Abstract
Women have been one of the most important social groups in the Iranian reform movement. Iranian female university students, intellectuals, journalists and lawyers have raised the standards of political activism in Iran. Along with male university students, journalists, intellectuals and political activists, Iranian feminists, both religious and non-religious, are the core of this movement. After presenting a compendium of the structural and ideological gender inequalities in Iranian society, mostly in post-revolutionary era, the fifth chapter of the book provides basic information and analysis about Iranian feminists in the reform movement framework.
The chapter also reviews the relationship between Iranian feminism, on one hand, and the democratization process and demand for the vindication of civil rights of all Iranian citizens as the main issues of this movement, on the other. This review unfolds in three parts: the essence of Iranian feminism in post-revolutionary Iran; the interactions of women activists and other activists in this movement; and the impact of feminism on the Iranian reform movement.
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Notes
- 1.
Kārnāmeh-ye Dowreh-ye Avval-e Majles-e Showrā-e Eslāmi (Parliamentary Report, First Term), (Tehran: Ravābet-e ‘Omoumi-ye Majles-e Showrā-e Eslāmi, 1985).
- 2.
worldbank.org/sp/childlabor/MENAfiles/Chang.pdf (accessed 5 February 2007).
- 3.
From the names in the middle school textbooks, 97.8% in history, 91.1% in theology, 88.1% in Persian language and 75.8% in social science belong to men. From the pictures of the textbooks, 58.6% are of males females’ textbook for professional training and 95.8% are of males in males’ textbook for professional training (Jahān-e Eslām, 21 November 1998).
- 4.
Mohammad Reza Shah in an interview with Oriana Fallaci, jonge-khabar.com/news/articlencat.php?id=319&mode=d (accessed 5 February 2007).
- 5.
All primary, middle and high schools in Iran are same-sex schools.
- 6.
Banafsheh Sām-Geese, “Why Are Wives Abused,” Khordād, 27 December 1998.
- 7.
In some parts of the country, such as Khouzestan and Lorestan, raped women are murdered by their male family members (Kar 2000: 64).
- 8.
Women have the right to divorce in some situations; regulations promulgated in 1984 substantially broadened the grounds on which a woman may seek a divorce. However, a husband is not required to cite a reason for divorcing his wife. Iranian courts have taken a long time to approve a divorce request from women who were abused or tortured by their husbands. In 1986, the Government issued a 12-point “contract” to serve as a model for marriage and divorce, which limits the privileges accorded to men by custom and traditional interpretations of Islamic law. The model contract that is published in all marriage registration and can be signed by both sides also recognizes a divorced woman’s right to a share in the property that couples acquire during their marriage and to increased alimony rights, plus the right to select the place of residence and work outside home. Women who remarry are forced to give up custody of children from earlier marriages to the child’s father. The law allows for the granting of custody of minor children to the mother in certain divorce cases in which the father is proven unfit to care for the child.
- 9.
A married woman must obtain the written consent of her husband before she may apply for passport and travel outside the country. A single woman should obtain her father’s written consent for a passport application.
- 10.
The law passed by the fifth parliament provides for the segregation of the sexes in medical care.
- 11.
In 2001, only 2.98% of women had administrative positions in Iran. From all female employees, only 17% have occupied administrative positions in the country (Women’s Participation Center located in the Presidential Office, emrooz.com, accessed 29 December 2002).
- 12.
A motion to remove stoning from Iran’s penal code was introduced to the sixth parliament but it had no chance of being supported by the Guardian Council, a watchdog constitutional body. When no legislation had been drafted in the parliament, the judiciary officials decided to stop stoning (Islamic Republic News Agency, 29 December 2002). There were ongoing talks with some EU envoys before declaring the decision. This shows that authoritarians in Iran are totally against democratic procedures, and not the subject matter. If this was passed by the parliament, the Guardian Council would veto it, but when ruling clerics decide to stop execution of God’s law, there is no problem.
- 13.
In provinces near the Caspian Sea where there is no scarcity of water, the family and social structure is totally different from that in other parts of the country.
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
This is considered one of the pillars of Shi’i faith.
- 19.
Fātemeh Fātemeh Ast, translated by Laleh Bakhtiar (Tehran: Shari’ati Foundation and Hamdami Publishers, 1980).
- 20.
This is the position of all members of the conservative and authoritarian camp: roozonline.com/archives/2007/02/002026.php (accessed 4 February 2007).
- 21.
Most of de Beauvoir’s works are popular among Iranian feminists.
- 22.
Race is not as important an issue for Iranian society as ideology, class, religion and ethnicity.
- 23.
A rare example of considering women’s strategies is Mehrangiz Kar’s article on the development of this issue in post-revolutionary Iran (2001).
- 24.
Michelle Rosaldo first made these points in her reflections on feminism in the late 1970s (1980).
- 25.
In January 27, 2007, three activist women were arrested at the airport when they were boarding on a plane to go to India to present at an educational press workshop: news.gooya.com/politics/archives/2007/01/056880.php (accessed 4 February 2007).
- 26.
To name a few, Fahimeh Rahimi, Shahrnoush Pārsipur, Simin Dāneshvar, Fereshteh Sāri, Ghazāleh Alizādeh, Shivā Arastou’i and Fattāneh Hāj Seyyed Javādi.
- 27.
This is also true about female novelists who live abroad. To name a few, Azar Nafisi, Firoozeh Dumas and Tara Bahrāmpour.
- 28.
The emergence of women’s movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States is also linked historically and conceptually to abolitionist and civil rights activities (Spellman 1988: 11).
- 29.
Iran census results of 1996.
- 30.
roozonline.com/archives/2007/01/001911.php (accessed 4 February 2007).
- 31.
Some instances of such legal changes are: (1) the Family Planning Act, which is also a response to the rapid pace of population growth in the first decade after the 1979 Revolution; (2) the formation of family guidance and assistance units attached to special family courts; (3) placing a marriage contract in the marriage certificates, giving this opportunity to men to share some of their powers in the family with their wives regarding divorce, residence and other responsibilities, rights and obligations; and (4) amendment to the custody law, according to which the mother may, under certain conditions, demand the right of custody of the children of divorced parents and actually receive the right. It is hard to claim that government did much to revise those articles and notes to existing laws.
- 32.
Sixty-two percent of freshman students accepted in Iranian universities in 2001 were women (Entekhab Daily, 6 April 2002). Against the policy of the Ahmadinejad administration to increase male attendance by gender discrimination and quotas for men, this majority has not changed in 2000s.
- 33.
bbc.co.uk/Persian, 30 December 2002.
- 34.
Nourouz, 22 June 2002.
- 35.
This debate reached a climax in June 2002, when the parliamentary Women’s Faction asked the Minister of Science, Research, and Technology, Mustafā Mo’in, why he had not given any managerial posts to women. This same issue caused controversy in June 2001, when women sought positions in President Khatami’s second cabinet and as lawyer members of the Guardian Council. See “RFE/RL Iran Report,” 29 June 2001.
- 36.
According to a state television broadcast of October 16, 2002.
- 37.
Women’s Newsletter (Nāmeh ye Zan), No. 2–3, 2002.
- 38.
The gender-related development index of United Nations Development Program’s “Human Development Report of 2002” compares female and male life expectancies at birth (69.8–68.0), literacy rate (69.3–83.2) and estimated earned income ($2524–$9088) in Iran. Women hold only 3.4% of the seats in parliament, and women make up 9.4% of ministerial-level officials in government.
- 39.
The police and doctors do not take violence against women seriously and do not report cases. No safe shelter or hotline has been provided for women who are the victims of violence. There is also no project designed to fight against domestic violence, spouse abuse and suicide.
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Mohammadi, M. (2019). The Iranian Reform Movement and the Iranian Women’s Movement: Feminism Interacted. In: The Iranian Reform Movement. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90969-1_5
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