We made our weekly stop at the public bathhouse. My sister (Manijeh), my aunt (Sara), my grandmother (Nana Hanna), and I sat on the white tile floor, next to a little square basin. Manijeh was ten and I was five.

While bending down to fill a bowl with hot water from the basin, Aunt Sara nodded toward two women standing a few feet to our right.

“Look at Pari and Mahin.”

I looked at the two women. One was scrubbing the back of the other with luffa.

Manijeh said, “Yes. So what?”

Aunt Sara nodded knowingly. “Pari has four daughters; three are already eligible. She is scrubbing Mahin’s back because Mahin has a nice son of marriageable age.”

“I know that girl. She’s only fifteen!” Manijeh sounded surprised.

“Yes, but the oldest has to marry young so that her younger sisters can marry on time.”

Nana Hanna affirmed. “Pari is doing the right thing. She has to do all she can for her daughters.”

When we got home, Maman Flora was sitting on our wide deck, holding my baby brother, cuddling, nursing and talking to him. Manijeh and I went to them and tried to kiss the baby. He was tightly swaddled in a white cotton wrap and all I could see of him was his beautiful face with pinkish skin and big eyes. Maman waived us away. “Don’t get too close. Your hair is in his face.” Manijeh pulled her hair back with both hands and tried to kiss him again. I lay next to Maman’s knees on the Persian rug, and put my head in her lap.

Maman turned back to the baby “I love you baby. Elăhi Ghorboonet beram (I pray to God that I should die for you.)”

These were the common language of love. I had not heard Maman saying these words before. Soon I got bored and fell asleep.

Two days later, we went to my brother’s bris at Aunt Sara’s house. Maman was dressing the baby in the bedroom. He lay naked on a blanket spread under him. Manijeh and I were watching. This was the first time that my brother was out of the tightly wrapped blanket and I could see his tiny body. There was something very strange between his legs that I had never seen before. Manijeh and I did not have that. Aunt Sara looked at the same thing and laughed. “Ooh, look at his bobol tala (weenie of gold). While she was saying this, a stream of yellow water shot out of the ‘weenie.’ I jumped back. Maman quickly cleaned up everything and dressed him up for the ceremony.

In Aunt Sara’s living room, my father was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room. Maman brought the baby and placed him in my father’s lap. Some women got up from their chairs and pushed close to the scene. I shoved forward too. Nobody noticed me. A woman standing behind me whispered. “She prances around as if no other woman has ever given birth to a boy.” The woman standing next to her said. “No worries, your turn will come soon. Be thankful you have a healthy girl. Girls help their mothers. Boys belong to their mother-in-laws. God willing, your next one will be a boy.”

I stopped shoving forward and stayed put to listen. A third woman cut in. “This is a boy after two girls. That’s not so bad. Think of poor Pari Khanom who gave birth to her fourth girl last month.” I remembered Pari Khanom from the bath house.

The next day, Manijeh and I were playing with the two neighbor boys in the alley. Some neighbor women were sitting on the edge of the dry joub (the trench), dangling their feet, and gossiping. We could hear them. A woman in blue dress made a comment. “Flora holds that baby as if she is holding a pot of gold. What’s the big deal?” An older woman wearing a print scarf answered. “He is a pot of gold! She finally has a boy after two girls. With girls, Abdi will have to spend a fortune on their dowries. But this boy will partner with Abdi, take over the family business when he grows old, and care for Flora when Abdihe dies.”

After playing games, Manijeh and I went home. As we entered the main room, we saw my father (Papa Abdi), Aunt Sara, and Nana Hanna sitting around the square table, sipping tea. Maman was not there. She was probably nursing the baby in their bedroom.

Nana Hanna stretched out her hands to hug me, but I shoved her hands away and sat on the nearest chair. I turned to my father.

“Were you upset when I was born a girl?”

“Oh no,” he said. “Why would you ask such a thing? When you were born, my mother gave me a pot of carrot-and-bean rice to take to the hospital. I put that pot on my head and started jumping, dancing, and singing. That is how happy I was.”

I repeated what the neighbors said. Then I asked, “Are girls bad?”

Aunt Sara looked at each of the adults, letting them know she would handle this. She took a deep breath and turned to me.

“No. Girls are not bad. People worry when they have daughters because you never know what kind of man might marry your daughter. If she falls into the wrong hands, God forbid, she gets trapped for life! After all, it’s not like she can get a divorce.”

“Why not?” Manijeh cut in. “Why can’t she get a divorce?”

Aunt Sara gave her an annoyed look. “She can’t support herself. God forbid, she would have to move in with her parents. And if her parents are already dead, she has to move in with her brother for support and be a maid to her sister-in-law for the rest of her life.”

Nana Hanna nodded. “That is why it is best to marry your daughters to their cousins. You know what you get.”

My father waved his hand, interrupting. “Sara dear, with all due respect, these are stories of the past. We can’t fill these children’s heads with such nonsense. So many doors are now open to the girls. Women are no longer totally dependent on their husbands and families.” He stopped to take a breath. “I really have to give credit to the Shah and his father Reza Shah. Because of them that my daughters have all the opportunities that your sons have. Just the way you have a doctor, a pharmacist, and an architect at your home, my daughters can be any of these and more.”

This was 1950s Iran. After the 1906 change to the Iranian Constitution and the rise of the Pahlavi Dynasty in the 1920s, the whole system had changed. Modern law replaced Sharia law, and women now had civil rights. As a matter of law, the marriage age was raised, and women had the right to seek divorces and custody of their children.

My father turned to Manijeh and me. “You can be anything you want to be. The university is as open to you as it has been for your male cousins. Just like them, you can be a doctor, an architect, a pharmacist, a teacher, or anything else you like. You can even be a judge, or a writer. Sky is the limit. You just have to study hard to get in.”

Maman who had just entered the room, spoke up. “Not so fast, Abdi dear. You are the one filling their heads with impossible dreams. Girls are not like boys. They can’t wait to finish university. They have to get married younger. If they wait too long, all the good ones will be gone.”

Nana Hanna whispered, “Dokhtar keh rehseed beh beest, bahyad beh hahlash gehreest. (If a girl is unmarried by 20, you have to cry for her.)” This was another common Iranian expression.

I heard their disagreement and dismissed it as women’s gossip. My father’s advice rang true to me. I wanted to be just like him and my male cousins. They had all the choices, and it seemed like they had all the fun too. I already saw myself as one of them.

I loved what I heard and went for it. There was no way I could foresee myself thirty years later, arrested and whipped by the morality police of a religious regime for a strand of hair showing from under my big scarf, and banned from my teaching job at the School of Law because I was a woman.