Noble Peace Prize winner Ebadi describes her girlhood in a modest Tehran household, her education, and her early professional success in the mid-1970s as Iran's most accomplished female jurist. She speaks about the ideals of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and of her deep disillusionment with the direction Iran has since taken under the guidance of the hard-line clerics. She recounts the ignominy of her demotion to clerk in the courtroom over which she once presided, when the religious authorities declared women unfit to serve as judges. She speaks out against the oppressive patriarchy of Iran, where conservative rulers have stripped women of their basic rights and all citizens of their political freedom.