Masoumeh Ebtekar (born Masoumeh, Niloufar Ebtekar; 21 September 1960) is current Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, being appointed on 9 August 2017. She previously headed Department of Environment from 1997 to 2005, making her the first female member in the cabinet since 1979 and the third in history. She held the same level of office from 2013 to 2017. Ebtekar first achieved fame as “Mary”, the spokeswoman of the students who took hostages and occupied the US Embassy in 1979.
Later she became the head of the Environment Protection Organization during the administration of President Mohammad Khatami, and was a city councilwoman from 2007 to 2013. Western media have systematically depicted Ebtekar’s involvement in a negative manner, as Reed describes: “For twenty years the prevailing “globalized” version of the embassy capture has cast the students at best as well-intentioned but naive young people manipulated …and at worst as irresponsible extremists.”
