Introduction: keeping women in their place -- A legacy of containment -- Enclosed bodies, trapped voices, framed images: the poetics of sex segregation -- The bonds of beauty: immobilizing the ideal woman in Iranian literature -- Pardeh Neshin, or "she who sits behind the screen": the spatial politics of Iranian cinema -- Wings and words -- Badasht and Seneca Falls: Taririh Qurratul'Ayn and Elizabeth Cady Stanton -- Icarus reborn: captivity and flight in the work of Forugh Farrokhzad -- The gypsy poet: fluidity and flux in the poetry of Simin Behbahani -- Women on the road: Shahrnush Parsipur and the conference of female birds -- Prisoners awaiting liberation -- Reading and misreading Iranian women in the United States: on abducted daughters, incarcerated girls, and invisible women -- Epilogue: words as ambassadors of peace and beacons of hope.