Whenever I read the gripping accounts of oppressed women in other countries, I become very aware of how lucky I am to have been born into freedom here in the United States. One book that really made me grateful to be an American was Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, published in 2008.

In Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi, a female and Iranian professor, describes her experiences as an educator at the University of Tehran during the fundamentalist revolution of 1978. When she refused to submit to an order by the male-dominated administration to wear a veil, which she considered a symbol of oppression, she was expelled from the faculty. Nafisi continued to instruct, however, by leading an underground book club attended by like-minded Iranian women. The group met in Nafisi’s home every Thursday morning to study such forbidden Western classics as Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita.

As an American, it amazes me that the simple pass-time of reading a book and talking about it with others could be considered a subversive activity in some countries. So many women worldwide still struggle to attain the liberties that many of the young girls in classrooms here at home take for granted.