The 1979 Iranian revolution enabled conservative women previously limited in mobility to partake in building a Shi’i revolutionary state by expanding access to the women’s seminaries unparalleled in the history of Shi’i Islam. I lived in Iran for 15 months to explore what the consequences have been for some of these women, the howzevi. I draw on their ethnography as students, mothers, daughters, wives, as developers of the social and educational programs for a post-revolution society, and as vanguards of a state with the maxim to derail western political domination in the Middle East. Five howzevi were students of the Supreme Leader and Chief Justice of Iran, and over 21 were Basij (volunteer paramilitary organization). This work is positioned at the intersection of state, Islamic education, and the Iranian women’s movement, currently characterized by women’s work to undermine patriarchal state policies using Islamic text. I pose an alternative look by moving analysis away from women either failing to attain a universalized ideal ‘good life’ as autonomous will or exhibiting false-consciousness. In this work, I have found that the howzevi were both facilitated and limited at once by self-imposed practices, such as being cautious about their social visibilities outside the home or observing deference towards their husbands and fathers. And, because their experiences with the ‘rule of men’ were diverse, success was not always measured against the effort to eliminate patriarchy or about vying for leadership positions. Instead I argue that the howzevi were changing their sociopolitical conditions by working to strengthen the state via increased availability of Islamic jurisprudent research concerning women, by their continued presence among clerics as researchers, authors, or teachers, and by bridging Islamic text to practice as teachers of the Basij, as university counsellors, and as pioneers and developers of the seminaries.