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Sediqeh Dowlatabadi 1882-1961
In 1923, she obtained a degree in Education from Paris’s Sorbonne University, and in 1926, she served as the representative for Iran at the tenth congress of the International Alliance for Women’s Suffrage. She returned to Iran in 1928, taking up a position as Supervisor of Women’s Education, and then as director of the Inspectorate of Women’s Schools.
Her most important campaign was for women’s suffrage. She persuaded Mohammad Mossadeq to grant women the vote; but due to the British/American sponsored coup, this never came to pass. In 1962, Sediqua died, at 80 years of age. Less than two years later, Iranian women received the right of suffrage for which she had campaigned for so long.
Her will stated “I will never forgive women who visit my grave veiled.” During the Islamic Revolution, her grave and those of her relatives was vandalised, and after Mahmoud Ahmedinejad became Mayor of Tehran, her grave was dug up and her remains thrown into the river to make way for a park. But as the founder of Iran’s strong feminist movement, the memory of Sediqeh Dowlatabadi lives on.
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sister-hood staff
sister-hood is a digital magazine, providing Muslim women with a platform to speak for themselves, rather than being spoken to, spoken for, or spoken about.