Published by Hypatia Press, The Cleansing deconstructs the roots of religious-based misogyny and purity culture through the real story of a Vestal Virgin accused of breaking her vow of chastity. Midwest Book Review called the novel, “Original, exceptional, deftly crafted and a simply riveting read from cover to cover.”
Writing a novel about the persecution of a Vestal Virgin priestess in ancient Rome really brought home for me just how deep the religious roots of misogyny and purity culture go. In my novel, The CleansingI focused on the true story of a Vestal accused of having sex and being blamed for the massacre of 50,000 men in one battle.
Two hundred years before Christianity, Rome’s religious leaders claimed only a “crime” of that magnitude—of one of their sacred virgins breaking their vows—could have “disgusted” the gods enough to cause them to turn their backs on Rome. The Vestal faced a death sentence—being buried alive—for this so-called “crime.”
Meanwhile, the general who made a massive strategic error in battle, the man responsible for marching tens of thousands of soldiers into a trap, walked away scot-free.
It seemed unbelievable to me that they truly believed a woman’s sexual conduct could have that much influence and power. And yet they did, as evidenced by the fact that the Romans buried alive two dozen Vestal Virgin priestesses (that we know of) during Rome’s existence. When a tragedy occurred—war, famine, pestilence—the head priest of Rome, the pontifex Maximus, and the Collegium of priests often claimed that one or more of their six Vestal priestesses “had” to have had sex to explain away the tragedy.
On the eve of International Women’s Day 2026, the NCRI Women’s Committee presents its Annual Report 2026, offering a recap of events in 2025 as related to women’s rights in Iran.
Moderator’s Note: This post has been brought to you in cooperation with the NCRI women’s committee. NCRI stands for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. You can learn more information as well as see this original article by clicking by link below. A description of their Council can be found at the end of this post. As an introduction, a NCRI representative sent us the following statement about the war.
STATEMENT: I would like to mention that the Iranian Resistance — which established a government-in-exile years ago — has long advocated a clear position: no to war, no to appeasement of the mullahs, but a third option — regime change by the Iranian people and their organized resistance.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Resistance and an internationally recognized figure, has outlined this vision in her Ten-Point Plan. I am sharing the link below, as it reflects the roadmap of the Iranian Resistance. Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan for the future of Iran
In any case, we are prepared to determine the future of our own country. We kindly ask you to help reflect the voice of the Iranian Resistance, a movement notably led by women ,so that this alternative can be more widely heard.
Moderator’s Note: This piece is in co-operation with The Nasty Women Writers Project, a site dedicated to highlighting and amplifying the voices and visions of powerful women. The site was founded by sisters Theresa and Maria Dintino. To quote Theresa, “by doing this work we are expanding our own writer’s web for nourishment and support.” This was originally posted on their site on March 4, 2025. You can see more of their posts here.
Out of forty monuments along the National Mall in Washington, DC, none celebrate women and their contribution to American history.
One of our NWW [Nasty Women Writers] categories is Breaking the Bronze Ceiling where we track the effort to increase the number of monuments dedicated to real women in public spaces.
I’ve made many trips to Washington, DC, trekking the National Mall specifically to visit monuments. Why didn’t I notice women were missing? Am I so conditioned to not seeing women recognized and honored at the highest levels that I don’t even expect it or question their absence?
I felt ignorant and complicit.
It’s 2025 and there is not a single monument to honor women on our National Mall, a place that “draws roughly 36 million visitors a year, more than Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon combined”(Schuessler).
We here at FAR are so honored and grateful to be the custodian of so many of Carol’s writings. Her 3-part seminal piece Patriarchy as a System of Male Dominance Created at the Intersection of the Control of Women, Private Property, and Warfirst appeared on our site in 2013. We have committed to re-running it each year on the anniversary of her death in July. It is a piece that needs to be read over and over again until the understanding of what she writes seeps into our very bones. And even for those who already know this in our bones, it is important to articulate. We shouldn’t have needed the Epstein files to provide proof of Carol’s work. But alas . .. it does provide it in slews. And the fact that we needed the Epstein files for society at large to even begin discussing this proves Carol’s points of how insidious patriarchy is. It is so ingrained into our world that it is invisible unless there is a stimulus to bring it to the forefront. Will that be enough to make change?
For this two part post, I quote Carol from Part I of her essay (linked above – her wordsin italics). My commentary is based on recent events as well as the Epstein revelations. Really this is just scratching the surface and I plan to write more posts highlighting the work that Carol did on patriarchy. Here is her definition of patriarchy.
R—Remember– that is what I think we need to do E– Everything that she did, like poetry, like raising kids N– Not just the horror of what happened… Bam! Bam! Bam! E— Everything she did …like win the Academy of American Poetry Prize E— Everything she did …like be a lesbian, be so beloved, be.
***
N- Not just that video on an endless loop- Bam! Bam! Bam! “Fuckin’ bitch.” I–I want to see her, more of her, before that day, all of her C- Colors. All of the crayons in the coloring box she represented. O- -Oh! I wish I had known her. I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish we weren’t here right now in these United States L– Let me say I wish we were not here. E– Everything feels dystopian. I forget all the crayons in the coloring box, except gray.
Only in November 2025, the following murders were reported:
Mobina Zare, age 20, in Islamshahr (a city southwest of Tehran), was killed by her former fiancé. After murdering her, he burned her body in an aluminum-melting furnace at his father’s workshop. Her family searched for her for ten days before finding her half-burned body.
Mobina Zare was burned in analuminum melting furnace
Leila Aliramaii, age 40, in Marivan (in Kurdistan Province, western Iran), was killed with a Kalashnikov rifle because she refused the vile demands of a member of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Leila was married and the mother of a young daughter and son.
Leila Aliramaii, the mother of two young children
Sarina Rostami, age 16, in Sarpol-e-Zahab (in Kermanshah Province, western Iran), was killed by a male relative because she refused accept a forcible marriage.
Sarina Rostami, 16, victim of forced marriage
A 40-year-old woman in Pakdasht (Tehran Province) was suffocated with a blanket by her husband.
Reyhaneh Dorzadeh, age 23, in Nikshahr (Sistan and Baluchestan Province, southeastern Iran), was suffocated by her husband because she opposed his desire to take a second wife.
A 29-year-old woman identified as J.D. was murdered by her father, who then dismembered her body and set it on fire.
Sakineh, age 80, in Tehran, was killed by her son using an iron rod.
Zahra Ghaemi, a women’s rights activist and member of the Women’s Study Group at the University of Tehran, was suffocated by her husband.
Zahra Ghaemi, a member of the Women’s Study Group at the University of Tehran
Shahla Karimani, age 38, mother of two, in Mahabad (Kurdistan Province), was strangled with a scarf by her husband and brother-in-law.
Sajedeh Sand-Kazehi, in Khash (Sistan and Baluchestan Province), was killed with a hunting rifle because her father-in-law wanted to forcefully take a gas regulator that belonged to her. Sajedeh was the mother of two young children.
Raheleh Siavoshi, age 26, in Nahavand, a town in Hamedan Province in western Iran, was fatally stabbed by her husband after participating in a sports camp. She died in the hospital two days later.
Raheleh Siavoshi, a national wushu champion and coach
Justice Has Lost Its Meaning
While women are sentenced to long prison terms for “removing their hijab” or protesting discrimination, men who murder their wives typically receive only a few years in prison. In many cases, they can pay money to buy their way out and return to their lives.
In notorious cases such as Romina Ashrafi and Mona Heydari, the murderers received only two to eight years in prison. Even state-run media sometimes acknowledge this “inverted justice”: “The punishment for beheading one’s wife: 8 years in prison; The punishment for removing one’s hijab: 10 years in prison!”
According to the regime’s laws, the father, who is also the “male guardian and blood-owner (vali-ye-dam),” is exempt from retributive punishment for killing his own child.
Zahra Eftekharezadeh, founder of one of Tehran’s safe shelters, said regarding the absence of deterrent laws: “When the law does not impose a punishment proportionate to the crime, perpetrators realize there is no serious consequence waiting for them. In many cases, the sentences issued by the judiciary are not only non-deterrent but encourage the offender. Romina Ashrafi’s father is an example. He openly said that if he killed his daughter, he would receive at most ten years in prison.” (Shargh newspaper – October 11, 2025)
Atrocities Rooted in Law and Politics
Under Iran’s misogynistic clerical laws, a woman is not recognized as an independent individual but as “subordinate” to a man. Without legal or structural protection, women are forced to endure domestic violence, and each day adds new names to the list of women murdered.
Article 1105 of Iran’s Civil Code assigns family leadership exclusively to men.
Article 1108 makes a woman’s right to financial support conditional on her “obedience.”
Article 1114 gives the husband the right to determine the wife’s place of residence.
In such a system, women seeking divorce must prove their lives are in danger, and their testimony is worth only half that of a man. Judges routinely force women who have been beaten or threatened back into the homes of their abusers.
Through its laws, media, and judiciary, the clerical regime perpetuates these crimes. Violence extends from home to the school, from the street to the courtroom, widening its reach every day.
But beyond the laws, today’s social tragedies in Iran stem from political roots. The misogynistic clerical regime is founded on the subjugation of women. The horrific killings of women are not isolated acts of personal fanaticism; they are the product of a system that authorizes violence against women.
The rising number of honor killings must therefore be understood as the direct result of the regime’s anti-woman policies and the patriarchal culture embedded within its structure. The Iranian people blame not society but the regime itself, an oppressive, misogynistic establishment that preserves its power through the suppression and elimination of women.
Data compiled over the past three years by the NCRI Women’s Committee shows a sharp upward trend in the number of women murdered under the misogynistic rule of the clerical regime. These figures are drawn entirely from documented and published reports by state-run media and other available sources. They therefore represent a minimum estimate, as the regime deliberately obscures such information, and many families, fearing the perpetrators, avoid publicizing the killings of their daughters and female relatives.
According to these findings, at least 105 women were murdered in 2023, 160 in 2024, and during just the first eleven months of 2025, no fewer than 175 women have been killed in Iran.
INFO: NCRI The NCRI Women’s Committee works extensively with Iranian women outside the country and maintains permanent contact with women inside Iran. The Women’s Committee is actively involved with many women’s rights organizations, NGOs, and the Iranian diaspora.
The NCRI Women’s Committee is a major source of much of the information received from inside Iran with regard to women. Attending meetings of the UN Women, the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the Human Rights Council, and other international or regional conferences on women’s issues, and engaging in a relentless battle against the Iranian regime’s misogyny are parts of the activities of members and associates of the NCRI Women’s Committee.
The NCRI Women’s Committee is one of the 25 committees of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
Moderator’s Note: This post has been brought to you in cooperation with the NCRI women’s committee. NCRI stands for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. You can learn more information as well as see this original article by clicking this link. A description of their Council can be found at the end of this post.
Women Are Killed in Iran with Complete Impunity
November 2025 Report: Under the Clerical Regime, Nowhere Is Safe for Women in Iran
Under the rule of Iran’s misogynistic clerical regime, Iranian women, from childhood to old age, are unsafe in all spaces and circumstances. If they manage to escape the brutality of security forces in the streets, they may still fall victim in their homes to so-called “honor suspicions,” resisting forced marriage, requesting a divorce, or even attempting to defend their own rights. Many of these killings take place in front of children or other family members, feeding a cycle of violence across generations. Among the victims are pregnant women or mothers killed alongside their children.
Beatings and torture of women in prisons, firing pellets into the eyes of protesting women, sexual assault in detention centers, and the attacks by morality police patrols enforcing compulsory hijab in public all legitimize and encourage violence against women inside the home and within families.
Moderator’s Note: This piece is in co-operation with The Nasty Women Writers Project, a site dedicated to highlighting and amplifying the voices and visions of powerful women. The site was founded by sisters Theresa and Maria Dintino. To quote Theresa, “by doing this work we are expanding our own writer’s web for nourishment and support.” This was originally posted on their site on November 19, 2024. You can see more of their posts here.
Anne, the youngest of the Brontë sisters, penned two novels in her short life. The first was Agnes Grey (1847), then The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848).
A sketch of Anne by her sister Charlotte.
It’s probably safe to say that Agnes Grey is the least read and appreciated of all the Brontë novels, of which there are seven. Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte’s Jane Eyre garner the most praise and attention. But Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is not far behind, and by some accounts leads the pack.
Interestingly, all the sisters’ first novels were released in the same year, under their pen names Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. First was Jane Eyre in October 1847 and then Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey together as a ‘triple decker’ in December 1847, with Wuthering Heights making up the first two parts, and Agnes Grey the third.
A requiem for the seasons is an act of living remembrance for what is vanishing, be that long-cherished seasonal moments, forms of celebration that once tied us to nature’s cycles, and to more than human species – some that are going extinct.
Cheeping twittering birds awakened me at dawn. The first snow of the season cast a spell over the landscape last night and this generous dusting brought in the wild turkeys… I wished all good morning as I scattered seed under the crabapple. A couple of very friendly individuals followed me back to the door. My little dog Coalie is spellbound. She loves these birds.
I noted turkey hieroglyphics on the doormat as I came in but otherwise took no pleasure from the white shrouded landscape. I used to love snow but because each of the seasons is warming, we are getting mixed precipitation on a regular basis beginning in mid – November. The first snow opens an icy door to winters that are dominated by continuous freeze thaws. Last year I considered myself fortunate to have been able to snowshoe as long as I did.
Moderator’s Note: This post has been brought to you in cooperation with the NCRI women’s committee. NCRI stands for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. You can learn more information as well as see this original article by clicking this link. A description of their Council can be found at the end of this post.
The water crisis in Iran has moved far beyond a simple environmental issue — it has become a humanitarian, ecological, and economic disaster.
While at first the problem seemed to be the result of drought and declining rainfall, its true causes ran much deeper: entrenched corruption and mismanagement at the heart of the ruling establishment. Until these systemic roots are addressed and removed, Iran’s present — and its future — will only become more precarious.
A significant number of researchers and international observers emphasize that 70 to 80 percent of the current crisis stems from mismanagement, unsustainable policies, lack of transparency, and corruption. As one report notes, “Iran’s water crisis is not a crisis of resources; it is a crisis of decisions—decisions that have made the land thirstier and the future darker. This crisis, alongside the erosion of public trust in governance, is a symptom of structural and managerial failure.” (Newsweek, August 1, 2025; The Times, December 8, 2022; Reuters, April 27, 2021)
Feminism and Religion 