"They have insulted us and our intelligence, " said Azzam, a 64-year-old grandmother clad in the long, black head-to-toe chador.

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Its features will include automatic transmission, parking and navigation aids and a jack for changing tyres without getting grease on your chador.

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At first they had to overcome resistance from Tayyip's mother, who insisted her son marry a girl shrouded in the full head-to-toe chador instead.

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Perhaps it was the chador, or the stilted words she chose, but when she spoke I felt like a Catholic schoolgirl being reprimanded by Mother Superior.

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The woman in the chador waited with me.

NEWYORKER: Election, Monitored

What frightens Razieh, for example, who is fully garbed in the chador, is that her husband, an unemployed hothead by the name of Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini), will discover what kind of job she has taken, and her fear is well founded.

NEWYORKER: Tehran Tales