Women and Politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Action and Reaction

Sanam Vakil

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781441192141
• eBook ISBN: 9781441117380
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Women and Politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran looks at the rise and role of female activism in Iran since the 1979 Revolution. Since 1979 women have played a decisive role in elections and assumed political posts. This study assesses this role as well as the impact of domestic and international policies on women's activism, highlighting the contradictions between politics and religion within the Islamic Republic. It also seeks to evaluate political and economic developments and the transformations in civil society, including the development of a gender conscious society. Women and Politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran features original research by Sanam Vakil, an Iranian-American scholar, who conducted interviews with women activists, politicians, journalists, clerics and students in Iran, Europe and the U.S. and used primary sources to specifically links women's activism to the domestic political changes in Iran. The book will be an essential resource for anyone studying Iranian politics and seeking to understand better the internal political and social dynamics in Iran and the critical role that women play.

1

Introduction: A Female Awakening Through a Century of Struggle

On June 12, 2005, hundreds of women in Iran gathered in advance of the presidential elections protesting against the gender segregation policies of the Islamic Republic. The government responded to this open challenge by deploying security forces to arrest and disperse the crowd. This gathering, one among a growing series after almost three decades of limited quiet, revealed the impending confrontation between women and the Islamic government of Iran. A week earlier, a group of women activists forced their way into Tehran’s Azadi stadium to watch a soccer match between Iran and Bahrain, a first since the Islamic government banned women from watching games at stadiums. For four hours, they carried signs that read, “My right is also human rights,” and “Freedom, justice and gender equality.”¹ On the one-year anniversary of this demonstration in June 2006, women again gathered to protest their unequal legal, political, and social status. This time, the state dispatched a female police force to contain and arrest the demonstrators. Most shocking were the images of women police beating women activists that were distributed and circulated on the Internet. On March 4, 2007, 31 Iranian women were arrested for gathering peacefully outside Tehran’s Revolutionary Court in support of five fellow activists on trial for demanding changes in laws that discriminate against women. They were also accused of receiving foreign funds to stir up dissent in Iran, which led to the arrest and detention of many female activists.² These events set the stage for greater female political participation and activism in and around the tenth presidential elections coincidentally held on June 12, 2009.

During this presidential election campaign and in the post-election protests, women were again prominent participants. Their active involvement is a reflection of women’s social and political gains during the past 32 years as well as their growing grievances against the Islamic Republic. Women turned out by the thousands to vote as well as to demonstrate in the postelection upheaval. Moreover, when Neda Agha-Soltan, a philosophy student, was fatally shot while attending a demonstration on the streets of Tehran on June 20, 2009, she became the iconic martyr in the protests. Zahra Rahnavard, former chancellor of Tehran University, activist, academic and also wife of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Musavi became a symbol of hope for women. As the first Iranian woman to campaign alongside her husband in a presidential election, Rahnavard’s presence offered a promising example for political change. The other candidates, acknowledging the importance of the female vote, also tailored their campaigns to appeal to women. Mehdi Karroubi, in particular, promised to improve women’s social status and appoint a female minister to his cabinet. Conservative candidates Mohsen Rezai and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were forced to adapt by also bringing their wives along to campaign events.

These recent political episodes highlight how gender rights and female activism, prominent issues for Iranian women, have ebbed and flowed with the momentum of Iranian politics. Activists say that while world attention has focused on the West’s standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, abuses of women’s rights have intensified, as the regime has used fear of a U.S. attack as a pretext for its crackdown. Indeed, as suggested by Azadeh Kian, the arrest of dozens of women’s rights activists, the closure of several women’s magazines and women’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs) —the number of which has increased from 54 in 1995 to over 600 in 2009—and many other attempts by the government to intimidate women’s rights activists attest to the increasing political importance of women’s issues.³ These events also point to the contradictions apparent not only within the Iranian political system but also among women in Iran. Activist and journalist Fariba Davoudi Mohajer stated, “Women have a common discourse that is based on demands for equality. We have reached the conclusion that we have to work together, and this is a very positive development in the history of Iran’s women’s movement. This is a continuous movement with [solid] roots. The community of Iranian women has also accepted the costs [women] must pay for their actions. They have accepted that a social movement has its price, and they have to pay for it.”⁴ Shirin Ebadi, the 2005 Nobel Prize winner, has echoed that; “We can drive. We can vote. We’ve proved in these demonstrations that the world had the wrong idea about Iranian women. We don’t sit in the corner and wait for the men to make change. We make change for the men. Iran has had enough male leaders. We are the mothers of Iran.”⁵ For the Iranian state though, the threat brought on by this domestic pressure has propelled the regime to react aggressively.

As suggested by one women’s rights journalist and activist, “The women’s issue reveals an inherent weakness apparent in the Iranian regime. Its behavior toward women is a primary example of this frailty. It goes without saying that when you back a cat into a corner, of course it’s going to scratch and attack you in self-defense. This is analogous to the behavior of the Iranian government that feels backed into a corner.”⁶ Indeed, a government observer commented, “The Islamic Republic is experiencing one of its weakest periods in the realm of domestic policy and economics.”⁷ The political tension and public outcry surrounding Iran’s 2009 presidential election has shed light on the fragile relationship between state and society in the Islamic Republic. This weakness is further evidenced in the state’s attempts to control civil society, curb public dissent, contain the post election protests, and is reflected in many of its policies, including those toward women.

Gender issues are at the center of contemporary Iranian politics. Since the revolution, Iranian women have commenced a quiet revolution of their own against the Islamist status quo. They have played a decisive role in elections, assumed political posts, and now outnumber men in all arenas of education. Moreover, their income contributions are considered vital for the economic survival of many families. Ironically, the state has been no innocent bystander in this process but rather an unintentional facilitator. Needing female legitimacy to justify the moral, Islamic, and political nature of the revolution, the state co-opted women by preserving their right to vote, originally granted by Muhammad Reza Pahlavi in 1967. During the Iran-Iraq war, recognizing that female support was again essential for the national defense, they too encouraged female education, and labor participation while also enshrining the exalted position of women as mothers and wives. These initial policies set in motion a cycle of reaction and action on the part of both women and the state—each responding and adapting to the other. Today, the Islamic Republic can no longer ignore women’s strength as a political constituency and as promoters of change. Indeed, women’s rights are one of the main battlegrounds for domestic change within the factional political system.

The imagery associated with the Islamic Republic of Iran most prominently draws upon the revolution and Islamic symbolism. The black-turbaned, long-bearded, scowling revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is among the foremost icons of Iran and its Islamic Revolution. Illustrations of young Iranian boys running across Iraqi minefields during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war screaming “Allahu akbar! (“God is great!”) along with photos of the 1979 American hostages, held for 444 days, blindfolded, hands tied behind their backs have also colored the imagination. Figures of women shrouded in long black chadors chanting in defense of Iran’s unpredictable revolution point to the dualities of a revolution that was supported by women but resulted in a reversal of many female legal protections. The vitriolic statements of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad do not dim these grim memories. In fact, Ahmadinejad has only solidified world opinion against the dark and contradictory policies of the Islamic Republic. Yet, these images reveal only a part of Iran and the Iranian story that has played out since the inimical 1979 revolution.

Shahrough Akhavi wrote, “The Iranian revolution of 1979 presents a case in which religion has stimulated profound social change, rather than served only as a basis for social integration.”⁸ For the Islamic government, which has struggled to keep the passion of its revolution and religious fervor afire after 32 years, this statement astutely points to an unexpected phenomenon of social and political transformation. The impact of a theocratic government dramatically altered Iranian society, but these changes were anything but predictable. Indeed, rather than a monolithic fundamentally religious society, Iran is an amalgamation of its diverse and long history bound together by its myriad of identities—50 percent Persian with ethnic groups including Arabs, Kurds, Azeris, and various tribal associations consisting of the other half, Shi’a Muslim, modernist, nationalist, and reactionist. Over the centuries, these often-competing identities have been woven together, bringing to life the contradictions and dynamism evident within Iranian politics and society.

The Islamic Republic has endured for over three decades amidst the tensions of these competing trends. Many international observers continue to see Iran as unchanged. Despite regular elections and even electoral protests, the revolutionary elite continues to hold its monopoly on power. The government continues to espouse virulent anti-Americanism and support terror organizations in the Middle East. At weekly prayer gatherings and demonstrations, participants and revolutionary loyalists continue to denounce the “Great Satan” (the United States) as well as the “Little Satan” (Israel). Women continue to be subject to patriarchal interpretations of Islamic law all imposed after the onset of the revolution. Human rights violations continue to be an ingredient of life within the Islamic Republic. However, coupled with the revolutionary rhetoric and ideological passions that have come to be associated with the Islamic Republic of Iran, so too has there been a story of vibrancy and change, resilience and resistance, confrontation and conciliation.

Most evidently, the nature of politics, religion and society has evolved. In effect, these changes have been circular. The government has been forced to adjust to the changing nature of society. Since the revolution, Iran has experienced a demographic boom that led to a doubling of the population, leaving 70 percent of the population under the age of 30.⁹ This 70 percent has little or no memory of the revolution and its ambitions, adding not only social and economic pressures to the mix of government responsibility, but also political ones, as the youth hope for a new and dynamic future amidst the confines of an autocratic Islamic state. These confines, while restricting movement, action, freedom, and accountability, have also sparked creativity. Many Iranians are continuously pushing the boundaries—legal, social, political, economic, and religious—to find new methods of expression and opportunity within the Islamic state. The state regularly censors films, music, art, dance, and books that are considered anti-Islamic and critical of the state. Yet, aspiring actors, musicians, artists, and writers are persistently finding novel outlets of expression. Of course, the government does indeed catch on to these new methods, and has thus curbed Internet access, closed magazines, banned websites, and prevented writers and musicians from performing. But the collective power of young people to resist regulations they do not condone is immeasurable. A young, politically apathetic generation watch bootleg DVDs of the latest Hollywood films, write blogs about their social lives, and pass phone numbers through car windows during interminable traffic jams. In the wealthy suburbs of northern Tehran, women go out wearing long coats over miniskirts and low-cut tops as they make their way to the parties that take place almost every night with effortless access to drugs, alcohol, and sex.

The pendulum swings widely in Iran. And while the constrictions of social and political life are indeed frustrating, this circle of action and reaction has not constrained the vigor of Iranian society. What’s more is that these youth have benefitted from the government’s massive investment in education. Approximately 85 percent of the nation is literate, a figure that exceeds 90 percent among those younger than 25. There are 22 million students, including around 3 million enrolled in universities, of which over half are women.¹⁰ In general, the urban, middle-class youth maintain little connection to the regime’s Islamic revolutionary ideology. As the state’s Islamist ideology has lost its luster, society has—paradoxically—experienced a form of “secularization” from below and given birth to what is now openly referred to as “Islamic feminism.” Islamic feminists contend that women should be afforded equal but not the same rights as men. They boldly call for the reinterpretation of Islamic law, using Shi’a jurisprudence. The paradox of Iranian history is ever potent, as the reaction to a theocratic government has also inspired intellectual and popular movements for the separation of the institution of religion from that of the state, if not of faith from politics. Clearly, in spite of the not-so-hidden hand of the state, new boundaries are being pushed and explored every day.

In its first decade, the Islamic Republic was focused on the struggle of revolutionary consolidation. Amidst the threat of war, sanctions, and international isolation, the government was consumed with the survival of the regime. Policies were implanted to protect the nascent Islamic Republic from threats looming both inside and outside Iranian territory. Domestically, Kurdish and Arab ethnic groups and political adversaries were repressed in the interest of regime consolidation.¹¹ Internationally, the American hostage crisis and the war with Saddam Hussein had extended into a regional and international conflict as neighbors and nations around the world allied against Iran. The government used these events to successfully purge the regime of opponents and unite in the face of isolation.

In 1988, after eight years of intense fighting that decimated Iran’s economic and political stability, Ayatollah Khomeini agreed to “drink from the poisoned chalice” of peace, finally yielding to a cease-fire. This concession was a blessing for Iran’s population, which had suffered and sacrificed through the years of war, losing lives, limbs, freedom, and prosperity. For the revolutionary government, however, peace brought the burdens of statecraft and bureaucracy to reality. The regime was forced to shift from revolution and cross-border war to the ordinary business of governing. Iraq’s assaults on Iran had enabled the Islamic Republic to unify Iranians in the shared goal of repelling Saddam Hussein’s forces and protecting the new government. When the war ended, that unifying mission was replaced by competing ideologic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Glossary
• To My Sister by Forough Farrokhzad
• Chapter 1 Introduction: A Female Awakening Through a Century of Struggle
• Chapter 2 The Revolutionary Century Through the Eyes and Lives of Women
• Chapter 3 Khomeini: The Paradox and Politics of Religion
• Chapter 4 Defining and Redefining Activist Women
• Chapter 5 Rafsanjani: The Road to Reform
• Chapter 6 Khatami: The Momentum and Challenge of Reform
• Chapter 7 Ahmadinejad: Claim Making and Stagnating Reform
• Chapter 8 The Circles of Confrontation, Conciliation, and Contradiction
• Selected Bibliography
• Appendix: Highlights of the Gains and Losses in Women's Activism, 1960-2010
• Index
• Copyright