The concept of The Veil returns in book two of Persepolis.  This led me to thinking about the way the female body is characterized to political ends, and the danger of such characterizations.  Using the female body as a symbolic representation for the nation is a common trope in nationalist imagery.  For example, a national personification is the anthropomorphized image of a nation;  for the U.S., we usually think of Uncle Sam, but there is also Lady Liberty.  Outside of the U.S. there are figures like Brittania (the U.K.), Germania (pretty obvious), Helvetia (Switzerland), Mother Svea (Sweden), etc.   All women, with the exception of Sam.  These bodies are invoked as rallying images especially during times of war.  The implication of choosing this symbol in patriarchal societies is pretty obvious in this wartime context.  If you don’t stop the “Other,” he is going to rape what is essentially a psychological surrogate of the woman/women in the male citizen’s life.   This imagining of the female body obviously denies the woman agency, and is overtly attuned to play off of (and promote attitudes of) xenophobia and the fear of miscegenation.  These statements may seem extreme and hard to fathom in terms of a symbol as ubiquitous and apparently innocuous as Lady Liberty, but looking at the Iranian regime’s codes of dress reveals the same basic concept.  By making the female appear increasingly deindividualized and iconic, they are more and more denied individual agency and become another symbol of the national body.  Similarly, the increasing social prohibitions shown in the narrative place the female body higher on a nationalized pedestal.  The woman’s sexuality is no longer her own, but is something to be called sacred and exploited by the regime to incite nationalist sentiment and reinforce the oppressive patriarchy which is necessary for its continuation.