I thought, too, of the hot Tehran summer of my last year of high school, finishing my courses in changing diapers and bathing newborns. (All of our training was performed on dolls.) Women were valued only as "model wives" and "proper mothers."My aha! moment came as I was sitting in solitary confinement. After weeks of confusion and fearing for my life, I realized I was doing penance not for my reporting but for not raising children and cooking. I had opposed the Islamic republic by refusing to embody its values, by rejecting my traditional role. But I knew that it was journalism that made my heart beat and that I would never give it up.
