Moulding Future Soldiers and Mothers of the Iranian Nation: Gender and Physical Education under Reza Shah, 1921–41

Abstract

This article discusses the development of male and female physical education and scouting in early twentieth-century Iran and the construction of ideal gender images through the process of implementation. Utilizing articles from various Iranian periodicals, it argues that physical education constituted an important medium for the state and its new middle class supporters to convey two major messages, which internally circulated among themselves and reinforced their distinct class consciousness. While the press presented images of equality between moral, healthy, and productive boys and girls as civic partners in working to bring the Iranian nation back to prosperity, it also made sure by discrediting such counter images as masculine women and consumer women that Iranian girls would not deviate from proper motherhood. The paper also suggests that Iran's experience was influenced by developments in other parts of the world.