Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis is about a young girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution in the 80’s. The accounts of her childhood are unique as she writes them from her childhood perspective. Due to this, readers are able to see the events of the Islamic Revolution from an innocent perspective. This innocent perspective is what makes looking at Satrapi’s memoir through a feminist lens so interesting.

Satrapi’s childhood is very different from the childhoods most people would have experienced growing up in Canada. From a very young age she was subjected to radical religious views, corrupt politicians and monarchs, and constant power struggles. Many of the ideologies held by the leaders of Iran at the time led to the taking away of women’s rights. As Satrapi explains the situations she lived under, many readers would be able to see that she lived in a government that oppressed women. However, Marji’s child innocence prevents her from understanding this. She explains in the beginning of the memoir how the children did not understand why they were being made to wear the veils, especially when they had spent their whole lives not having to do so. “We didn’t really like to wear the veil, especially since we didn’t understand why we had to. And also because the year before, in 1979, we were in a French non-religious school. Where boys and girls were together” (pg. 3-4). The young girls didn’t want to wear the veils because they no one ever exampled to them why it was necessary. They just knew that one year they were treated as equals besides their other classmates, and the next year they were forced to cover themselves. What Satrapi’s memoir does not look at are the women who willingly wore the veil for their religious beliefs. This is likely because, from Satrapi’s childhood perspective, it was something that was forced upon her and the women of her family, and so the memoir focuses on the oppressive aspects of the veil.

I think that Marji’s innocence shows how these gendered ideologies are forced onto children, and never really explained why things are the way they are. Even though her parents were very open with her on the events occurring in Iran at the time, she never fully understood why things were the way they were. Children tend to have many of their beliefs enforced on them by their parents and other influential people around them, and through her innocence and childhood naivety (though Satrapi was incredibly intelligent for her age), Satrapi’s memoir shows just how these gendered narratives are reinforced through generations.