Rebecca Barlow is inspired by the Iranian women she met on a trip to Tehran. Please note, all names have been changed in order to protect privacies.

This International Women's Day I would like to express my support and deepest respects to the amazing members of the Iranian Women's Movement, some of whom I met whilst on a trip to Tehran in July 2007. During my short stay in that fascinating city, one particular traveller's cliché came true: so many women implored me to tell people in my own community what Iranian women ‘are really like' - beyond the popular western imagination and the images of submission and servitude conjured up in the speeches of western leaders such as President Bush. Perhaps here I can make a brief contribution to that end.