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Women in Iran

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A Persian woman here as depicted during the Safavi period of Iran. From wall painting in Chehel-sotoon Palace, Isfahan.

A Persian Woman usually refers to a woman of or from the traditional Persia culture.

Although she is seen as Iranian, the Persian woman need not be from any specific nationality or ethnicity, and can be thought to be associated with any of the peoples sharing the Persian culture.

Persian women in history

Amazon warrior women were known to have been of North Iranian stock( Scythia, northern Persian empire, peoples who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus and eastern Europe). These Iranians were replaced by the Turks and Mongols and some Arabs. They are known as Tats and live in the region of Daghestan in the Caucasus. It is little known that the armies of Sassanian Persia included women as fighters who (according to Roman sources) gave an excellent account of themselves. see following image: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~memcinto/archery/images/LXXXV_85_a_sm.jpg Some historians in fact argue that it was Cyrus the Great who, ten centuries before Islam, established the custom of covering women to protect their chastity. According to their theory, the veil passed from the Achaemenids to the Seleucids. They, in turn, handed it to the Byzantines, from whom the Arab conquerors inherited it, transmitting it over the vast reaches of the Arab world.[[[:Template:Fn]]] But even if one were to accept this theory, it wouldn't change the fact that the view toward women in Iran changed significantly with the arrival of Islam in Iran.

File:Zan-sassani.jpg
The perspective on women in Iranian society has not always been the same: A nude Sassanid woman undulates on this silver-gilt ewer.

At the dawn of the 20th century, many Iranian modernists who had traveled to Europe for higher education, came back to view the Islamic veil as a symbol of backwardness. Its removal, in their view, was essential to the advancement of Iran and its dissociation from Arab-Islamic culture. For the counter-modernists who wanted to uphold the Islamic social and gender orders, the European woman became a scapegoat and a symbol of corruption, immorality, and Westernization. In the Iranian body-politic the imagined European woman provided the subtext for political maneuvers over women's rights and appearance in the public space.

Iran's Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11 became a turning point in the lives of Iranian women. Women participated in huge numbers and gained important positions for expressing their views, including journals, schools, and associations that flourished in the following period (1911-24).[[[:Template:Fn]]]

File:Haghighatjoo.jpg
Reformist MP Fatemeh Haghighatjou, a staunch advocate of women's rights, was sentenced by Iran's Judiciary to 22 months in prison for "working against the Islamic Republic". She resigned in 2004 amidst the defeat of reformists in Parliament.

But the defeat of the constitutionalists (1921-5) and the consolidation of power by Reza Shah (1925-41) had two contradictory impacts. Independent women's journals and groups were destroyed, while the state implemented social reforms such as mass education and paid employment for women. Reza Shah also initiated his controversial policy of Kashf-e-Hijab, banning the wearing of the Islamic Hijab in public. But like other sectors of the society in those years under Reza Shah's rule, women lost the right to express themselves and dissent was repressed.

With the advent of Iran's revolution in 1979, women's rights took yet another wild swing toward religious conservatism. Despite the decree of many of Iran's top clerics such as Ayatollah Taleghani, the state, under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini made wearing the Hijab mandatory for all women, implementing strict religious codes for women in society.

In May 1997, a large number of women participated in presidential elections and overwhelmingly voted for Hojatolislam Mohammad Khatami, a reformist cleric who had promised reduction of repression and toleration of civil society institutions. His election opened a period when women could voice their ideas one again, with many becoming increasingly bolder in their demands and in their criticisms. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights and feminist activist, further emboldened Iranian feminists inside Iran and cemented their relationships with Iranian feminist activists abroad.

The Sixth Majles saw the emergence of some of Iran's most strongest advocates of women's rights. Almost all of the 11 female lawmakers of The 190-seat Majles took on the challenge of trying to change some of Irans more conservative laws amidst a male dominated culture. However, during the elections for the Seventh Majles, all of those representatives were banned to run for office by the all male Council of Guardians, only allowing conservative females to run for election. The new representatives, as expected, upon their arrival into office began reversing many of the laws passed by the reformist 6th Majles.

Famous Iranian women and female entities

The conservatively religious view toward women is a relatively new phenomenon in Iran; The traditional image of a Persian woman holding a cup of wine, as depicted at Hasht-behesht palace, Isfahan, 17th century Iran.

Further Info

Sources

  • Template:Fnb The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation, by Sandra Mackey. (Penguin Group, 1996).
  • Template:Fnb J. Afary, The Iranian constitutional revolution, 1906-11. Grassroots democracy, social democracy, and the origins of feminism, New York 1996.
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