THE CREATION OF IDENTITY AND WOMENS RESISTANCES IN IRAN

THESIS
Supervisor : Prof. Dr. Mohammad Mohtar Masoed

By:
Nanda Afriani 12/327753/SP/24990
DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
FACULTY OF SOCIAL & POLITICAL SCIENCES
UNIVERSITAS GADJAH MADA
2016

ABSTRACT
The struggle of women in Iran in getting their contribution acknowledged by
the existing regime has been sounded far before the 1979 revolution of the Islamic
Republic of Iran. Women, despite the oppressing condition they were living in
throughout eras, have shown their capability in changing the discourse of political
socialization in Iran through their own way of resisting the status quo. Their constant
movements and resistances were also shaped by the ever-changing discourses
articulated among the intergroups in Iran, thus affecting the creation of their identities.

This study covers the shifting relations of existing regime from pre-revolutionary
period until the post-revolutionary period in viewing the womens issue. With the aim
of revealing the process of creation of womens identity in Iran, it deems necessary to
view the issue under the exercised political trends in Iran.
An analysis conducted based on the existing frameworks, which are closely
related to the constructivism theory, such as the distribution of enemy images,
political Islamism, and the debates around gender mainstreaming process. The data
and variables collected show the tendency that womens identities in Iran were not
only shaped by the existing legal frameworks, but also through the process of political
socialization existed within the intergroups.
Keyword: Identity, Iranian Women, Enemy Images, Political Islam, Gender
Mainstreaming, Social Construct
Word Count: 16,061 words

ABSTRAKSI
Perjuangan perempuan di Iran dalam mendapatkan pengakuan atas kontribusi
mereka dalam proses sosial politik telah dicanangkan jauh sebelum revolusi Republik
Islam Iran pada 1979. Meskipun perjuangan mereka dibatasi di setiap era
pemerintahan, wanita telah menunjukkan kemampuan mereka dalam mengubah
wacana sosialisasi politik di Iran melalui cara mereka sendiri. Gerakan aktif dan
perlawanan juga terbentuk oleh opini dalam kelompok masyarakat di Iran, yang
mempengaruhi identitas mereka. Penelitian ini mencakup tiga rezim utama di Iran
yang terdiri dari periode sebelum revolusi sampai periode setelah revolusi dalam
melihat permasalahan tentang perempuan. Penelitian terhadap tiga rezim tersebut
dianggap perlu untuk melihat kecendrungan politik yang ada di Iran dalam waktu ke
waktu.
Analisis dilakukan berdasarkan kerangka kerja yang berkaitan dengan teori
konstruktivisme, seperti proses distribusi enemy images dalam masyarakat, politik
Islam, dan perdebatan di sekitar proses gender mainstreaming. Data dan variabel
yang dikumpulkan menunjukkan kecenderungan bahwa identitas perempuan di Iran
tidak hanya dibentuk oleh kerangka hukum yang ada, tetapi juga melalui proses
sosialisasi politik yang ada dalam kelompok masyarakat.
Kata Kunci: Identitas, Perempuan Iran, Enemy Images, Politik Islam, Pemerataan
gender, Pembangunan Sosial
Jumlah Kata: 16,061 kata

ABBREVIATIONS

BWA

: Bureau of Womens Affair

CIA

: Central Intelligence Agency

FPL

: Family Protection Law

IRI

: Islamic Republic of Iran

IRP

: Islamic Republican Party

WSIR

: Womens Society of the Islamic Revolution

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT.................................................................................................................II
ABSTRAKSI..............................................................................................................III
ABBREVIATIONS....................................................................................................IV
TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................................V
I. INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................1
A. BACKGROUND........................................................................................................1
B. PROBLEM FORMULATION.......................................................................................2
C. AREA OF STUDY.....................................................................................................3
D. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK..................................................................................4
1. The Creation of Identity through Enemy Images............................................4
2. Islamism Political Religion.............................................................................5
3. Gender Mainstreaming Framework and Its Debate...........................................6
E. ARGUMENTS...........................................................................................................8
F. RESEARCH METHOD...............................................................................................8
G. OUTLINE................................................................................................................9

II. A GENEALOGY OF WOMENS RIGHT IN IRAN.........................................11

A. WOMENS QUESTION AND THEIR IDENTITY........................................................11
B. PARTICIPANTS......................................................................................................17
1. Pre-Revolutionary Womens Organization......................................................17
2. Women After the Revolution............................................................................18
3. Womens Strategies in Resisting the Oppression.............................................19

III. THE CREATION OF WOMENS IDENTITY IN IRAN................................22

A. THE SHADOWS OF ENEMY IMAGES.....................................................................22
1. The Production of Enemy Images Within Iranian Society...............................23
2. The Consequences of Enemy Images in Affecting the Identity of Iranian
Women.................................................................................................................28
B. THE DYNAMIC OF POLITICAL ISLAMISM IN IRAN................................................32
1. The Heavily-Embedded Discourses of Political Islamism...............................32
2. Discourse in the Making: The Rising of Islamic Feminism............................35
C. GENDER MAINSTREAMING AND POLITICIZATION OF WOMENS ISSUE................39
1. Political Participation.......................................................................................39
2. Education.........................................................................................................42
3. Employment.....................................................................................................45
IV. CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................47
BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................50

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background
The participation of women in shaping the legal framework in Iran cannot be
put aside. Women have been one of the important social groups that are involved in
Irans social, politics, and economic scene regardless the limited situation they live in.
Their involvement is getting more prominent even after the revolution of Islamic state
in 1979, in which has limited their room for public participation. There are a lot of
factors and possibilities that influence those participations and the outcome created as
a form of resistance towards the newly released government policies. Given its nature
of their Islamic state, Iran claims to hold an old civilization with a lot of influences
from Western style modernity since the pre-revolutionary era. Influenced by critical
thoughts from international society and Muslim intellectuals, they decided to establish
a constitutional, representative parliamentary system as the answer of Irans stagnancy
during the monarch period. By these means, Iranian government was supposed to
accommodate the liberation of rights, education, and equality among its citizen
including

women.

However,

the

conservative

leaders

overshadowed

that

establishment, assuming that modernity was a hostile idea to topple down Islam
(Afary, 2009).

This study aims to analyze the fluidity and dynamic of Iranian womens
movements especially after the revolutionary era, without forgetting the prerevolutionary events that lead into this matter. It is evident that throughout this period
women have won certain rights, yet failed to entitle them officially due to the strong
influence from fundamental source, which is Islamic law. The determining positions,
statuses, and possessions of the activists, especially women will also put into the
spotlight in order to study the socio-political aspect in contemporary Iranian
intergroup and how it affects the identities of Iranian women as well. This study also
argues that although some progress have been made in Irans recognition toward

womens rights, the legal system still recognize women as dependent upon men who
need to be guarded and supervised. In other words, women are still viewed as secondclass citizens when it comes to the fulfillment of their rights although they have made
some efforts to show themselves as capable human being with same aptitudes as a
man.

The revolution in 1979 could have been marked as a moment of revival from
the anti-imperialism discourse, with the emergence of a new nation state where the
concept of womens right can be sounded in a new legal system. However, after the
revolution, the issues of gender were hidden due to the overwhelming influence of
Islamic ideology, which was going to be the main framework of the new legal bodies.
No women organization was represented during the first decade after revolution and
Iranian women were denied from their basic right to participate in various spheres.
Resisting these kinds of treatment, female activists began to fight against that regime
in several forms of organization; secular and religious resistance. In doing so, they
were highly looked up into the value of feminism, which brought hope and new
expectation in escaping the strictness brought by the new ideology.
By understanding this, one can assume that the imposed legal systems were
not merely coming from the state, but also the existing intergroup in Iran.
Furthermore, it is no longer relevant to view this matter from the perspective of Islam
only. Ones have to aware that Islamism discourse in Iran was not homogenously
shaped. Thus, it is not enough to view this matter from its political sight only; there
are other hidden elements to abe focused on to maintain the gap between the already
conducted studies. It is critical to view the relation between the newly established
government with the dynamically affected society, emphasizing the role of women.
Viewing these aspects through the bottom-up lens will allow us to explore how
women were affected by the new system and how they were participating in
restructuring the existing legal system for the sake of their enhancement.

B. Problem Formulation
It can be hypothesized that the existing intergroup of Iranian with highly

rooted stagnant sources such as religion and culture have played an important role in
shaping the identity of Iranian women. It fosters the maintenance of prejudice,
stereotyping, and establishment of new identity through the process called political
socialization. Indeed, it is the human capacity itself in categorizing themselves with
one another and/or against one another. The creation of new identity, thus will be
followed by its new intention in which would likely shape the political activism of
social groups. Further, intergroup consequences can also be found in system
justification (structural violence), norms, value, ethnic, decision-making process,
ones view and interpretation, and influence the behavior of both perceiver and target
of inclusion.
In order to deliver the argument and achieve the aim, this study intends to
answer this question:
How is womens identity in Iran shaped and created?

C. Area of Study
This study will be focusing on the shifting relationship of womens identity
throughout the era, therefore, it deems necessary to trace back the phenomena
happening in Iran from the pre-revolutionary era up to the post-revolutionary era.
However, it has to be noted that this study will only highlight the important measure,
which has something to do with women and gendered matters. Thus, pointing out a
joint timeline is perceived as the most appropriate way for analyzing an issue like the
one discussed in this thesis:
A strategy that examines, through the use of a variety of data sources, a
phenomenon in its naturalistic context, with the propose of confronting theory
with the empirical world. (Piekkari et al. 2009, p. 569)
It was therefore decided to view this matter in general rather than focusing on
several presidential eras due to the similar values used, for example during the
Khomeini to Ahmadinejad era (1985-2013), with some exception in Khatami era.

Hence, this study will be divided into three period of time as it has been mentioned
above.

D. Theoretical Framework

In viewing the continuous topics that have been discussed above, one ontological
stance have to be adapted in order to scientifically constructed this thesis. The
fundamental issue of concern for social sciences ontology is whether social entities
are to be seen as objective entities with a reality outside of social actors or
whether they should be taken as social constructions constructed upon the
perceptions and actions of social actors (Bryman, 2008). For this thesis, I would like
to use the approach of constructivism due to its relativity in analyzing the fact and
figures that will be explained later. As it has been stated earlier, not only the existed
sharia legal frameworks, but also intergroups and other social actors influence create
the role of women in Iran. Thus, the choices of theories bellow will be highly
influenced by the constructionist discourses.
1. The Creation of Identity through Enemy Images
An enemy image described according to the psychological and socialpsychological studies as a commonly held, stereotyped, and dehumanized images of
the out-group (Harle, 2000). It provides a focus for externalization of fear and threats,
which involves undesirable cognition and emotions projected onto the enemy
(Wahlstorm, 1988). Once described as an enemy, the images will be stick on the
victims as it indicates the differences between they and us, in which they are
described as abnormal, stupid, and felonious. Nevertheless, enemy image is also
defined as a belief of certain groups in perceiving others as threats for their security
and basic values (Luostarinen, 1989). The importance of others recognition towards
oneself was also pointed out by Friesen and Besley (2013), stating that such identity
diffusion will opt ones values, beliefs, and self-knowledge in considering their role
in society. Human interaction is of course inevitable when it comes to communication
with society. Therefore in 2007, Hull and Zacher argue that identity cannot be form in

isolation. That is why many researches obtain to identify the factors that assist the
identity formation and how it will influence oneself in the future (Kroger, 1993).
The existence of enemy images could not come instantaneously. It must have
developed through several steps that strengthen the notion of differences with all
means necessary, which includes the production by government and elites,
reproduction by media, and acceptance of it within civil society. Moreover, some
triggering factors such as system justification, intergroup competition, stress and
fears, totalitarian and consensual elite discourse, materialization of enemy discourse,
and micro-reproduction also have fostered it (Steiner, 2014). Causes and triggering
factors are connected with one another, making it harder to tackle and identify the real
cause of enemy images itself. Offer Zur in The Love of Hating: The Psychology of
Enmity stated that, enmity is the key of conflicts and creation of enemy images in
both individual and group level. It is all happened naturally as the more centralized
and hierarchical social structure grown, combined with its large size and endemic
sense of territory will lead not only into civilization, but also into enmity. Government
and elites as the higher body who maintains authority and decision making process
tend to keep the stability of their hierarchical position in order to preserve the
legitimacy gained from the civil society. Thus, there may be a chance for
authoritarianism and fundamentalism to breed due to the continual use of elites belief
in certain things. Long existed public policy makes it harder for people to accept
change, because they have already accustomed with it and consider it as the equal
one, while considering the newly proposed one as a threat that will prioritize the outgroups necessities (Crosby & Bearman, 2006). As the result, the enemy images will
be kept flourish in accordance to lack of support from certain policy that will mitigate
the inequalities between groups.

2. Islamism Political Religion

Islamism, also known as political Islam, is often characterized by its attempt to
implement Islamic values in spheres of life. The Islamization is often achieved by
state domination through revolution or invasion, in which perceived in the creation of
Islamic Republic of Iran after the revolution in 1979. In Iran, the political Islamism
was an effort of defense against Westerns challenge. Islamism has gained many
critiques towards its implementation, especially when it comes to repression of

individual rights. According to Roy (1994) in his book, The Failure of Political Islam,
Islamism or political Islam is more open to Western terminology, such as democracy
and womens right. However, the practice of individual rights guarantee in Iran is
lacking as the country had the second highest number of execution in the world when
it comes to freedom of expression (HRW, 2014).
There is a close relation between Islamism political religion and identity. This
relation has influence Iranian government not only at the establishment of several
legal frameworks, but also in shaping the social interaction within intergroup, where
several of the roots of the past day domestic socio-cultural divisions, are to be found.
(Rose, 1998). According to Al-Qazzaz (1997), political Islam is aiming to prove the
progressive nature of the Qoran, hadits, and the shariat by attributing it into preIslamic tradition and modern Islamic factors. Connected with the notion of enemy
images, Islamism has promoted the stagnancy of essentialist approach towards the
legal framework. It rejected the manifestation of Western value and considered it as a
threat for Islamic societies:
The quest for modernization and progress through Westernization of Muslim
individuals and Muslim societies, according to this argument, was done to fail
and has done so at great cost to Muslim culture and the economic, social, and
political fabric of Muslim societies (Siddiqui, 1980, Appendix, p. 1).
In addition, this theory has also delivered that the only solution to escape from this
failure is to create a fully functional Muslim society based on political system of
Islam.

3. Gender Mainstreaming Framework and Its Debate

Gender mainstreaming is pursued under the recognition that women and men
have different needs and priorities in which they should have experienced equal
conditions for realizing matters that are important for them, including human rights,
opportunity to contribute to and benefitted from national economic, social, political,
and cultural development (Moser & Moser, 2005). At first it was waged to fill up the
gap between gender boundaries under the essentialist discourse; arguing that each
object, including people, posses a natural value, and the condition in the field under
the peer pressure from womens organizations.

In the case of Iran, although the government has passed several legal
frameworks for alleviating the gender binaries between men and women, such as the
insertion of women in governmental agency, the condition in field is still highly
overshadowed by essentialist discourse. This reflects that adding numbers of women
is not enough without it being accompanied by socio-constructivism approach
regarding womens capability in doing so, thus, eradicate the feeling of self-doubt.
Viewing this matter from the point of view of essentialist only, will
overshadows the things that women can do by overemphasizing things that they
have. The above mentioned statements by essentialists claim that women are better
than men in handling the situation has reinforced some traditional stereotype of
women instead of alleviating it (Jennings, 2011). In a sense essentialists point of view
confirmed the so called affirmative gender essentialism. Therefore, the perspectives
from constructivism activist such as critical and post modernist feminists is included,
which insist the necessity to examine all of existing assumption within men and
women. These standpoints made will necessarily be partial and thus need to be
constructed further (Steans, 1998). They argue that the component of gender
mainstreaming that should have been put in order to foster the continuation of this
program contain the necessity for dual strategy based on gender analysis; combined
approach responsibility supported by gender specialist; gender training; support to
women decision making and empowerment; and supervising and evaluation. 1 In other
words, women need to be able to stand on their own beliefs to ameliorate the
prejudice given upon them. In other words, women have to believe on the rationality
of power of law, rational thinking, and deliberation to bring about peace, which
went synchronized with the implementation of science and further logical thinking.
The assumption that gender-based matters are only connected with women has to be
eradicated to limit gender bias. Lastly, the increasing numbers of women in many
field of socialization has the potential to the succession of the liberation process itself.
However, this potential has to be accompanied by supporting factors such as
1 Most of the definition of gender mainstreaming derives from the UN economic and social
council (1997, 28): Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the
implication for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or
programs, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy to make womens as well as mens
concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring
and evaluation of policies and programs in all political, economic, and societal spheres so that
women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to
achieve gender equality.

experiences, capabilities, and skill that might have overshadowed under the common
stereotype embedded on women. It has to be noted as well that it is not only the
matter of numbers that sustain the success of the mission. The matters such as class,
race, educational background, and religion have to be put into consideration as they
have interacted in the shifting frameworks that have been used in Iran.

E. Arguments

Indeed, the creation of identity cannot be shaped in one way. It is highly depended on
current situation that is being maintained by the regime in position. Hence, the
limitations upon womens rights have been caused by the highly politicized scheme of
Irans political religion aspect, which only have little to do with womens live in the
reality.

After the revolution in 1979, womens identities have been shaped mostly by
essentials discourse, saying that women are incapable of having any says in any
decision-making process. As identity occurs throughout the relations with others and
how society perceives oneself, women develop self-view that they do not possess
any values to make a wise decision. This will bring serious hardship in mobilizing
changes, as the way one think about oneself produces action. The binaries between
men and women cannot be destroyed completely, since most of the conservatives are
still thinking in a binary term: modernity vs. Islamism, women vs. men, weak vs.
strong, etc. The cultural bond that has been rooted for histories has made it harder for
people to think outside the border where culture and Islamism has left no room for
further debate, making it static and reified.

F. Research Method

The present study then will adapt qualitative method, since I will use many
data in events leading to Iranian women empowerment since pre-revolutionary era.

The thesis will also be narrative, which centers on the circumstances and
communicative actions of storytelling. What will be presented in this study is
constructed through the experiences of others as knowledge is derived from external
world and based upon facts from observations and reflections upon them (Summer,
2006). Therefore, basic policies and facts on the fields will be brought in in order to
answer the aforementioned question and to deliver the purpose of this study.
Furthermore, to bring selected documents into broader perspective I use other
interrelated documents, such as related reports, media perspectives, journal, and news
articles. Nevertheless, to strengthen my argument, selected literatures about particular
theories will be thoroughly examined as the basic platform of discussions.
I chose to use narrative analysis since it is suitable and relevant for the context
of study in general, since narrative studies have many purposes for its teller. It
accounts as a tool for: remembering the past, argumentative, persuasion, sharing the
experience, and mobilizing action (Riessman, 2008). Due to the changeability of the
womens identity in Iran to be viewed as a single case, it is consequently deemed
preferable to better understand this case in depth than to attempt to compare different
country cases with the consequences of being able to understand these only
superficially (Perry, 2011).

G. Outline

The first chapter introduces the study and presents the purpose of exploring
the issue about womens right in Iran, specifically focusing on how intergroup
contacts, through political socialization, could shape the identity of women, in
which could infuse new intentions upon womens social stance. Chapter two will
present the contemporary condition of Iran and its historical background from the prerevolution up to the post-revolutionary era in order to trace the creation of Iranian
womens identity. This includes the current Irans legal framework relevant to this
study. Some prominent actors and organizations will also be pointed out vaguely in
political, social, and economic field. Chapter three analyzes the research settings: the
womens identity in Iran and its creation throughout political socialization. Some
feature will be highlighted, such as the acceptance process of identity infusion, its

consequences, and its intention in changing the discourse of womens resistance

movement in the future in which reflected on their contribution among many social
scenes. Moreover, in order to clearly point out its dynamic, some achievements and
drawbacks between eras will be compared in this chapter. Chapter four will conclude
the results of analysis and data if the intergroup contacts have promoted attitude
changes in womens everyday life and their resistance movements through
communitys political socialization. The arguments in chapter I will also be justified
in this chapter, followed by references and appendices.

CHAPTER II
A Genealogy of Womens Right in Iran

If we collected the events that are connected with womens struggle of

liberating themselves in Iran, ones cannot forget the political socialization that play an
important role in creating the identity of women. Iran has been noted as one of the
countries with rather unique political system. The changes brought throughout the
eras have emphasized the dynamicity of womens role and their status, as the given
expectations by surrounding environment can heavily influence ones conduct in their
life, as it is common to be recognized as certain kind of person in a given context
(Gee, 2000, p. 99).
Therefore, some contemporary images are offered, followed by historical
background that leads into the emergence of womens liberation matter as a part of
political struggle since the aftermath of World War I. Prominent participants and
organizations thus will be highlighted in order to situate the research question in a
broader historical process to get to know the ever-changing context of power
exercised in different eras.

A. Womens Question and Their Identity

Historically traced, women movements in Iran have played rather lot

important role in leading the revolution in 1979 through both direct and indirect acts.
However, ones must recognize that the sequences built up to those movements have
been established since the Constitutional Revolution (1906-1911). It was all started by
the protests addressed to the economic crisis in 1905 due to the imperialist policies
imposed by the Qajar rulers (1794-1925) and ended in the Constitutional Revolution.
This revolution then invited many questions the relationship between centralized
government and the ulama as they were concerned about the degree of womens
participation (Cole and Keddie, 1986). Later, their activism based solely in on

women question (masaleyeh-zan), hoping to abolish the monarchy system.

Therefore, the wave of acknowledgment towards such issue led to more structured
agendas for womens activism. Having their agenda managed, it was easier for
women to conduct public discussion to raise womens awareness either directly or
indirectly through the use of media although the circulation was limited.
The flourishing issue of womens question reflected on the modernizing
regime of Pahlavi era, long before the notion of revolution came up to the surface. A
concise understanding about events lead to this, thus, reckoned essentials. It is worth
noting that one of the unique factors in Iranian government has always been its
alteration in womens role and status, which revolved around two popular contested
perspectives among Iranians elites: Islamist and secularist. The wake of antiimperialism stance after the end of World War I has fostered the growing numbers of
political movements in questioning their rights, demanding for changes. However, the
emergence of political involvement of local intergroup in Iran did not ensued for a
long period of time.
Under the ruling power of Pahlavi regime, the Iranian government was highly
dependent on the oil revenue coming from advanced Western countries, with Britishowned Oil Company as the main investors. During that time, many women were
capable to participate in numerous parties, although they were mainly acted as
nationalist member. Following the events of White Revolution from 1962, the active
involvement of women in Iran political and economic sphere has been recognized as
one of the pillars for modernizations, hence the ratification of several important
documents regarding womens right fulfillment, including the right to vote and Family
Protection Law (1967) and the right to serve as a member of parliament. 2 At first,
these changes only affected the western-oriented middle class although it starts to
affect the popular classes throughout times (Keddie, 2000). Consequently, the
modernization practice were complex and uneven, it influenced womens live in
practical level, yet affected differently on the level of the idealism. For instance, the
educational measure in the end pertained only 1 percent of Irans population (Mathee,
2003) due to uneven development and misdistribution of resources.
Indeed, these changes could not be accepted automatically due to the heavy
influences from most of the clergy. The refusal of the Family Protection Law by
2Family Protection Law (FPL) was a set of law granting more provisions of women within
the family. The key points revolved around the importance of marriage, divorce, child
custody, and polygamy.

clergies thus became the starting event in which the opposition force led by Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini came to the front, diverged both the ruling autocratic Shah
government and their tendency to follow the Westernization. This resulted into a mass
demonstration by Khomeini and his followers in 1963, which led into his arrest and
exile until his revival in 1979. During his expulsion time, he kept sounding the notion
of how un-Islamic the current governments laws were from abroad with the goal of
restoring the Islamic view back into legal frameworks. The term Islamic appealed to
the rejection of imperialism and socio-economic injustice that had been brought by it.
Thus, Islamic law or sharia was being viewed as a necessary approach to restore the
justice in Iran.
During the 1970s, various Islamic political trends came to the surface as a way to
oppose the ruling Shah, who was highly influenced by the western value. Many
liberalist and leftish had also supported this leadership style of Khomeinis in which
invited further debates due to several contradictions resulted as the Pahlavis regime
brought the vibe of dissatisfaction among society. The most significant contradiction
was the emergence of cultural dualism that divided the society into two specters. On
one hand, there was a group, which consisted of highly westernized elites as the
results of pre-revolutionary eras modernization; many also came with western
education background, since it was being approved under Pahlavis regime. On the
other hand, there were urban popular middle classes with tendency to liberate
traditional Islamic value; these include the belief to follow Islamic norms of dressings
and conduct. This drastic shift had brought many uprisings among Iranian intergroup,
accompanied by cultural dislocation, non-autonomous economic enterprises, recent
trend of urbanizations, and the widening prosperity gap due to the oil prices boom. As
a result, many Iranian urban populations demanded Islamisation to come to the
rescue. Hence, the proliferation of Khomeinis influence with fundamentalist clerics
as his allies gained much power even years before the revolution took place in 1979
(Keddie and Richard, 1981). Indeed, the rejection toward Westernization had also
taken womens attention. As a response, secular women went back to veiling as a sign
of opposition to the monarch. Not only in term of dressing, women, including the
secular ones, were rejecting the idea of western model of womens status and way of
conduct due to the conflicting interest of cultural norms in 1979. They believed that
the revolution would bring changes in which their ideas and roles will be sounded
once the old regime is overthrown.

However, after the revolution, the issues of gender were hidden due to the
overwhelming influence of Islamic ideology, which was going to be the main
framework of the new legal bodies. No women organization was represented during
the first decade after revolution and Iranian women were denied from their basic right
to participate in various spheres. They were suppressed from the government under
the power of clerical forces from 1980 through 1983 with the orientation of Islamic
law to maintain the authoritative government in which the denial of womens political
rights was based on the text of the Quran (Afary, 1996). The most significant setback
that enforced was the annulment of Family Protection Law (FPL), which downgraded
women into their familial status and duties, as women were considered only as the
subject of their fathers and husbands. The regime attacked the freedom of women by
initiating newly stagnant Islamic law concentrated in polygamy, child marriage,
preferred custody over men, free divorce for men, and decreasing numbers of
minimum age of female brides to marry. Through authoritative interpretation of
Islamic text, Irans clerics place a great liability in positioning women within their
ideal concept. Furthermore, strict policy also applied in the working sphere, stating
that women were no longer able to work as a judge. From 1976 to 1986 alone,
womens employment decreased from 11.1 percent to 6.8 percent and the percentage
of female representation in governmental level dropped from 7 to 1.5 percent. 3 A
massive setback had also been applied in women dressing code through the obligation
of veiling for women. During that time, veil then viewed as the symbol of womens
faith and royalty in Islamic Republic, making it a religiopolitical stance as well
instead of it being simply related to traditional morality code (Najmabadi, 1994).
Legally, these were some laws applied to women in Iran, which highly based
on notion of Islamic revivalism frameworks. Those frameworks stated on the Civil
Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran, denying women in many basic opportunities and
access to important sectors;

A married woman cannot leave the country without her husband's permission.
A woman's testimony as a witness is worth half that of a man, in compliance
with the sharia basis of the legal system.

3Karnameh-ye Dowreh-ye Avval-e Majles-e Showra-e Eslami (Parliamentary Report, First

Term), (Tehran: Ravabet-e `Omoumi-ye Majles-e Showra-e Eslami, 1985)

In all public places, women must wear a headscarf and loose fitting clothing
(usually a chador, or loose coat, is required). The morality police enforce

modesty requirements.
Polygamy and temporary marriage are permitted for men (up to four wives are

allowed, subject to certain restrictions), but not for women.

Women are frequently subject to honor killings. In cases where the father kills
his daughter, he is not liable for the death penalty, but only for imprisonment.
When someone is murdered, the family of the victim can forgive the
murderer.4

Indeed, for women, especially the secular modern-minded ones, this trend was viewed
as a major obstacle towards the previously demanded gender equality. These legally
binding frameworks, therefore, invited many questions, which later on also addressed
by the Islamist women since it showed many contradictions behind.
These contradictions were shown following the events of Iran-Iraq War (19801988). During that period, government called women to be actively participated in the
home front due to the unavailability of male counterparts, which showed that women
were capable in doing the same job with men. However, the contribution made by
women did not really change the perspective of the Islamic government in viewing
woman as a second-class citizen. The wave of womens involvement during Iran-Iraq
War induced several changes in womens right laws and practices, although the
significance of it were still limited. At the same time, women from different cultural
and political background were encouraged to unite and concentrate under the same
issue to sound numbers of women equality matters in Iran. Some achievements that
worth to be highlighted are the opportunities available for women in continuing their
study and the gained access in fulfilling low-level position in governmental level
despite the repression; female school enrollment in early education went up about 50
percent, although the education given were highly based on hegemonic masculinity,
where womens roles were emphasized as home makers or teacher.5
4This is translated from the Chapter 8 of Iranian Civil Code about Reciprocal Duties and
Rights of Parties to A Marriage.

5 From the names in the middle school textbooks, 97.8 percent in history, 91.1 percent in
theology, 88.1 percent in Persian language and 75.8 percent in social science belong to men.
From the pictures of the textbooks, 58.6 percent are males pictures in females textbook for
professional training and 95.8 percent are males pictures in males textbook for professional
training (Jahan-e Islam Daily, 21 November 1998)

Following the 20th year of Islamic republic establishment, many people were
starting to doubt the legitimacy of the regime following the economic woes. Many
blamed the incompetence of the government whose priorities were employing men
with rather religious background than the educated ones. The winning of Khatami
with a reformist background brought hope and significant wind of change among the
young populations who was at that time started to question the competency of the
Islamic republic6. In 1997 as an effort of returning the favor of the million women
who has voted for him, President Khatami increased the acknowledgement towards
women through the advancement of The Bureau of Womens Affair to the Center of
Womens Participation, which was accountable for organizing, arranging, and
enabling support services and policy-making regarding womens affair. With two
distinctive state discourses, the conservative and the reformist, the sprung of rough
political socialization began to take place. The dominating power of the conservatives
behind the regime accused Khatami, his cabinet, and the small part of reformist in the
parliamentary for crossing the Islamic value and the main intention of revolution.
Hence, after eight years of leadership, the reformist came to defeat, which once again
brought the radical political Islamism into the sphere of Irans political socialization in
2005 under the leadership of Ahmadinejad. This was reflected in June 2011, when the
government closed down over forty publications that had been licensed by the
ministry.7
This background historical information provides the features of dialectical
development, which concentrates under the notion of bottom-up approach in creating
women identities (Keddie, 2000). Activism, encouraged by internal contradictions
reflected on the newly implemented legal frameworks, brings alteration on how
Iranian women were thinking about their wellbeing. It might not be permanent, but it
is continually inviting discussions upon this matter.

B. Participants

6With Khatami in place as a result of a popular, democratic vote, the state agents could no
longer assume a unitary voice on matters in question.
7Iran Times, June, 9, 2001.

1. Pre-Revolutionary Womens Organization

During the Shah of Pahlavi Dynasty leadership the issue about womens social
and legal position were highly determined by hegemonic masculinity-- the value
based on Gramsci regarding the domination of male superiority and subordinate
position of women (Connell, 2005).8 Some womens involvement in early nationalist
movements were noted, however, their contributions have been overlooked until
lately, the more detailed accounts are deliberately developing (Bayat-Phillip, 1978).
Significant large numbers of women, many of whom have a relation with progressive
and politically active male, actively supported the opposition movement to overthrow
the establishment of Shah regime by establishing many semi-secret associations
(Paidar, 1995). The success of the constitutional members in pursuing the
democratization of society later brought major change in more modernized society led
by the new Pahlavi dynasty. In a sense, this fresh wave of more egalitarian
governmental position towards womens activist had been followed by the emergence
of some womens organizations, although, in doing the operation they were heavily
controlled by the regime in order to diffuse its power, making it difficult for women
organizations to independently stay on their own ground.
The most important womens movement was the well-structured Patriotic
Womens League, which at its best hosted a regional conference in Tehran in 1932,
with the participant of Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and India (Badran, 1995). Indeed, the
Second World War had also played an important role in softening the ruling regime
due to the occupation, leaving the state without much power and authority. As the
result, some organizations were flourished, such as the Womens Centre, the Womens
League, focusing on training women to be actively involved in working fields while
others had explicit political goals. The other essential organizations were a womens
party established by Safiyeh Firuz, a committed women activist of Iran in 1942, and
due to her prominent position, the party were vocal in lobbying the parliament to raise
their demands to the Majles (Galbon, 1975). Many other organizations with stronger
political goals were also focused on womens issue. One of the radical organizations
was coming from the Iranian Communist Party named Tudeh. Those appearances of

8Hegemonic masculinity has influenced gender studies across many academic fields, whilst
attracting many critiques. The main issues of this contested matter are based on the idea of
domination of power and political leadership and their connection with violence. Firstly
introduced 2 decades ago by R.W. Connell, a sociologist from Australia.

rather strong-willed organizations had encouraged the occurrence of womens journals

and publication, such as Zanan (The Womens Language).
As the state gradually regained their control in 1952, The Shahs sister
Princess Ashraf, initiated the High Council of Iranian Womens Organizations to unite
all of the womens organizations under one umbrella. By this mean, the limitation of
women in conducting public discussion had been increasing due to the governmentalbacked body. The suffrage of women gave boost to the High Council of Iranian
Womens Organization, which later changed it name to Womens Organization of Iran
(WOI). They attempted to establish a lot of branches in each province in order to
ensure the diffuse of Iranian elaborate constitution to all specters of socialization. 9 As
the result, the independent of womens organization had been put to an end, although
it did not always followed by inactivity. During this depoliticization period, women
had been able to pursue the notion of Family Protection Law in 1975, their integration
in labor market and public sectors, and facilitation of educating women in high school
and university.

2. Women After the Revolution

Although the changes on legal policies did not really bring a revival to
womens liberation, issues concerning women in general had invited a lot of
discussions, especially after the revolution. It would not happen unless from the
relentless work from female activists in sounding their demands and aspiration
whether directly through demonstrations or indirectly thus, the acknowledgement
from the higher body that the issue of women could no be taken for granted.
The heavily backed by Western oil revenue government turned its back from
the constituency, thus the erosion of political democracy was getting worsened
leading to the revolution in 1979. The Shah, therefore, lost his legitimacy upon the
single party system (Abrahamiam, 1984). The refuted regime had invited Ayatollah
Khomeini with his Islamic value back from his exile due to existence of anti-Shah
movements led by the clerics in 1979. One of the most significant entities in during
the revolution was the participation of women, which will be discussed later.
However, after the authorization of Ayatollah Khomeinis return to Iran, the issues of
women were rarely brought into the parliament.
9 In 1977 the organization had established 400 branches throughout the countries with 70,000
women as its members.

In accordance to this inequality and political crisis, many womens

organizations were formed to organize the previously scrambled women in dealing
with their long-term demands. Cooperating several groups and individuals, one of the
most prominent organizations during the post-revolutionary era, named Womens
Society of the Islamic Revolution (WSIR) was created. In choosing the participants,
WSIR involved many highly educated women from secular background with degrees
from American and European university, such as Azam Talaghani. 10 Criticism over
government also resulted in the establishment of Bureau of Womens Affair (BWA),
which reports directly to the president. This opportunity then used by other
organizations and medias in mobilizing their members demands, thus the reformed of
many medias, followed by the newly adapted strategy conducted from within as the
results of governments ignorance in promoting its own agenda to bring justice to
women.

3. Womens Strategies in Resisting the Oppression

The reforming condition of womens organizations proliferation during the
pre-revolutionary era regardless the limitation dropped by the government had set the
vision of women to enlarge their contribution in society. Their commitment of
engaging themselves in public sphere was reflected on their determination in
searching other alternative more individual channels. Yet, in doing so, they were not
forgetting the original idea of resistance. Many ideologues, for instance, continued to
publish their findings for magazine and journals in milder tone to avoid suspicion
from hardliners, thus, inviting numbers of encouraged readers. 11 Therefore, the
magazine had become one of the forums for women to get the support for their legal
problems.
Women from Islamist point of view contributed in this movement also by
releasing publications based on women-interpretation of Islamic text. 12 They pointed
out that what was being presented to women as an Islamic value by government is a
10Azam Talaghani is the daughter of Ayatollah Talaghani whose tendency rested on more
democratic-wing side of the clergy. Making it easier for her to penetrate the access to
parliament and media.

11 One example is the magazine of Zan e-Ruz. The other example is the newly published
Khanevadeh, which never classified as women magazine, thus, inviting males as well as
females to read them.

political idea to impose patriarchy in Islamic costume (Hoodfar, 2000). Due to the
familiarity of the language used, the value delivered in such magazines had engage
many conservative women, whose position was high enough to influence others
parliament. Many of them began to search for Islamic vision that is suitable to provide
women with answers of their demands, especially ones concentrated on education and
womens involvement and mobilization in political sphere.
Those noticeable changes invited international bodies to put more pressure on
gender issues in Iran. For example, women in exile made full use of their access
towards international medias in which had influenced Iran in doing their international
integration in politics and economics scene as the issue of gender apartheid had
become the headlines in many international medias. Therefore, the issue of gender
gradually became an agenda for the government in a way to improve their smudged
image in international community. For the activists both secularist and Islamists
this created a new conviction that real change had to take place from the intergroup,
or at least from building womens consciousness as a starter. Thus, shaping the
continuing struggle of Iranian women activists in achieving social and legal changes.
A lot more noticeable feature of strategies needs to be mentioned, such as the
process of lobbying, discussions, and more publications with simple languages that
could be understood in many levels. The discourse used also appears personal with no
political intention. The participations of women in parliament could not be forgotten.
It can be assumed that, despite the lacking number of womens participation in
parliamentary body, the Islamic government had notice the potentiality of women as
they accept some women candidates (Esfandiari, 1994). This table hence will shows
the numbers of women contributing in parliamentary body after the revolution era.

Table 1. Women Members of Parliament Before and After the Islamic Revolution

Parliament

Elected from
Tehran

Elected from
Other
Province

As Percentage
of All MPs

12 The example of women magazine with Islamist-based language can be find in Zanan,
Hogogh e-Zanan, and Hajar.

1963: Women gain electoral rights

1963-67
1967-71
1971-76
1976-79

3
3
3
3

4
7
14
15

3.5
3.5
6.5
7.0

1979: Establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran

1979-83
1983-87
1987-92
1992-96
1996-2000
2000-04
2004-07
2008

4
4
4
5
6
6
5
5

0
0
0
4
4
7
7
3

1.5
1.5
1.5
3.3
3.7
4.4
4.1
2.7

Source: H Hoodfar, The Womens Movement in Iran: Women at the Crossroad of Secularisation and
Islamisation, France: Women Living Under Muslim Laws, 1999; and HE Chehabi & A Keshavarzian,
Politics in Iran, in G Almond, G Bingham Powell, Jr., K Strom & RJ Dalton (eds), Comparative
Politics Today: A World View, London: Pearson Longman, 2003.

Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that the insertion of women in parliamentary

bodies only remained for low-level positions in which there was an absence of women
in higher levels. Moreover, the elected women were mostly having a similar
ideological tendency with the clergies, means that most of them were pro-regimes
(Kar, 1997). That is being said that the government was willing to make some
compromises as long as it stays within the sharia frameworks.

CHAPTER III
The Creation of Womens Identity in Iran
The aim of this thesis, as it has been stated before, builds on the idea of the
capability of one entity in shaping one or the others, whether essentially or
constructively. In Iran, women and men have played a crucial role in shaping the
intergroup interaction, as well as the current condition, which bring significances to
the chosen theory. There are three significances of the chosen theories; firstly, the
envisaged use of enemy images in creating diversion among social actors in Iran.
Secondly, the implemented rule and law constructed within IRIs ambition of political
Islamism, and lastly, the role of state in establishing and maintaining the link between
gender issue and its progress cannot be forgotten. The dominating essential discourse
in gender mainstreaming process in Iran during the post-revolutionary era following
the Islamic political trends will also be highlighted. Those selected theories constitute
this study alongside with the development of Middle Eastern womens studies, which
has gained many complexities affecting Muslim women in Iran.

A. The Shadows of Enemy Images

Modernity, Islamisation, and women in Iran; these three connected discourses
have become the challenging aspects in Iranian way to achieve advanced political
socialization. In a developing country like Iran, the notion of political socialization
itself was intertwined with other concept of economic, cultural, and political
conditions. Likewise, when it comes to women, womens status and demands were
envisioned in four connected areas depending on Irans normalization towards its
legal framework in early 1980s: economic autonomy, access to power and authority, a
single uniform standard for men and women, and the ending of gender stereotype
(Sacks, 1979). However, due to an overwhelming domination of traditionalism in
Iran, those four factors have shaped the demands of Iranian women differently. The
connection between identity politics and womens status in Iran are closely tied in
accordance to the fundamentalist manifestations in each of Iranians leadership eras.

Consequently, womens demands were taken for granted, thus, affecting their role and
figures in societys conduct in which have something to do with their identity
formation.
Shortly after the establishment of new Islamic Republic in 1979, an
advancement of socio economic progress could be seen in Iran along with violation of
human rights including gender inequality, which affect women in both rural and urban
scene (Davoodifard and Jawan, 2011). The dominating argument was the
fundamentalism based on the notion of opposition in which considered as the value of
Westernization and modernization, due to the fear of imperialism as it once had
happened during the Shah period, particularly as it was symbolized in women (e.g.,
through dress). The policies made during this period of time, then, had heavily
influenced by fundamentalism in which often put women in disadvantages. It repealed
the existing FPL regarding the probability of polygyny, raised the marriage act for
girls, and allowed women the rights for divorce. It followed by the restriction for
women in numerous fields of studies, occupations, jobs, and professions.
Furthermore, as a reflection of Irans alienation of western values, the IRI pursued a
massive proliferation of ideological campaign, which dignified Islamic value and
denigrate the others. Hence, the westernized women were blamed for the decline of
Islamic values, cultural degradation, and the weakening of the family.

1. The Production of Enemy Images Within Iranian Society

Historically traced, the exclusion of western values in Iran has been conducted since
the failure of the Pahlavi Dynasty (1925-1979) in accommodating a transformation in
economic and political foundation in society. Despite of its progress, there had been
many drawbacks in aforementioned sectors due to the inability in facing the
intervention of British and Tsarist Russia; collecting a formal working class; and the
lack of consensus in defining what modernization truly was (Jazani, 1980). In a sense,
the Constitutional Movement failed to abolish the monarchic despotism with
democracy. Nor, it had been successful in secularizing the state and the law. Another
worth noting failure that forms a line of mistrust towards the western was the
dominating neo and semi-colonialism that had hindered the economic growth in Iran.
Under the leadership of the Nationalist Form, Mohammad Mosaddegh (19511953), Iran once again tried to rid this colonialism through democratization of society,

development of economy, and strengthening the national industry. Supported by the

citizen in general, Iran wanted to nationalize their oil industry, which was controlled
by British. However, The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) an American-backed
agency revoked this movement by overthrowing Mosaddegh and restored all the
power to the legitimacy of the Shah (Alavi, 1972). As a result, there was a molding
acculturation between the Iranian nationalism (native culture), Islam, and Westernism
in the identity of Iran. This then affected the insertion of women issue in Iranian legal
framework, in which since the era of Constitutional Movement had been viewed
through the lens of Iranian nationalism, Islam, and Westernism.
The modernization brought buy the intervention of western countries had left
Iran with gaps between infrastructures and superstructures. Culture, customs, and
attitudes pushed back behind the emerging problem of economic transitions. The
society then divided into two spheres of structures (modern and traditional). All of
these confusions were not merely the results of westernization alone. Instead, the
problems also lied on the way the modernity was introduced among the intergroup of
Iranian society. Halpern, which in his socio-psychological analysis of human relation
in contemporary Islamic societies in the Near East has written:
Imperialism kept all transformers out of power and deliberately inhabited
their work for at least the first half of the twentieth century. The first
generation of the local ruling elites and usually not only the first often
confused in falsely vivified Westernization with the genuine and worldwide
movement of modernization. (Halpern, 1977, p. 97)
In accordance to that saying, its equal spread among every dimensions of
society had not accompanied the modernization in Iran. Instead, the absence of
domestic national-oriented power to regulate changes in economic development has
allowed the perseverance of disorganized inconsistency in Iran modern society
(Halpern, 1977). For instance, it takes more than the effort of government in unveiling
women during 1963 White Revolution to modernize womens role in family and
society, which has inserted more contradiction in the existing conflicts.13It has shaped
13White Revolution was a reform launched by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1963 to
strengthen his grip upon the states and maintain the modernization process, though it also
consisted of Pahlavis idea to legitimize the Pahlavi dynasty. The programs were aiming at the
notion of land reforms, nationalization and privatization of industries, and womens
empowerment. The White Revolution received many protests from the clergy, which marked
the first upheaval of Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini.

the thinking that modernization brought by the Western has overlooked the Iranian
culture, social, and historical processes in the continuation of future nation state
formation (Haeri, 1981; Sayigh, 1981). The misdistribution of wealth and reliance on
one single revenue; oil (Ogburn, 1964), and the increasing numbers of corruption by
bureaucrats then became a reflection of cultural lag. Consequently, both men and
women in Iran viewed this drawbacks as a mirror for modernity brought by the
Western. They regarded modernization as a further imperialism in disguise, thus,
inviting much more rejection from the intergroup.
The growing activism in Iran in resisting further interference of westernized
value led into the revolution in 1979. Activists, whose background were coming from
educated younger generation, perceived this notion of enemy as an abstract terms,
involving different ideologies and competition for domination, which Riitta
Wahlstorm defines as the commonly held stereotype, dehumanized image of the
ougroup. She argues that:
The enemy image provides a focus for externalization of fears and threats. In
addition, a lot of undesirable cognition and emotions are projected onto the
enemy.(Wahlstorm, 1988, p. 48)
This emphasized that an enemy image is not limited to feeling and emotion,
but also expressed to an act with the tendency of threats and violence. Moreover, there
is a possibility that individual hatred will spread to collected hatred. Lastly, there is an
emphasis on the legitimate use of dehumanization, alienations, and several cognitive
biases addressed to the enemy (Zur, 1991).
Talking specifically about women, the revolution in 1979 has brought changes
in numbers of women in the public sphere of modern cities of Iran. In the measured
labor force alone, female participation reached 11 percent of growth. Their presence
has encouraged other women in contributing for societies and questioning their
gender roles in general, threatening the members of traditional family and male
domination. This was seen as a threat due to the womens tendency to follow the
western lifestyle, which has previously considered as an enemy. This lifestyle
included their choice of clothing (unveiling) and public interaction with men within
their works and daily activities, which considered by the traditional Muslim using
their religion as a tool of measurement as a fitna or social and moral disorder
(Mernissi, 1987).

Enemy images are functional for purposes of justifying political choices;

explaining aggression at home or abroad; and for diverting peoples attention
from other problems. Finally, enemy images are also functional when the aim
is

to

strengthen

the

national

identity,

especially

in

young

nations.(Luostrainen, 1989, p. 128)

Ironically, many women also resented these modern participation women due to the
aforementioned widening polarity between modern and traditional women. Therefore
frictions of disagreement have been set in between the growing modernized women
and men (the outgroup) and the mainstream traditional class of men and women (the
ingroup) who believed that their lifestyle, religious beliefs, and cultural identity were
jeopardized regardless any motives of economic interest and ideological stance taken
by the outgroup. This rather confusing structural problem has sent the modernized
men and women to the realm of confusion and alienation. Whereas the indication of
perceiving the traditional women as old-fashioned and stuck up, the modern women
was considered to be under influence of the toxic culture of the west, termed as
Westoxicated. The other role was they were seen as Western import endorsed by the
Shah, which inferred involvement with western interventions and disobeyer to Islamic
mores.
In depth hatred and anti-West attitudes could also be found in literatures in
Iran. One of them is a book called Gharbzadegi, means West-stuckness or
Westoxication written by Jalal Al-e Ahmad, a leftish populist with the support of
provocative lectures and essays given by a French-educated populist reformist, Ali
Shariarti. Indeed, these kinds of publication would not have been existed without the
support from government to deliver domination through the notion of freedom. Those
publications have deepened the notion of enemy images articulated within the
intergroup of Iranian traditional society with their anti-imperialism and antiwesternization discourses, in a way, it can be considered as a tool of propaganda.
Propaganda, in the aspect of enemy image, is the tool to spread and promulgated the
enmity. It is the manifestation of opinions or actions done to influence the others,
aiming at particular purposes through psychological manipulation (Lasswell, 1960).
Indeed, this type of propaganda was intended to get the provision and
recognition from the intergroups (Ellul, 1973). Al-e Ahmad even put the western
value in the same level with disease (cholera) in adding the clear image of the danger
of western value. He stated that, westernization had afflicted peoples mind and

hearts, taking the nations natural commodities, deforming people from their culture
and identity, and collapsing a new moral fabric of the society. Therefore, these
Westoxicated women have now become the agent of imperialism by the West in
implementing its plots. This classification of women gained a lot of acceptance by
intergroup, including prominent women intellectuals such as Zahra Rahnavard whose
ambitions were to limit the movement of the outgroup by reinserting the Islamic
model of womanhood. In doing their attempts, the clergy and populist intellectuals
manipulated the revival of Islamic ideals to the point where clerical leadership and
Islamic women activists gradually accepted this notion as the rightest political
statement (Abrahamian, 1989). These stereotypes invited various misassumptions of
working educated professional women, saying that they were only care of economic
gain without any consideration of family responsibility and reproducibility. Hence, the
spreading of gharbzadegi through media repetition and prominent figure had
successfully shaped the mind of many with the negative notion that such kind of
westernized women were not only un-Islamic, but also devoted to the Western
imperialists.
There are many factors that contributed to the process of enemy images
acceptance among intergroup. First of all, it has to be noted that it is the natural
capacity of human beings psychological tendency to develop distinctiveness within
themselves. In other words, the ability of categorizing themselves into groups of
people is not a new phenomenon, making individuals vulnerable when it comes to
propagandas (Zur, 1991). Same goes with the spectacles of accusing women with
gharbzadegi in Iran, many groups in Iran, such as traditionalists, fundamentalist
religious segments, the secular nationalists, even the leftish Marxists, were relatedly
suspicious of the modern westernized women. As the campaign against westernization
were getting echoed, Islamic fundamentalists intended to classify them and the others
in a new term of distinction. In a sense, Islamic Sharia, with a deep religious tendency
of embedding their values to the contemporary Iranian legal frameworks became
coherent with the political insecurity and psychological biases, fears, and enmity. This
classification had created even stronger barriers between the already widening gaps of
traditional and modern in which formed a stronger restriction against egalitarian
changes in gender relation and family structures. This may explain why it has been the
model of Islamic women with ideal conception of family, social status, and gender

relation that Islamic republic has been officially recognized and imposed toward
Iranian women since the reestablishment of Islamic republic in 1979.

2. The Consequences of Enemy Images in Affecting the Identity of Iranian

Women
After the revolution of 1979, Iran was back on the track of using its traditional
and religious culture in accommodating the continuation of IRI. Some restrictions
followed as the newly established government were doing advancement on its legal
framework according to Islamic law, including the constraint of women in continuing
their study abroad and their obligation to obey the older male in the family (Nayyeri,
2013; Moghadam, 2004). The notion of wearing hijab was also once again enforced;
the difference was that it is tighter this time with the control of morality police or
Basiji in Iran.14 Consequently, the restriction given by the government presented a
traditional image of women as an approved identity for them, where an appropriate
woman was signified through their choice of clothing and obedience. Traditionally, a
decent woman in Iran was identified as someone who dedicates their life for
childbearing and maintaining household duties. Contemporarily, even today, the
traditionalists in Iran believe that woman has to marry, be submissive to her husband,
have good manners, and spend most of her time at home (Izadinia, 2015). Thus, any
women who do not follow this existing pattern will be considered as an outsider. This
societal collective attitude of categorizing women with one another has marginalized
women to some extents. The continuing exclusionary behavior occurred in Iranian
contemporary political socialization had affected women in pursuing their identity, as
it has been mentioned in previous sub-chapter. Indeed, this is similar with the
discussions found in literatures, stating that our identity is highly influenced by the
attitudes, values, and expectations of people around us, especially significant others
(Erikson, 1963).
The way people tend to identify themselves is highly depended by their social
position within a societys hierarchy. In a way, their position will define who they are
and influence the relationship with others, where gender plays an important role in
14Morality police is a paralimitary volunteer established in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini. In
their capacity of maintaining law and order, Basiji enforced the wearing of hijab, arresting
women for dress code violation, monitoring citizen activities, and harassing intellectuals and
government critics.

defining ones social status. In Iran, for instance, the way of traditional families in
implementing the notion of patriarchal system had created a tendency of submission
towards men due to their capacity in possessing control of resources and hence
maintains control over family and its social opportunities (Mason, 2001). As there are
other factors that define womens position within society, equality cannot be reached
through material possession only. One has also have the opportunity to exercise their
control through authority of decision-making process. Thus, combining both elements
will alleviate the womens status, while the absence of them will lead into silencing
womens hope and voice in society.
Following the pattern of enemy images theory found in the SAGE Handbook
of Prejudice (2010). The daily reproduction of enemy images within the practices of
political situation would likely brought several consequences that affect both
perpetrators and the victimized ones identity. It may involve negative behavior to
deny the similarity existed between groups (Allport, 1954) to maintain the ingroup
characteristic, identity, and favored position at the expense of the compared group
(Jones, 1972). Started from the enmity possessed by members of a group, this later
will be manifested into threats and bias, then, if the continuation is undisturbed, it
could possibly lead into the change of public policy.
Living in a challenging condition of oppressive and undemocratic government
where their contribution was being silenced, many women in Iran had to face the
difficulties in making sense of who they were and what they were capable of doing.
The increasing percentage of educational attainment at the secondary and university
level did not accompanied by the enhancement of their social status, let alone the
opportunities of entering labor market (the unemployment for women was 20%,
whereas for men it was about 12%) (Shavarini, 2006). Looking at the advance degree
of education that women possessed, it is indeed ironic to see them victimized by
deeply-rooted belief that have been existed for generations. Shavarini, in her study
observed that the reasons behind the permission given by the family for their daughter
to pursue higher degree of education was a way to improve their chance in getting a
husband from similar degree, which in turn will add up to the familys social status.
Furthermore, even though on a familial level if the status of women were seen as
functional and had the right to possess certain amount of power, it was still conducted
in a very limited domain. This stereotype-relevant relation placed women in an
uncomfortable dilemma where stereotype and identity collided that could lead into

poorer performance outcome. Once being adapted, this stereotype would possibly
works without further enhancement due to social acceptances, thus it would be harder
for women to ameliorate the prejudice given above them since the stereotype was in
the air (Steele, 1997).
A study conducted by Mahsa Izadinia in 2015 had successfully highlighted the
real condition of womens life in Iran. Using the data collected from selected Iranian
womens daily lives and interviews, it focused on how context and self impact the
process of identity formation where at the end they were willing to submit to
expectations fixed upon them. In her study, it was being emphasized that these
observed women were living with no one teaching them about self-value to pursue
their dreams. Instead, they gradually learnt to be obedient as the other female family
members who never complained about the husbands behavior, regardless the
treatments received during their period of marriage, believing they could not do much
anything to improve their condition:
The significant others in their lives never taught them to persevere and never
inspired them with determination, strength, and hope of attaining their dreams.
Instead, they repeatedly heard that you are a woman, what can you do?,
you have no choice, you do not have anyone else (other than your husband)
to protect you. Similarly, they learned that her only dream should be to be a
housewife and education is not necessary for a woman because finally you
will just change babies diapers. Their parents never paid them any
compliments on her abilities, beauty, and dignity and thus she never realized
how capable, intelligent and precious she was. Today, they do not believe in
their abilities and decision-making power, opting to abide by the rules imposed
on them and to put up with unfavorable conditions rather than to think
creatively and find solutions to improve their situation.(Izadinia, 2015, p.
135)
Those observations from within then indicates that there were tendencies of
heavy reliance on the view of significant others (Berzonsky and Kuk, 2000), such as
parents and husband. It also suggests that people tend to conclude their own
incapability as a part of prejudice, thus making them hesitate to change their
condition. Therefore, knowing who we are and what abilities and potentials we have
will encourage us to do what we want and vice versa (Hoelter, 1986), in which was

currently absent in the life of many Iranian women.

Moving into broader spectrum of distribution of enmity under the framework
of enemy images, ones must agree that an institutional deep-seated prejudice and
discrimination practices, including laws, systems, and practices, would lead into
major inequality across any social group works underneath its legitimacy (Jones,
1972). As it has been mentioned before, Iran was currently undergoing a transition
from traditionalism to modernity during the establishment of the Islamic republic. The
collision between traditional and modern approach had resulted into a new complexity
into a system of male dominated society, where the constitution was firmly rooted in
the principle of vali-e-faqih.15 Limitation on the lives of women was legalized in laws
prohibiting women from being prominent figures, such as president, judges, lawyers,
and teachers, which has something to do with the aforementioned patriarchal system
of male domination that enables males to dominate women over power and control of
resources. This patriarchal system as described as multigenerational and hierarchical
by Kandiyoti (1992) since younger women were placed in the lowest level of
hierarchy due to the lack of power they possessed. Furthermore, what Hughes et all
(1999) define as an institution where gender equality is maintained and exercised by
complex relation referred to sexism, patriarchy in Iran was considered as one of the
pillars of fundamentalist Islamism with the concept of male surrogate and
guardianship of female, Iranian womens right were not guaranteed to the fullest,
hence they were not free to choose various aspect of their lives. Such evidences of
vali-e-faqih-sponsor of inequality against women were seen in Iranian constitution.
In short, the triggering factors that fostered the stagnancy of enemy images can
be developed through the existing system justification, intergroup competition, stress
and fear, totalitarian elites discourse, and micro-reproduction of it through the role of
kinship and family members. This flourishing trends of keeping the status quo of
enmity planted in the minds of many, will later lead into the behavior of inequality
through the delivery of unfair treatment known as discrimination. With enemy images
planted in the minds of mainstream population in Iran, the exercise of prejudice is still
intact under the consciousness of society, although not explicitly stated. People might
15Feqh is known as Islamic Jurisprudence. It is a study about the origins and sources of
Islamic jurisprudence, which believed to be implemented in governance of the country. There
are four mains sources that are being analyzed, such as Quran, Sunnah, consensus, and
analogical reasons). This idea of total adaptation of guardianship as rule was introduced by
Ayatollah Khomeini in 1970 and has became the basis of the Constitution of the Islamic
Republic of Iran since.

be unaware of their choices and bias due to the overwhelming consistency of

traditional stagnant beliefs used in the socio political process in Iran. The supporting
legal framework within the constituent has preserved the inequalities between groups
with no sign of alleviating it. In a way public policy made it harder for people to
accept change that would benefit the distinct group, as they rather chose to preserve
the already adhered righteous one (Crosby and Bearman, 2006).

B. The Dynamic of Political Islamism In Iran

In Iran, the debates regarding Islamic republic and Islamic government has
simmered since the early days of the establishment of Islamic Republic of Iran. Given
the number of groups that participated in the Shahs overthrow and those that were
contesting for control of Irans post-revolutionary state apparatus, the resulting
government was a mixed constitutional design incorporating theocratic, republican,
and even direct democracy components.

1. The Heavily-Embedded Discourses of Political Islamism

As a unique combination of liberal republic and Islamic ideologies where antitotalitarian and Islam are two dominant approaches of social construction, Iranian
theocratic leadership since Khomeini on has been rejecting the notion of Western style
democracy as vulgarity to Islam, precisely because Islams essence was justice,
hence there is no need to formalize it in secular institution. Khomeini stated that there
is no need in Islamic polity to create liberal state apparatuses due to the fear against
Western imperialist forces. As an immediate act, he proposed the notion of Iran
withdrawal from its international commitment ratified in the pre-1979 period, such as
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (December 10, 1948); the Convention on
Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights (June 24, 1975); and the Convention of Civil
and Political Rights (June 24, 1975), which ratified the International Bill of Human
Rights. Although at the end his advisor reminded him not to do so. The trends of
political Islamism in Iran, which reflected around the denial of human rights, gender
inequality, and democracy thus invited stark perception from internal community in
viewing political Islam as homogenous fundamentalist.
The homogenous perception embodied within the political Islamism used in
Iran has terminated the other perspectives that might be existed in Irans socio

political sphere. The other dominating perspectives used in Iranian discourse, such as
conservatives Islam, radical Islam, and more reformist and modern orientations,
for instance have been pushed out of the background. Whereas international
community perceived Iran as a homogenous state, within the country itself, the role of
Islamic authorities pursued was highly contested. Those debates have been put into
consideration due to the emerging numbers of local reformist in influencing the
political and social dynamics within the country by adding numbers of international
values, such as human rights and democracy. In doing so, the reformist movement
although being constrained as a political force was challenged by the tightening grip
of traditionalist within the regime and decision making process.
The leaving of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 marked the shift of traditionalist
trend within the regime (Mir Hosseini, 1999). Nonetheless, the long reaching hand of
traditional clerics could not be fully eradicated due to the involvement the Supreme
Court and Council of Guardian with their rigid view towards human rights and gender
based hierarchy. Paradoxically, whereas the constitution allowed the elected president
and parliament, ultimate authority was still bestowed on the hand of Supreme Leader
who holds the veto power under his command. 16 In accordance to fellow
traditionalists, these men tended to view women under the premised of gender
differences. Women were perceived as nurturing and caring, yet sexualized being for
being able in inviting chaos and disturbance to the status quo if unleashed. Therefore,
in order to limit this potentiality, women were bequeathed under the oppressing legal
framework of sharia law.
The wave of changes then brought by more moderate and adaptable
governments of Prime Minister Moussavi (1982-1989) and President Rafsanjani
(1989-1997). Firstly, they concentrated on the liberation of economic and
reconciliation with the West alongside the growing number of educated middle-class
women. Secondly, the mobilization of men during the Iran-Iraq war has increased the
opportunity for women in public sectors (Najmabadi, 1998). Later, the more reformed
perspectives emerged, which were more opened towards universal and socially just
discourse (Kadivar, 2009). Such advocates pushed the importance of changing the
16The Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji condemns this system as a form of 'sultanism'. S
Bakhash, 'Akbar Ganji: letter from Evin Prison', TheNew York Review,22 September 2005,
pp 46-47. As Garton Ash explains, this political system has some similarities with a
communist party state: both have parallel hierarchies of ideological and state power, with the
former ultimately trumping the latter.

traditional Islamic duties into universal preposition of rights, which further

indicates that politics of Islamism could no longer be viewed as monolithic. As
Mohsen Kadivar, a clerical proponent of human rights put it, In traditional Islam, the
human person is not the center of discussions, let his/her rights; rather it is the God
Almighty that forms the center of religions, and duty to God constitute the body of
Sharia .
The resistances from the reformist were not baseless, as the practice of Islamic law
was offensive to the essential values. Firstly, while perhaps offering clear distinctive
border of limitation, sharia, was not provided with the possibility of development.
Secondly, surprisingly the debates have invited people, not only from the Shii
background to join the movement. Many people from various backgrounds were
attracted to discuss about this matter due to its sensitivity and relevancy within
universal values. One example could be seen in the publication maintained by a
monthly magazine such as Zanan, Khanevadeh, Zan e-Rus, and others publications
with the concern of building a just Islamic society by exposing injustices suffered by
both men and women within the family under the name of Islam. Among the
important article in Zanan was the one published in 1992, written by a male clerical
with female pseudonym. The article was contradicting the exclusion of women in
political sphere through rejection statement against the use of Quranic passage, which
strengthened the notion of male superiority:
We affirm that the potential of women is the same as that of men whatever
the employment and function; this goes equally for the function of judge or
jurisconsult (faqih).(Payam e-Zan, 1992)
If a woman is more knowledgeable than men, we are not only authorized to
follow her but have the duty to do so.(Payam e-Zan, 1993)

As a result of activists effort in sounding the contradiction upon the political

Islam structure of IRI, restriction upon women to get their education and opportunity
to work were relieved.Some remarkable changes then made in some policies, such as
the ability for women in participating in parliamentary body, scientific and technical
fields, and women lawyer were legalized.17
17These changes can be viewed in the 1371/1992 law, allowing women legal consultants
in the special civil courts and the increasing numbers of womens employment in

From the significances stated above, it could be argue that the combined way
of thinking shapes the Iranian political discourses in the making. The following sub
chapter will discuss the discourse with the influence of feminist thinking along the
way.

2. Discourse in the Making: The Rising of Islamic Feminism

The increasing awareness of Islams insufficiency with human rights and gender issue
has invited numbers of intellectual elites to stir the indicated violations. With the goals
of reconciling the value of Islam with human rights, democracy, and gender equality,
the intellectuals introduced dynamic jurisprudence, accompanied by involvement of
Islamic feminist inside and outside the government.
One of the worth mentioning intellectuals who helped the formation of reform
was Abdolkarim Soroush. Suroushs notion of reform was concentrating in the
separation between religious and religion knowledge. While he acknowledged the
credibility of religious text as timeless constituents, the interpretation of the text was
thoroughly human, thus time and context bound. He argued that medieval version of
Islam has to be differentiated from the modern one, in which have to be different with
one another since it serves many possibilities for debates and criticism. 18
Despite its inability in putting womens question importance with a clear strategy,
the embedding political Islamism was still seen as an adequate way to deliver the
demands of women in the parliament. The use of sacred text has enabled women in
sounding their concern within the Islamic framework due to its familiarity among
members of parliament. The effort of using sacred texts language as an approach in
addressing womens demands was relatively effective. One of the examples could be
seen in Islamic monthly magazine, Zanan (Mir-Hosseini, 1999).
As one of the prominent women-concerned magazine at that time, Zanan,
backed by the view of Mohsen Saidzadeh, tried to develop a coherent theory of
parliamentary body (they infiltrate 38% of public sector employees in 1996).

18Soroush was one of the key ideologues of the Islamic Republic in its formative years, and
participated actively in the reorganization of the universities during the 'cultural revolution'
that involved the dismissal of many secular professors. He was gradually disillusioned and
then distanced himself from the establishment, before becoming an open and ardent critic. His
public lectures have been banned in Iran and he now spends most of his time outside the
country. For samples of his work in English, see http://www.drsoroush.com/English.

womens equal right within Islamic jurisprudence (Ibid, 1999). He argued that the
essentialist point of view embodied on women (women as nurturers and peacemakers)
and other discriminative view comparing the capability of men and women were all
social construction (known as traditionalism), thus considering that Islamic beliefs has
nothing to do in condemning the equality among men and women. The traditionalism
of Islamic thinking towards womens question was harshly criticized due to its
contradictory value, which has degraded the value of Islam itself.
Zanans effort acted as a public forum for both religious-oriented and secular
feminist women in Iran and abroad. It became a connecting public forum for women
and men usually writing under a female pseudonym in sounding their concern
towards womens matter. Moreover, it has also shaped generations of trained
journalists who had the potentiality of changing discourses. Although they were
considered taboo, they continued to strive for their intention of protecting and
accommodating womens right (Ansari and Martin, 2014). In the magazine first issue,
it stressed the importance of development from within: culture, law, education, and
religion. Thus, each publication has stated those four main concerns into sections of
articles.
We analyze the issues and problems facing women, and in this way, help
planners, the authorities and the decision-makers understand womens
demands and challenges. We also help the readers understand the legal
limitations and political and social issues, so they can understand their rights
better and recognize the problems and thus try better for a more improved and
humane situation. - (Al-Monitor: The Pulse of Iran, 2015)
In sounding their beliefs, Zanan, instead of pin-pointing the contradiction of
political Islamism, argued that gender equality was Islamic and that religious sources
for sharia law have been misinterpreted by the misogynists. It emphasized the notion
of Ijtehad (independent reasoning of religious interpretation) towards Islamic text,
which later became the central project of feminists to challenge the orthodox existed
law.

Zanan was also being edited by several prominent figures of womens

empowerment, such as Mehangiz Kar, Shahla Lahiji, and Shahla Sherkat. This clearly
has benefited the publication in terms of numbers of selling and reputation. Three of
them have been participating in several international conferences, such as The Berlin
Conference in 2000 and sounding their point of view in establishing an Islamic

friendly womens participation. They argued that repression against women in Iran
has more to do with its power structure rather than theological matter. However, due
to its wide coverage among controversial issue, such as equality in marriage, womens
right to divorce, gender segregation in many fields, and violence addressed towards
women, Zanan Magazine was firstly suspended in 2006. They started publishing
again in 2014 under the different name of Zanan e-Emrooz after 8 years of
suspension. However, it was short-lived, as the Press Supervisory Council once again
ordered its closure in 2015 after being accused for encouraging the anti-social and
religiously unsanctioned phenomenon known as white marriage.

Those collaboration maintained between religious-oriented women with

secularist women have shown the tendency that women, regardless their background,
were heading into the same direction of seeking alternatives method to deliver their
demands. Elaheh Rostami Povey noted an example of the shape that this unity was
taking when she conducted a series of interviews in Iran in 200119:
(Now), both religious and secular women agree with each other that men
should not be allowed to marry four wives and an unlimited number of
temporary wives, as is suggested by the Sharia. In the 1970s, under the secular
state of Pahlavi, when secular women raised the same issue, many religious
women's response was that this is a religious issue and is not the concern of
non-believers. In 2001 many religious women argue that this law does not
apply to today's Iranian society.(Povey, 2001, p. 57).
In a bigger picture, women were encouraged to readdress the existing harsh
Islamic law from the inside through formal levels. The women did it from the
parliament (in the Fourth and Fifth parliament with the domination of conservatives),
through the process of lobbying (Afshar, 1998). As a result of increasing pressure
19Dr. Elaheh Rostami Povey is a prominent researcher focusing on Irans political Islamism
influence within its community. She had conducted a research among Iranian activists,
journalists, refugees, exiles and academics with diverse political views ranging from
Islamist modernists, the secular left, nationalists and feminists. Her point of view rests on the
notion that ones cannot measure the discourse of feminism circulated in the Middle East with
the one exercised in Western countries. Thus, the approach concerning this issue has to be
treated differently.

from Islamic feminist, some law were being readdressed, including the restriction of
women to study (1986), the freedom of men in defining divorce term (1992), the ban
of women judges (1992), and many others in 2000 regarding the rejection towards
veiling. Further, media was supporting these efforts by providing a forum of
discussion circled around the perspective of gender. Such agenda then known as
Islamist feminism with a strategy of using feminist thinking for its demand, while
considering Islamic language as its source of legitimacy (Mir-Hosseini, 2004).

C. Gender Mainstreaming and Politicization of Womens Issue

Despite the increasing numbers of womens participation and its involvement

within the parliament, ones cannot forget the political implication behind it. The
inclusion of women, were only being deemed necessary for the sake of their numbers
instead of quality. Essentialists discourse was also prominent during the
establishment and implementation of such legal frameworks. Consequently, women
were being viewed only for their natural quality over their true potentials. Moreover,
the improved more moderate legal frameworks in Iran only legalized when it has
something to do with religion, instead of considering what women actually needs in
order to strengthen the survival of Islamic Republic. This following chapter then will
establish the connection between the gender mainstreaming effort done by the
government while showing the implication behind it. Three sectors will be
emphasized, such as political participation, education, and employment. Together,
these three underlined sectors will show the complexity of social construction on
womens participation after the revolutionary era.

1. Political Participation
The intention of gender mainstreaming process is to acknowledge that women
and men have different needs and priorities in which they should have experienced
equal conditions for realizing matters that are important for them, including human
rights, opportunity to contribute to and benefitted from national economic, social,
political, and cultural development (Moser & Moser, 2005). It is pursued to combat

the gap between gender boundaries as a way to fulfill the international pressure laid
around this issue. Ayatollah Khomeini considered this notion as a way to show the
image that Islamic government was supporting the participation of women. The
womens participation was noted as crucial as he praised that the lion heart women
whose great effort has saved Islam from the capacity of the foreigner and who
alongside men secured the victory of Islam (Keyhan, 1979). For Khomeini, this
gratification of positioning women equally with men was arisen within their quality of
motherhood, where women were considered as brave and human making
individuals.
This awakening of womens participation was not without complication.
Regimes tight grip over womens participation was justified under the essentialist
discourse, which measured women as second-class citizen, whose participation would
help men in achieving the main purpose of Islamic regime. In a way, women would
only be given the rights to participate as long as it benefited the survival of Islamic
state, as Ayatollah Khomeini stated it during his speech as a way of justifying the
presence of women in a masculine environment:
What is not accepted in the sharia, is women's participation in primary
jahad. But when it comes to the question of defense, there is consensus in
Islam that women are obliged to take part in every possible way including
military defense. Of course the environment in which this is done should be
Islamic and protective of chastity. Let me make it clear why women's
participation in defense is doubly important. With their presence at the war
front, women not only bring extra human power, but they also create a
special sensitivity in men to fight even harder. Men are sensitive towards
women and react more strongly against seeing one woman hurt than a
hundred men killed. So, if you [women] participate in the defense of Islam
in military and non-military ways, you will create great strength in our
soldiers. (Ettelaat, 1964)
In the higher field of political participation, women were also struggling to find a
role for themselves, since it was mainly dominated by Islamic discourse. There were
several limitations involved, such as the obligation to be religious, the privilege of
coming from clerical families, and the restraint in decision-making process. In Iran,
although the numbers of women involvement were quite high compared with other

countries in the Middle-East region, women were only elected if they were submitted
to dominant political fraction.The political maneuver conducted by the Islamic
Republic Party (IRP) ensured that only candidates with strong Islamic background
could be included into the election. For example, in the 1980 elections 25 women
candidates were being put headfirst by the pro-Islamic political party, such as Azam
Taleghani, Monireh Gorji, and Goharolsharieh, in which three of them have a strong
kinship back-up inside the party.20 Furthermore, in 1981 the hardship of women in
participating inside the government were worsened by the annihilation of oppositional
forces, although 2 more women were being inserted due to internationals pressure
after the assasination of president Rajai.
Table 2: Political Leadership in Iran Compared with Other MENA Countries

Country

Percentage of Women In the

Parliament (1995-2004)

Egypt

Iran

United Arab Emirates

Yemen

Turkey

Source: Women of Our World. 2002, 2005. Population Reference Bureau, Washington, D.C.;
United Nations Development Fund:
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2003/indicator/pdf/hdr03_table_22.pdf ; 2005 World
Development Indicators, Women in Development, World Bank.

20Azam Taleghani was the daughter of Ayatollah Taleghani, a high-ranking reputable cleric
in Iran. Monireh Gorji was a mother for three daughters with pro-Islamic job of teaching the
Qoran and Arabic. Goharolsharieh was the co-founder of Islamic Organization of Committed
Iranian Women.

The small portion given towards the involvement of women in Majles has resulted
into poorer performance outcome. Despite their initiation of sounding womens legal
rights, their overall achievement was limited due to the dominating numbers of male
counterparts in a masculine environment.

Table 3: Precentage of Women in Iranian Parliament, 1979-2008

Parliament

Elected from

Elected from

Precentage

Tehran

Other Province

1979-1983

1.5%

1983-1987

1.5%

1987-1992

1.5%

1992-1996

3.3%

1996-2000

3.7%

2000-2004

4.4%

2004-2007

4.1%

2008

2.7%

Source: H Hoodfar, The Womens Movement in Iran: Women at the Crossroad of Secularisation and
Islamisation, France: Women Living Under Muslim Laws, 1999; and HE Chehabi & A Keshavarzian,
Politics in Iran, in G Almond, G Bingham Powell, Jr., K Strom & RJ Dalton (eds), Comparative
Politics Today: A World View, London: Pearson Longman, 2003. Cited in HomaHoodfar&Shadi
Sadr(2010):IslamicPoliticsandWomen'sQuestforGenderEqualityinIran,ThirdWorldQuarterly,
31:6,885903p.894

Being unable to openly criticize the state policies on women, the emergence of
moderate faction of womens movement was inevetable. This faction filled some
magazine, like Zanan, in adressing the miserable treatments adressed under the name
of religion. Their effort in sounding the needs of women gained an actual recognition
reflected on the rising circulation of leadership (Sayyah, 1990). The increasing
awareness of state officials, administrators, and clerics in viewing the inadequacy of
Islamic policy on women has invited numbers of allies. Its ability to be involved in
international forum demonstrated the proficiency of womens movement to operate
around their aims and objectives.

2. Education
Women, as being acknowledged as connector between family and nation, have
to be present in the advancement of Islamic state. Therefore, they have to act both as
mothers and teachers as it has previously stated as the main job of women. Women
were being viewed as successor in shaping the future of Iran since as mothers; it is
them that would firstly interact with the children of Irans future. It was often for
women to be classified as the guardians of millions of future mothers of the Islamic
society of Iran (Ettelaat, 1986). Thus, education was deemed necessary for women to
be integrated with the national progress.
The field of education was also highly politicized due to the urgency of
scraping the influence of non-Islamic middle class. In a country, with politically
active population, educational bodies were being viewed as facilities to diffuse the
ideological values. Clearly, the support was overwhelming. Even Khomeini and most
of the fraction in the Islamic state have given the same level of support as many
influential Islamic leaders, such as Ayatollah Montazeri and Rafsanjani. Consequently,
the importance of women education was merely based on the effort of liberating
women from male domination. Instead, womens education was partially important
because they were considered as ideologically suitable in promoting the specific
needs of IRI to the future generations:
Today the reasons for women's participation in society and the economy are
different from those of the previous regime. In the past women were exploited
for colonial aims. Now women work in response to specific needs of the

Islamic society. Women experts and politicians are needed to cater for
women's needs in an Islamic society.(Zan Ruz, 1983)
As a way to monopolized the educational system, the IRI brought the value of
Islam inside the mainstream educational body. The other purpose was to bring
university, in which has became a main tool of reformists political activity from the
pre-revolutionary period, under the scrutiny of states control. Universities in Iran
were shortly being accused for their Westernized professor, method of teaching, and
textbooks in 1980.Thus, Islamization was deemed necessary to block students
interests upon the West. The steps of Islamization pursued in several measures,
including the total submission to Islamic ideology, which has to be followed by
teachers and administrators if they wanted to stay within the system. 21As for women,
there was a sexual segregation through the enforcement of hejab, division of subject
considered suitable for women, and continuation of male domination in education.
Thus, following the re-opening of universities is Iran in 1982 it was no strange that
although with the respect ofgender mainstreaming approach in inserting more women
in the field of education, womens primary role as homemakers and mothers
remained there as a stark marker of the cultural norms.
As shown on the graph bellow, the ratio of female to male student has
increased to 110.5 percent from 37.4 percent in the previous decade, meaning that the
governments approval in inserting women in educational field have been done
adequately. However, changes in the level of education have little effect on womens
social status and their involvement outside the family circle due to politicization
behind it.
Graph 1: Ratio of Female to Male Students In Tertiary Education

21The Islamization included the obligation to submit a letter of ideological confirmation

from the mosque, prioritization of Arabic teaching alongside with dropping English in
primary grade, and the subject taught must be beneficial for the IRI.

Source:

Educational Affairs Bureau, MPO (2004). Cited in OfficeoftheDeputyforSocialAffairs,

ManagementandPlanningOrganization,(2004).TheFirstMillenniumDevelopmentGoalsReportin
IslamicRepublicofIran.Tehran:TheManagementandPlanningOrganisationandtheUnitedNations,
p.23.

In a way, the policies created upon womens access for study need to be
examined and amended. During the pre-revolution era, women were able to
participate in all of educational branches except mining. Meanwhile during the
embodiment of strict rule by the IRI, womens involvement in many non-feminine
fields, such as experimental sciences and technology, were refuted and indeed, they
were forced to change the subject taken previously. In addition, IRI also decided to
put a gender quota among social sciences, environmental, and medical studies to limit
the numbers of women to 20 until 50 percent (Mojab, 1991).

3. Employment
Indeed, looking at the increased accessed to education among women in Iran,
ones must expect its correlation with changes in womens status. However, despite the
advancement of women in education, their employment and significance in decisionmaking process need to be promoted. Combined social problem such as ideological,
political, and economic concern have hardened the effort of advancing womens
involvement among the labor force. The enemy image addressed by traditionalist
offered an Islamic alternatives was that women should not be involved in

westernized scene, which was full of corrupted and phony tasks that would deceive
and trick women in destroying the culture and robbing the economic resources (Zan
Ruz, 1984). The other negative argument came from the commonly rooted assumption
that women were the responsibility of their husband, thus, they should not have to
work and submit completely to their role as mothers. Another source of concern was
about the interference of husband matrimonial rights, since it was seen as womans
responsibility to be sexually available to her husband whenever he wished (Keyhan,
1983)
Women's main duty is home keeping and child rearing and this is in itself a
full- time job. We should not expect women to add generation of income to
their tasks. Of course women can engage in side activities such as knitting,
sewing and even research and writing. But it should not be forgotten that
neither

husband

nor

the

wife

could

dismiss

their

main

responsibilities.(Ettelaat, 1987)
In line with the policy on womens education, womens employment was directed to
fields with compatibility of women nature and her family responsibility. There were
many job available in the labor field, however, due to strong patriarchal discourse
revolved in the society, women have failed to maximize her potentiality as employers
preferred to hire male counterparts. Table 4 bellow shows the disparities and gap
between men and women from 1980-2004. There it can be seen that the
unemployment rate was as high as 20 percent for women compared with 12 percent of
men in 2000-2004. Indeed, there had been some improvements in the numbers of
work search among women (from 20 percent in 1990 to 33 percent in 2004). Yet,
Iranian society was still hesitating to put women in the prominent field as men. Soon
after the establishment of the IRI, women were prohibited from becoming judges.
Following this disparity, the next step was the cleansing of workplace. Similar with
education system, Ayatollah Khomeini called in 1980 for Administrative revolution,
which included the imposition of hejab for women, segregation between men and
women, the silencing of non-Islamic employees, and prioritizing the Islamic adherents
in the key position within the work force.
Another striking fact is that women often positioned in a job with a lower
status with incomes. Such fact can be traced from 2001 that men earned more
incomes compared to women (see table 4). It indicates that the numbers of womens

involvement in the work force could not be simply translated into changes in their
status. Instead, it could be indicated as economic abuse rather than economic
emancipation (Bahramitash, 2007). Contrary to the legal framework that has
alleviated the restriction towards women in employing themselves outside, the
condition on the job field reflected that prejudice and negative attitudes were still
dominating the social environment in Iran. The notion of gender mainstreaming then
only imposed within the sphere of quantity instead of quality.
Table 4: Selected Indicators of Employments of Men and Women

Estimated Earned

Income Disparity

Female Labor

Income (PPP US$)

Between Men and

Force

Women

Participation

Female

Male

2,599

9,301

28%

Unemployment

Total

Femal

Labor

1990

2004

Force

20%

33%

11.6%

20.4%

Source:The World Bank Group, GenderStats, Database of Gender Statistics,

http://devdata.worldbank.org/genderstats/genderRpt.asp?rpt=profile&cty=BHR,Bahrain&hm=home

CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION

Womens participation in shaping the past and contemporary condition of

Irans socio political scheme cannot be put aside from consideration. The growing
numbers of womens involvement in many sectors, including education,
parliamentary, and employment must not be taken for granted, considering the
repression condemned by the Iranian government. Ones also cannot forget the deeply
rooted social stigma given by the dominant populations there with the orientation of
essentialists, hence, shaping the way on how Iranian women are viewing themselves

as humans. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assume that the creation of womens

identity and way of resistances in Iran is not only depending on the legitimization of
existing legal framework, but also on the continuing interaction between intergroups
that mold together. Those kinds of interaction were being formed based on social
construction that has been happening in Iran before and after the revolution through
the existing enemy images, political Islamism, and gender mainstreaming debates.
As a nation with rather long historical background of oppression, it is not
strange that Iran accuses the opposing values that once were used for dominating the
country. Having witnessed two revolutions in its history (Constitutional revolution in
1905-1911 and Islamic Republic revolution in 1977-1979), Iran build a tendency of
fear against Western Value. The newly implemented modernization theory used during
the Shah period offered gaps between infrastructures and superstructures, where
culture, customs, and attitudes were pushed back behind the emerging problem of
economic transitions. This modernization theory based on western culture, then being
accused for Irans stagnancy in many living sectors. In addition, the notion of
unveiling and other coercive stances adapted by the Nationalist Form under the
leadership Mohammad Mosaddegh (1951-1953) mirrored the unacceptable value
brought by the Western. Therefore, modernization was regarded as a further
imperialism in disguise, thus, inviting much more rejection from the intergroup,
dividing Iranian society into traditionalist and modernist.
Within the consideration of positioning Western and modern system as an
enemy, the 1979 revolution then becomes a mark of Irans independence from
imperialism. In doing so, Iranian government, under the Ayatollah Khomeini regime
wanted to restore the Islamic law through sharia as the main framework of the new
legal bodies. Coherent with insecurities and fear existed, the traditionalists, who was
supporting the notion of Islamic revival in Iran, tended to use this opportunity to
further classify women who at that time were questioning the fulfillment of their
rights as agents of Westernization. The triggering factors that nurtured the stagnancy
of enemy images can be exercised through the existing system justification,
intergroup competition, stress and fear, totalitarian elites discourse, and microreproduction of it through the role of kinship and family members. Consequently, the
already existed gaps between modern and traditional society were becoming a
stronger hindrance towards the establishment of egalitarian society with tolerance of
gender and family formation. Therefore, shaping the identity of women during that

period of time within the model of Islamic women with ideal conception of family,
social status, and gender relation.
Next is the ever-changing political Islamism in Irans socio political scheme,
which play a rather important role in shaping womens identity. Indeed, it is true that
at the first decade of the IRI establishment the dominating discourse of political Islam
can be used as a homogenous measurement on how international community
perceived Iran. However, it has to be noted that within the Iranian system itself, there
have been other challenging point of views that were coming from the reformists.
Inserting numbers of universal values, such as human rights and democracy, the
reformists tended to shape the Iranian womens identity by revealing the insufficiency
of Islam in accommodating the development and challenging environment in
international scene. They argued that the overwhelming traditionalists discourse,
without any presence of democratic and legitimize state structure, will push aside the
womens issue. In accordance to the effort of putting Islamic tradition on the same
page with universal values, some intellectuals introduced the involvement of Islamic
feminist from both inside and outside the parliament. In doing so, feminists began to
use the sacred texts language approach in delivering their demands directly through
the agents of parliament or indirectly through prominent publications. Such agenda
then known as Islamist feminism, which combining the Islamic language as a
source of legitimacy to sound the demands of women. This strategy has perceived as
an active one due to reassessment of some harsh Islamic laws.
Last is the politicization of womens issue through the notion of gender
mainstreaming, which means allowing the insertion of women within the male
dominated field in order to increase their numbers of participation. However, it has
often been a political strategy for Iran to emphasize the essentialists discourse lies
within, which mobilized through the exercised of sharia rule and law. The other worth
noting problem came from the historically patriarchal ideologies that needed to be
maintained in accordance to traditionalists point of view. As a result, there
established a complex connection around the follow up of gender mainstreaming
process in Iran, specifically in three connected area of education, political
participation, and employment. It was evident that the allowance given by
government in inserting numbers of women were deviated from the expected results,
such as the positive changes in womens social status and social mobility. Contrary to
the legal framework that has alleviated the restriction towards women in employing

themselves outside, the condition on the field reflected that prejudice and negative
attitudes were still dominating the social environment in Iran, especially toward
women who were still being accused as westernized agents of imperialism.
Those prominent factors above indicate the creation of womens self-identity
in Iran was not only being shaped by the existing legal framework, but also through
the manifestation of ideological ground concerning about national identity,
modernization, development, culture, tradition, and moral integrity. Therefore, the
creation of Iranian womens identity were highly influenced by the existing deeply
rooted discourse of enemy images, the shifting relation within Islamism, and the
politicization of womens issue under the notion of gender mainstreaming process.
However, the oppression condemned by the government did not mean a full
repression per se, since women were still being able to pursue their education and
involvement in the parliament. Consequently, women, far from being marginalized,
were performing a rather prominent role in political discourses of Iran. The increasing
awareness and various alternative methods of resistance have shown the tendency of
women in resisting the status quo and stagnancy existed within Iranian political
socialization scheme.

Bibliography

Books

Abrahamian, E. (1982). Iran between two revolutions. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press.
Abrahamian, E. (1989). Radical Islam. London: I.B. Tauris.
Afshar, H. (1998). Islam and feminisms. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Allport, G. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
Afary, J. (1996). The Iranian constitutional revolution, 1906-1911. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Ansari, S. and Martin, V. (2002). Women, religion and culture in Iran. Richmond, Surrey:
Curzon in association with the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Badran, M. (1995). Feminists, Islam, and nation. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Connell, R. (2005). Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept. Gender & Society,
19(6), pp.829-859.
Ellul, J. (1973). Propaganda. New York: Vintage Books.
Golbon, M. (1975). Naghad va siahat: Majmueh maghalat va taghrirat Fatemeh Sayyah (The
collection of writings of Fatemeh Sayyah). Thehran enteshart Tus, 1354.
Harle, V. (2000). The enemy with a thousand faces. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
Hughes, M., Kroehler, C. and Vander Zanden, J. (1999). Sociology: The Core. 5th ed. Boston:
McGraw Hill, p.250.

Jazani, B. (1980). Capitalism and revolution in Iran. London: Zed Press.

Jones, J. (1972). Prejudice and racism. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
J Afary (2009), Sexual Politics in Modern Iran, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Kar, M. (1997). The Political Rights of Women. Tehran: Roshangaran and Women Studies
publication.
Mernissi, F. (1987). Beyond the veil. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Mir-Hosseini, Z. (1999). Islam and gender. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Moghadam, V. (2004). In: ran after 25 years of revolution: A retrospective and a look ahead.
Ogburn, W. (1964). On culture and social change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Paidar, P. (1995). Women and the political process in twentieth-century Iran. Cambridge
[England]: Cambridge University Press.
Roy, O. (1994). The failure of political Islam. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Book Chapters
Bayat-Phillip, M. (1978). Women and the Revolution. In: N. Keddie and L. Beck, ed., Women
in the Muslim World, 1st ed. Cambridge University Press.
Erikson, E. (1963). Youth: Fidelity and Diversity. In: E. Erikson, ed., Youth: Change and
Challenge, 1st ed. New York: Basic Books, Inc., pp.1-23.
Esfandiari, H. (1994). The Majlis and Women's Issue in the Islamic Republic. In: M. Afkhami
and E. Friedl, ed., In the Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran, 1st ed.
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press

Halpern, M. (1977). Four Contrasting Repertories of Human Relation in Islam. In: L. Brown
and N. Itzkowitz, ed., Psychological Dimensions of Near Eastern Studies, 1st ed.
Princeton: The Darwin Press, Inc., p.97.
Hoodfar, H. (2000). Iranian Women at the Intersection of Citizenship and Family Code: The
Perils of "Islamic Criteria. In: S. Josef, ed., Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East,
1st ed. Syracus: Syracus University Press.
Kadivar, M. (2009). Human Rights and Intellectual Islam. In: K. Vogt, L. Larsen, C. Moe and
B. Tauris, ed., New Directions in Islamic Thought: Exploring Reform and Muslim Tradition,
1st ed. London, pp.47-74.
Kandiyoti, D. (1992). Islam and Patriarchy: A comparative Perspective. In: N. Keddie and B.
Baron, ed., Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, 1st ed.
New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, pp.23-42.
Kroger, J. (1993). Ego identity: An overview. In J. Kroger (Ed.), Discussions on ego identity
(pp. 1-20).Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Lasswell, H. (n.d.). The Structure and Function of Communication in Society. In: W.
Schramm, ed.,Mass Communications: A Book of Readings, 2nd ed. Urbana: University
of Illinois Press, pp.117-130.
Mason, K. (n.d.). Gender and Family Systems in the Fertility Transition. In: R. Bulatao and J.
Casterline, ed., Global Fertility Transition, 1st ed. New York: Population Council,
pp.160-176.

Najmabadi, A. (1998). Feminism in an Islamic Republic:Years of Hardship, Years of Growth.

In: Y. Haddad and J. Esposito, ed., Islam, Gender and Social Change, 1st ed. Oxford,
pp.50-84.
Najmabadi, A. (1994). Power, Morality, and the New Muslim Womanhood. In: M. Weiner and
A. Banuazizi, ed., The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan,
1st ed. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Perry, B. 2011. Case study research. In: T. May, ed. 2011. Social research: issues, methods
and process. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Ch. 9.
Wahlstorm, R. (1988). Enemy Image as a Psychological Antecedent of Warfare. In: J.
Martinez, R. Hinde and J. Goebel, ed., Essays on Violence, 1st ed. pp.45-58.

Journal Articles
Alavi, H. (1972). The State In Post-Colonial Societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh. New Left
Review, 1(74).
Bahramitash, R. (2007). Iranian Women during the Reform Era (1994-2004): A Focus on
Employment. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 3(2), pp.86-109.

Berzonsky, M. and Kuk, L. (2000). Identity Status, Identity Processing Style, and the
Transition to University. Journal of Adolescent Research, 15(1), pp.81-98.
Cardoso, F. and Faletto, E. (1977). Post scriptum a "Dependencia y desarrollo en Amrica
Latina".Desarrollo Econmico, 17(66), p.273.
Connell, R. (2005). Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept. Gender & Society,
19(6), pp.829-859.
Davoodifard, H. and Jawan, J. (2011). Change of Human Rights Perspective in Iran.
International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(7), pp.126-138.

Davoodifard, H. and Jawan, J. (2011). Change of Human Rights Perspective in

Iran. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(7), pp.126-138.
Erikson, E. (1963). Youth: Fidelity and Diversity. In: E. Erikson, ed., Youth: Change and
Challenge, 1st ed. New York: Basic Books, Inc., pp.1-23

Friesen, M.D. &. Besley, S. C. (2013). Teacher Identity Development In the First Year of
Teacher Education: A Developmental and Social Psychological Perspective. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 36, 23-32.
Hoelter, J. (1986). The Relationship Between Specific and Global Evaluations of Self: A
Comparison of Several Models. Social Psychology Quarterly, 49(2), p.129.
Izadinia, M. (2015). In Search of a Lost Identity: Iranian Women and eir Identity
Issues. Journal of International Women's Studies, 16(2), pp.128-140.
Keddie, N. (2000). Women in Iran Since 1979. Social Research, [online] 67(2), pp.405 - 438.
Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971478?seq=1&cid=pdfreference#references_tab_contents.
Luostarinen, H. (1989). Finnish Russophobia: The Story of an Enemy Image. Journal of
Peace Research, 26(2), pp.123-137.
Mojab, Shahrzad. 1999. Women Undertaking Ijtehad (independent religious in- terpretation):
Hoping for a Feminizing Democracy. Arash 70, Khordad 1378 (June): 4852 (in Persian).
Moser, C. and Moser, A. (2005). Gender mainstreaming since Beijing: A review of success
and limitations in international institutions. Gender & Development, 13(2), pp.11-22.
Povey, E. (2001). Feminist Contestations of Institutional Domains in Iran. Fem Rev, 69(1),
pp.44-72.

Rose, G. 1998. Neoclassical realism and theories of foreign policy. World politics, [e-journal],
51, 144-172. Available through: Malm University Library http://www.mah.se/library
Shavarini, M. (2006). Wearing the Veil to College: The Paradox of Higher Education in the
Lives of Iranian Women. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1(38), pp.189211.
Steele, C. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and
performance.American Psychologist, 52(6), pp.613-629.

War and the media: propaganda and persuasion in the Gulf War. (1992). Choice Reviews
Online, 30(03), pp.30-1754-30-1754.
Zur, O. (1991). The love of hating: The psychology of enmity. History of European Ideas,
13(4), pp.345-369.

Newspaper and Magazines

AlMonitor:ThePulseofIran,(2015).Iranwomen'smagazineforcedtoclose.[online]Availableat:
http://Iranwomen'smagazineforcedtoclose[Accessed10Apr.2016].

Ettelaat: Daily newspaper published in Tehran since the 1940s

(3.3.86)
(23.4.86)
(17.11.83)
Keyhan: Daily newspaper published in Tehran since the 1940s
(4.3.79)
(24.2.83)

Zan Ruz: Weekly womens magazine published in Tehran since the 1960s
(30.7.83)
(9.6.84)

Reports
Human Rights Watch, (2014). World Report 2014: Iran. World Report. [online] Human
Rights
Watch.
https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/iran_6.pdf
[Accessed 8 Jan. 2016].

Nayyeri, M. (2013). Gender Inequality and Discrimination: The Case of Iranian Women.
[online] Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. Available at: http://Gender
Inequality and Discrimination: The Case of Iranian Women [Accessed 8 Mar. 2016].
Office of the Deputy for Social Affairs, Management and Planning Organization, (2004). The
First Millennium Development Goals Report in Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran: The
Management and Planning Organisation and the United Nations, p.23.