Abstract
Women have never represented more than 5.9 per cent of sitting parliamentarians in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This compares poorly with regional and global averages. More importantly, the deficit in women’s substantive representation has led to a lack of understanding of gender-specific needs among decision-makers in Iran. This chapter explores how Islamic and secular-oriented feminists—those working ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the system respectively—have confronted these issues by working to increase women’s parliamentary representation in Iran. The author argues that as stand-alone ideologies, both Islamic and secular feminisms are limited, suggesting that prospects for improving women’s political participation in Iran are likely to improve if ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ agents of change can work towards building meaningful relationships around mutually beneficial goals. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the Campaign to Change the Male Face of Parliament in Iran, offering some suggestions for potential future alliances between Islamic and secular-oriented women.
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This has been discussed at length in other works. See Rebecca Barlow, Universal Women’s Human Rights and the Muslim Question: Iran’s One Million Signatures Campaign (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2012); Khorasani, Iranian Women’s One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality; and Leila Alikarami, Women and Equality in Iran: Law, Society, and Activism (I. B. Tauris, forthcoming 2018).
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For an in-depth discussion on this issue, see Rebecca Barlow, ‘The Women’s Movement and State Responses to Contentious Campaigns in Iran’, in New Opposition in the Middle East Since 2009, ed. Dara Conduit and Shahram Akbarzadeh (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2018).
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In fact, 18 women in total were elected. However, the votes for Minoo Khaleghi, a reformist and environmental activist elected to represent the district of Isfahan, were nullified by the Guardian Council after claims surfaced that she allegedly shook hands with an unrelated male while on a trip to China—an act that is illegal under Islamic law.
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Barlow, R. (2018). Secular and Islamic Feminist Work to Increase Parliamentary Representation in Iran: Towards an Alliance?. In: Barlow, R., Akbarzadeh, S. (eds) Human Rights and Agents of Change in Iran. Studies in Iranian Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8824-7_6
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