I Don’t Want To Be A Good Woman is a “museum of resilience” that explores sexism and repression in Iran

I Don’t Want To Be A Good Woman is an abstract walking simulator that depicts the experience of being a young girl in Iran – a country that, as characterised by UN human rights investigators in September 2024, operates “a system, both in law and in practice, that fundamentally discriminates on the grounds of gender”. It takes the form of a molten grey landscape strewn with faceless figures, floating symbols and text.

Play consists of wandering around, witnessing frozen scenes and reading text based on stories the developers We Remember have “heard, gathered, or lived ourselves”. The devs have omitted names and their own identities, which I am naturally a bit uneasy about, but the anonymity is to be expected given the Iranian state’s track record for brutal censorship.

Find it on Steam. Needless to say, I wouldn’t play this one lightly. Here is how the developers describe the subject matter:

This experience explores real-life challenges faced by women in Iran under Islamic law, including gender-based discrimination, restricted bodily autonomy, and limitations on freedom of expression. Themes such as forced hijab, lack of reproductive rights, and state violence are presented through a narrative lens. While the game contains no explicit imagery, it does involve mature social and political themes.

The game depicts discriminatory behavior toward women by state and religious systems from the perspective of a victim. These portrayals are not meant to promote hate or disparagement, but to raise awareness of real-world issues through an empathetic and objective narrative.

We’ve covered a few projects that address Iran’s society and politics and its recent history. Back in 2013, Adam Smith (RPS in peace) wrote about 1979 Revolution: Black Friday, an adventure game created by Iranian developers based inside and outside the country, which casts you as a photojournalist during the overthrow of the (originally CIA and MI6-backed) Pahlavi dynasty.

You might also want to check out this abbreviated history of Iranian video game development for Game Developer, written by Iranian journalist and designer Arash Hackimi in 2020. It spans the creation or importing of new hardware, from the Magnavox Odyssey-esque Video Master through bootlegged Atari 2600s to modern mobile phones; the arrival of Iranian video game magazines, such as Bazi Rayane; the origins of the first Iranian video game developer, Honafa; and the founding of video game festivals, like the Digital Media Festival in 2007.

Hackimi also details a few individual games, including the perpetual motion drawing tool Engare, the fantasy action-adventure Parvaneh and Farsh, a puzzle game about unrolling carpets. All of which might surprise you if, like me, your understanding of Iran in video games begins and mostly ends with the likes of Prince of Persia.