ḥāfiẓ (d. 1390).
Parvīn Iᶜtiṣāmī (d. 1941) is a more contemporary poet in the world of Persian literature. She wrote a poem to assert that she was a woman.