Welcome to the MedLibrary.org Wikipedia Supplement on Women's rights in Iran -- Please Click to Return to Front Page

Part of a series on

Feminism

Concepts Feminist movement Theory (in film) Economics · Sexology Theology · Women's rights Gender equality · Anti-feminism Pro-feminism

History History of feminism History of women Feminist history

Waves First · Second · Third

Women's suffrage Timeline · Suffragettes New Zealand United Kingdom United States

Subtypes Amazon · Anarchist · Black Chicana · Christian · Cultural Difference · Eco · Equity Equality · Fat · Gender Global · Individualist · Islamic Jewish · Lesbian · Liberal Marxist · New · Postcolonial Postmodern · Pro-life · Radical Separatist · Sex-positive Socialist · Spiritual Third world · Trans Womanism

By country Egypt · France · Indonesia Iran · Japan · Nepal Nicaragua · Poland United Kingdom · United States

Lists Topics Feminists Literature

Feminism portal

v • d • e

and for Iranian Women's social movement see Women's rights movement in Iran.

Women's rights in Iran have a long and complex history. The modern movement first emerged some time around the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, during which the first journal published by a woman (Danish) began publication.¹ The movement was significantly diminished by Reza Shah’s autocratic government, although Tehran University enrolled its first woman in 1936.²³ Reza Shah forcibly unveiled women and promoted their education in the model of Turkey's Ataturk, but the shah also codified Islamic law that heavily favored males.²⁴

The shah's government began its "White Revolution" in 1962 and ratified important women's rights measures, including suffrage and the Family Protection Law of 1967, later amended more heavily in favor of women in 1975. It afforded women important rights, including the end of extra-judicial divorce and restrictions on polygamy.⁵

Despite the heavy participation of women in the Islamic Iranian Revolution of 1979, their rights were severely curtailed by the new government under Ayatollah Khomeni.² Within months of the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the 1967 Family Protection Law was repealed; female government workers were forced to observe Islamic dress code; women were barred from becoming judges; beaches and sports were sex-segregated; the legal age of marriage for girls was reduced to 13; and married women were barred from attending regular schools.⁵

In the 1990's women began to make small political gains, and in 1997 they heavily voted for the reformist cleric Mohammed Khatami for President. Although the office of the President is weak, Khatami allowed greater press freedom and appointed reformists to high positions, including one female vice-president.² However, under the Presidential regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elected in 2005, women's rights advocates have been beaten, jailed and persecuted,⁶⁷ and the use of Siqeh—or temporary marriages considered by many a form of legalized prostitution—strongly promoted. ^{58 9}

Despite the conservative Islamic government's policies, gender equality and rights for women receive overwhelming support amongst the Iranian people in polls.¹⁰¹¹

Contents 1 Women and Iranian politics 1.1 The Persian Constitutional Revolution 1.2 Women and the Iranian Revolution 1.3 Post-Khomeini era 2 Education 3 Sports 4 Women's health 5 International influence and the women's movement 5.1 The Persian cultural sphere 5.2 Relationship with western feminism 6 References 7 Further reading 8 See also 9 External links

Women and Iranian politics

The Persian Constitutional Revolution

Iranian women played a significant role in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11, which became a turning point in their lives. They participated in large numbers in public affairs and held important positions in journalism and in schools and associations that flourished from 1911-24.¹² Prominent Iranian women who played a vital part in the revolution include Bibi Khatoon Astarabadi, Noor-ol-Hoda Mangeneh, Mohtaram Eskandari, Sediqeh Dowlatabadi, and Qamar ol-Molouk Vaziri.

At the turn of 20th century, many educated Persian women were attracted to journalism and writing. Danesh (1907) was the first specialized journal focusing on women's issues. Later, Shokoufeh, Nameie Banovan, Alam e Nesvan, and Nesvan e Vatan Khah were published in Tehran. Moreover, Nesvan e Shargh in Bandar Anzali, Jahan e Zanan in Mashhad, Dokhtaran e Iran in Shiraz, and Peik e saadat in Rasht addressed women's issues throughout Persia (Iran). Although the defeat of the constitutionalists (1921-25) and the consolidation of power by Reza Shah (1925-41) destroyed the women's journals and groups, the state during these years implemented social reforms such as mass education and paid employment for women. Reza Shah also began his controversial policy of Kashf-e-Hijab, which banned the wearing of the Islamic hijab in public. But like other sectors of society in the years under Reza Shah's rule, women lost the right to express themselves, and dissent was repressed.¹³

Women and the Iranian Revolution

Women were heavily involved in the Iranian Revolution that toppled the shah.¹⁴⁵¹⁵ Almost immediately upon assumption of power by Ayatollah Khomeini, women protested the policies of the Islamic government.¹⁶² Khomeini's Islamic republic severely curtailed rights that women had become accustomed to under the shah. Despite the decree of many top Iranian clerics such as Ayatollah Taleghani, the state, under the rule of Khomenei ordered women to wear the hijab and obey strict religious rules.

The early 1990s brought a marked increase in the number of women employed in Iran. Dramatic changes in the labor force might not have been possible if Khomeini had not broken the barriers to women entering into the public sphere unchaperoned. Women were also more likely to pursue higher education, a product of the free education and the literacy campaigns. Today, more women than men are pursuing higher education in Iran even though the Islamic Republic tries to limit women to domains exclusive to women. For example, the government has set quotas for female pediatricians and gynecologists and has made it difficult for women to become civil engineers.^{citation needed}

In May 1997, the overwhelming majority of women voted for Mohammad Khatami, a reformist cleric who promised more political freedom. His election brought a period during which women became increasingly bold in expressing ideas, demands, and criticisms. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights and women's right activist, further emboldened women's rights activists inside Iran and cemented their relationships with Iranian feminists abroad.^{citation needed}

During the Sixth Parliament, some of Iran's strongest advocates of women's rights emerged. Almost all of the 11 female lawmakers of the (at the time) 270-seat Majlis tried to change some of Iran's more conservative laws. However, during the elections for the Seventh Majlis, the all-male Council of Guardians banned the 11 women from running for office, and only conservative females were allowed to run. The Seventh Majlis reversed many of the laws passed by the reformist Sixth Majlis.

Post-Khomeini era

The women's movement during the Iranian revolution, and in post-revolution Iran continued to be strong. Perhaps the most notable figure was Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Prize for advocating democracy and human rights, especially the rights of women and children. Ebadi in collaboration with figures like Simin Behbahani, Mehrangiz Kar, Elaheh Koulaei, Shahla Sherkat, Jila Bani Yaghoob, Mahboubeh Abbas-Gholizadeh, Azam Taleghani, Shahla Lahiji, and a few others directed the women's movement in Iran in the late 20th century and at the turn of the new millennium.

In 1992, Shahla Sherkat founded Zanan (Women) magazine, which focused on the concerns of Iranian women and tested the political waters with its edgy coverage of reform politics, domestic abuse, and sex. Zanan is the most important Iranian women's journal published after the Iranian revolution. Zanan criticized the Islamic legal code. Article topics covered controversial issues from domestic abuse to plastic surgery.¹⁷ It argued that gender equality was Islamic and that religious literature had been misread and misappropriated by misogynists. Mehangiz Kar, Shahla Lahiji, and Shahla Sherkat, the editor of Zanan, led the debate on women's rights and demanded reforms. The leadership did not respond but, for the first time since the revolution, it could not silence the movement.¹⁸ However, at the end of January 2008 the Iranian regime closed the magazine down as a “threat to the psychological security of the society” claiming it showed women in a “black light.”¹⁹ It had been the only Persian women's magazine.²⁰

In 1997, it became legal to sign a new kind of prenuptial document in Iran. The object was to give women some of the rights that they lacked in Shariat (Islamic religious law). Under the terms of this prenuptial contract, the groom forfeited rights to polygamy and unconditional divorce, and the bride acquired rights to initiate divorce, divide assets, claim joint custody of children, and receive child support. As most men would not sign such contracts, the possibility of signing had little practical effect. A small number of family courts have returned, and divorce is referred to these courts. Women can function as judges but do not have the title. Mahriyeh (a stipulated sum that a groom agrees to give or owe to his bride) is indexed and linked to inflation. Women have more legal options for initiating divorce than they had in the past.²¹ The BBC reported that in divorce proceedings women were concerned the husbands would convince the court to pay them nothing.²² Women began demanding more gold coins in their Mariyeh in case of divorce, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government worried marriage was “turning into an economic project,” as stated by Ahmadinejad’s vice president, Gholam Hossein Elham.²² The government is planning a tax on prenuptial arrangements above a certain amount to deter what it sees as exorbitant amounts, thus reducing the financial burden on men.²² In September 2008, the bill for the tax was returned to the legislative council, citing the problematic meddling of the government in private contracts; however, its primary opposition came from the perceived promotion of polygamy in the government's bill.²³ The polygamy and tax provisions were removed in the bill that was on September 9.¹⁵

During the administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration, the use of Siqeh, or temporary marriages (that can last from 30 minutes to a lifetime), became heavily used, especially in response to the financial demands of prenuptial agreements. The temporary marriages, enacted by fatwa in 1983 under Khomeini, are heavily criticized as a form of legalized prostitution.⁵⁸²⁴ In April 2007, the Tehran police, (which is under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's supervision), began a crackdown on women with "improper hijab." This led to criticism from associates of Ahmadinejad.²⁵

In May 2006, a group of women's movement activists in Iran initiated the "Stop Stoning Forever" campaign ²⁶ campaign. The objective of this campaign is to change the Islamic Penal Code of Iran such that stoning will never again be issued as a sentence or practiced as a punishment. Until March 2008, the campaign has succeeded to save 5 women from the stoning in association with the Volunteer Lawyers' Network. According to Amnesty International, three people were stoned to death in 2006-2007, and as of January 2008 nine women and two men were sentenced to death by stoning.²⁷ In August 2008 the Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women! announced that there were still at least eight women and one man sentenced to die by stoning for convictions of prostitution, incest and adultery.²⁸ Two were granted amnesty, two received reduced sentences of imprisonment and/or lashes and five cases are under review.²⁸ The spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, Alireza Jamshidi, said in a statement, "Don’t forget. One cannot remove the punishment of stoning from the law."²⁸ The case of Kobra Najjar, a 44 year old woman who was convicted of adultery, but who some say was forced into prostitution by her husband, has received international attention.¹⁰ She has reportedly exhausted all legal recourse for her conviction, with a sentence of death by stoning.¹⁰

On August 27, 2006, a new women's rights campaign was launched in Iran. The "One Million Signatures"²⁹ campaign aims to end legal discrimination against women in Iranian laws by collecting a million signatures. Examples of such laws include one that sets the age of legal adult responsibility for girls at 9 years, one that gives lower value to legal testimony by women than to legal testimony by men, and one that limits punitive damages in cases of the wrongful injury or death of a woman to half of that of a man. The supporters of this campaign include many Iranian women's rights activists inside Iran and also international activists including many Nobel Peace Prize laureates. However, according to California State University professor Nayereh Tohidi, women collecting signatures were attacked and arrested, which has slowed the campaign and caused it to extend its two year target.¹⁵

After the victory with the marriage bill in September 2008, a court sentenced four of the women leaders, all involved in the One Million Signatures campaign, to jail for contributing to banned websites.³⁰ They were identified as Mariam Hossein-khah, Nahid Keshavarz, Jelveh Javaheri and Parvin Ardalan.³⁰

Education

See also: Higher education in Iran and Science in Iran

The writer and activist Bibi Khatoon Astarabadi founded the first school for Persian girls in 1907. In this school, Iranian women could study a variety of subjects, including history, geography, law, calculus, religion, and cooking.

Enrollment of 12 women into the Tehran University in 1936, marked the entry of women into university education in Iran.³¹ Women account for over half of all university students; ³² As Iranian women become more educated, they increasingly are concerned about the man they marry since they are only allowed to work with the permission of their husband.³² Such education and social trends are increasingly viewed with alarm by the Iranian government.³²³³ In a report Ahmadinejad's governemtn, Iran’s Research Center of the Majlis—which has parliamentary decision-making powers as well as at the governmental agency level—warned that the increased female enrollment could cause "social disparity and economic and cultural imbalances between men and women."³² Seventy percent of Iran's science and engineering students are women.³⁴

Iranian women have participated in science Olympiads. For instance, Maryam Mirzakhani won gold medals in the 1994 and 1995 International Mathematical Olympiads.³⁵ An alumna of the Sharif University of Technology, she is an assistant professor at Princeton University.

In 2001, Allameh Tabatabaii University, Tarbiat Modares University, and Azzahra University initiated women's studies programs at the Master of Arts level, and shortly thereafter Tehran University organized a similar program.

Sports

See also: Women's Football in Iran

Women contributed to the development of polo, which originated in the royal courts of Persia 2,500 years ago. The queen and her ladies-in-waiting played against the emperor and his courtiers.³⁶

Today, Iranian schools offer sport for Iranian students, including girls. Despite restrictions, Iran has many female athletes who have won medals in international competitions. In 2000, Atousa Pour-Kashian became world chess champion. In 2004, Zahra Asgardoun won a silver medal in the sanshou (sparring) competitions of the Asian women's wushu (martial arts) event.

On 30 May 2005, Farkhondeh Sadegh, a graphic designer, and Laleh Keshavarz, a dentist, became the first Muslim women to make a successful ascent of Mount Everest. In December 2005, Iran won the Asian women's canoe polo crown. In 2006, Iranian wushu athletes won five medals in the Third Grand International Wushu Festival in Warsaw, Poland. Iranian women's national team athlete, Elham Sadeqi, won three golds in taolu (wushu forms) events. Iran's top race car driver is Laleh Seddigh, who is skilled in both circuit and rally driving. However, in December 2007 it was reported that Seddigh, known as the "Schumacher of the East", was banned from racing for one year for allegedly tampering with her car's engine.³⁷ "I did not commit any irregularities," said Seddigh, "They simply want to exclude me from racing because I'm a woman."³⁷

National Iranian women's teams take part in football (soccer), taekwondo, chess, and track and field events.

Acts of protest against sex segregation of women includes an event of the 1997 so-called "soccer revolution" when an estimated 5000 women defied the ban on entering soccer stadiums and stormed the gates to join 120,000 men in celebration of Iran's national soccer team which had returned to the country from qualifying for the World Cup.³⁸

Female Iranian athletes are all but prevented from participation in the Olympic Games.³⁹ In December 2007 the vice president of the Iranian Olympic Committee, Abdolreza Savar, issued a memorandum to all sporting federations about the "proper behavior of male and female athletes" and that "severe punishment will be meted out to those who do not follow Islamic rules during sporting competitions" both local and abroad.⁴⁰ Men are not allowed to train or coach women. Iran's female volleyball team was once considered the best in Asia, but due to the lack of female coaches it has been prevented from international competition.⁴⁰

Iranian women are allowed to compete in sports that require removal of the hijab, but only in arenas that are all female.³⁹ They are banned from public events if spectators include unrelated men.⁴¹ Thus, of the 53 Iranian athletes in the Beijing Olympics, there were only three women: Sara Khoshjamal Fekri (taekwondo), Najmeh Abtin (shooting) and Homa Hosseini (rowing).³⁹

Women may not wear Lycra as it is too form-fitting; when Homa Hosseini competes in rowing she must wear her hijab secured by a hat, a long-sleeved baggy top and tracksuit bottoms.⁴¹ If women do not conform to the dress code rules, they face severe punishment and a ban on participation in any future national or international competitions.⁴⁰

At the 2004 Athens Olympics there was only one female athlete, in shooting.³⁹

Women's health

See also: Health care in Iran and Family planning in Iran

In the 20th century, female social activists, health workers, and non-governmental organizations promoted the health of women by stressing the importance of regular check-ups such as the Pap smear, mammography, and blood tests. Vitamin D and calcium supplementation and hormone replacement therapy were emphasized with the goal of preventing osteoporosis.

In 2005, the Iranian parliament approved abortions carried out before four months gestation if a woman's life was at risk or if the fetus was malformed. With technical support from the United Nations Population Fund, the government undertook literacy and family planning initiatives. The fund's specific contributions to the Literacy Movement Organization of Iran included training more than 7,000 teachers, developing a nine-episode television series on women's health issues (including family planning), and procuring computers and other equipment.⁴²

International influence and the women's movement

The Persian cultural sphere

Women of modern Iran have close contacts with the women from the Iranian cultural sphere, that is, Persian-speaking countries, primarily Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and the Kurdish areas of Iraq and Central Asia. Many women's rights activists, artists, and literary figures in the region cross borders to assist each other. For example, Iranian journalist Jila Bani Yaghoub and film-maker Samira Makhmalbaf have contributed to the culture of Afghanistan. Iranian intellectual Farah Karimi wrote a book entitled "Slagveld Afghanistan" that criticizes Dutch military policies in Afghanistan, and in 2006, she was appointed as the representative of the United Nations in Afghanistan affairs.⁴³ In 2003, Sima Bina, the voice of Khorasan (a region of northeastern Iran), performed secular threnodies at the Théâtre du Soleil for the benefit of the "Afghanistan: one child one book" project created by the organization Open Asia.⁴⁴ Moreover in 2004, the World Bank funded a "network of Persian women" for promoting the welfare of women in Persian-speaking lands.⁴⁵

• Afghanistan: Influential figures include:
  • Sima Samar, the first Deputy Chair and Minister of Women’s Affairs.
  • Safeeieh Ammeh Jan, prominent Tajik-Afghan women's rights activist.

• Tajikistan:

Tajik women founded more than 100 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in recent decades to defend their rights and improve their quality of life. Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi acted as a role model for a new generation of Tajik women. Many Tajik businesswomen have economic ties with Iran.⁴⁶ In 2005, a conference on poverty among women was organized in Iran, and a group of Tajik journalists, activists, university lecturers, and athletes were invited to Iran to exchange experiences.⁴⁷

In 2006 Anousheh Ansari, a woman whose family fled the country after the 1979 revolution was the first Iranian woman in space.⁴⁸ The feat, undertaken in Kazakhstan, was reportedly an inspiration to many Iranian women.⁴⁸

Relationship with western feminism

As women continue to help shape modern Iranian identity, western scholars are increasingly interested in documenting their complex and varied experiences. While the growing women’s movement in Iran suggests parallels with feminism in the west, there are differences of opinion on what the relationship between these movements is and should be.

Some suggest that only by accepting help from western feminists, whose progress has been recognized within western society, can the Iranian Women’s Movement be recognized. This perspective suggests that western feminism can offer freedom and opportunity to Iranian women that their own religious society cannot. In addition, advocates of this view argue that no matter what the Iranian Women’s Movement is able to achieve within Iranian society, the status of individual women within this society will always be less than what has been achieved by western feminists⁴⁹.

By contrast, others suggest that parochial movements of women will never be successful, and that until a global sisterhood made up of women from all nations and religions has been established, feminism has not truly arrived⁵⁰. According to this perspective, the Iranian Women’s Movement must merge with the global feminist community, both contributing to the movement and drawing strength from its established constituency.

There is yet a third perspective suggesting that a global women’s movement will inevitably ignore and undermine the unique elements of indigenous Iranian feminism which have arisen as a result of their history and religion⁵¹. A global movement into which all women are equally assimilated no matter what their cultural background will be unsuccessful, according to this perspective, because it ignores the unique needs of each individual woman.

References

Further reading

• Edward G. Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909. Mage Publishers (July 1995). ISBN 0-934211-45-0
• Farideh Farhi, Religious Intellectuals, the “Woman Question,” and the Struggle for the Creation of a Democratic Public Sphere in Iran, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 15, No.2, Winter 2001.
• Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Religious Modernists and the “Woman Question”: Challenges and Complicities, Twenty Years of Islamic Revolution: Political and Social Transition in Iran since 1979, Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp 74-95.
• Shirin Ebadi, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope, Random House (May 2, 2006), ISBN 1-4000-6470-8

See also

• Intellectual movements in Iran
• Women's movement
• One Million Signatures

External links

Articles:

• Portrayal of Women in Iranian Cinema: An historical overview by Shahla Lahiji
• Manifestation of Feeling: A Selection of Paintings by Iranian Female Artists
• A Holistic Approach Underpins the Iran's Success in Family Planning (UNFPA)
• One Million Signatures Campaign (we-change.org)
• The Iranian Camila Batmanghelidjh has won the UK's Women of the Year 2006 award. (BBC)
• Iran's Women's Rights Movement and the One Million Signatures Campaign
• The Iranian Women’s Movement: A Century Long Struggle
• Women Mayors in Iran

Websites and forums:

• Women's Field
• Zan (in Persian)
• Iran-Dokht (in Persian)
• Iran Women's Study Foundation
• Iranian Feminist Tribune (in Persian)
• Focus of Iranian Women (in Persian)
• Islamic Republic of Iran Center for Affairs of Women's Participation

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 14 November 2008, at 02:48.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Women's rights in Iran".

The URL for this specific entry is:

• http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Women's_rights_in_Iran

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.