Why Has Iran Never Had a Female Ayatollah?
Who will break the glass ceiling?
Iran has chosen a new supreme leader: Mojtaba Khamenei, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son. Maybe he’ll be good — as John Wayne once said of JFK, “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my ayatollah, and I hope he does a good job.” I’ll withhold judgement until I know his position on capital gains tax.
But I’m disappointed. I thought that surely this time, there would be a female ayatollah. How could there not be? It really felt like time. When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of Britain, it seemed like a female supreme leader of Iran would probably be right around the corner. But almost 50 years later, the grand ayatollah role is still a total sausage fest, and I’m starting to wonder if we’re ever going to see any diversity.
What kind of message does this send to young girls who dream of becoming ayatollah? Picture a little girl dressed up as her favorite Twelver cleric — some adorable pixie running around her yard in a little abaya and fake beard placing fatwas on her dolls. Are you willing to look her in the eye and tell her: “This dream cannot happen for you”? I’m not. And I think Iran’s clerics might be embarrassed if they realized the signal they’re sending. And what of all the research from the 2010s showing that organizations with more women perform better — haven’t the mullahs seen that?
And in fact, the problem doesn’t stop at gender diversity — here are the 25 Ayatollahs of Qom in Iran. Notice anything?
It’s hard to believe that in 2026, we don’t have a single Black Ayatollah of Qom. Or a Native American one. Or an East Asian one. I think the cleric top row middle — Mohammad-Ali Movahedi-Kermani — might be latino, but I’m not sure. This is just unacceptable. I have half a mind to start a hashtag. People want a cadre of radical clerics who look like them, and Iran’s leadership is in serious danger of losing the people’s trust.
And now the supreme leader is yet another white guy.1 And worse still: A nepo-mullah. Are we really supposed to put up with this? Are any of the ayatollahs even transgender? It’s hard to accept the pronouncements of a self-appointed religious theocracy when not even one of them is an openly gay neurodivergent trans Korean woman.
I’m not saying that I’d vote for an ayatollah just because she’s a woman, but there should have been a woman by now. Iran’s leadership is in danger of sending the signal that women aren’t equal partners in their Islamic theocracy. And I frankly can’t believe that they let this golden opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, inclusion, and multiculturalism pass them by.
Is he white? His skin is light.
At least they have a strong DEI program (Death to America, End Times Are Near, Infidels Must Die). And the book How to Be Anti-Enlightenment, by Ayatollah Ibram Khendimeni, is a big seller.
“I think the cleric top row middle — Mohammad-Ali Movahedi-Kermani — might be latino”
Latinx, bigot. Sometimes I just can’t even with you people.