"The story of Iranian women, including their century-old battle for rights, remains with the few exceptions, untold. Though they have been in the forefront of the national struggle for independence, liberty and democracy in Iran, and have been among the most educated and most independent women in the Middle East-they entered universities in 1936 and gained the right to vote in 1963-to those in the West, their lives stay, for most part, in purdah, hidden and veiled in mystery.