Women in Iran have been fighting for more rights for five generations. Their movement is deeply rooted in society - also because many of these women have always stood up for the rights of all. Journalist Shabnam von Hein outlines the women's movement in Iran.
The tragic death of Sahar Khodayari also contributed to the end of the ban. The 29-year-old tried to get into the stadium in the spring of 2019 dressed as a man. She was desperate to see her Tehran soccer club live. But Sahar Khodayari was arrested for "violating moral order" and "insulting officials." She was released pending the indictment. However, when she learned that a conviction could mean up to six months in prison, she set herself on fire outside the courthouse. Sahar Khodayari died from her burns. Her death shocked Iranian society - especially many women, even those who have little left for soccer.
The women's movement has a long tradition
The history of the women's movement in Iran goes back a long way. The long struggle of Iranian women for equal rights began with the so-called tobacco movement: In 1891, the then King Naser al-Din Shah, in his constant need for money, had awarded the monopoly for the production and trade of tobacco in the entire Persian territory to a British military. There were protests, and Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi imposed a tobacco fatwa banning the consumption of tobacco.
Not only men, but also women left their hookahs. Even the wives of Naser al-Din Shah joined the protest: The rival women in his harem banded together and refused to prepare the king his customary hookah. In the end, the king revised his decision.
The tobacco movement formed the seed of the constitutional revolution in Iran starting in 1905, which aimed to limit the power of the monarchy and introduce a parliamentary system to complement it. Many women joined this revolution - and paid for their commitment, sometimes with their lives. This was the case, for example, with the 20 women who took part in protests in western Iran disguised as men. [1] After the protests were brutally put down, their bodies were found among the dead.
However, when King Mozaffar ad-Din Shah promulgated a decree creating a parliament in August 1906, women remained excluded from the right to vote: a resounding defeat. This was also seen by cultured and educated men who had wanted a better life for their daughters. One of them was the modern cleric Hadi Dowlatabadi. His daughter Sedighe Dowlatabadi, born in 1882, became one of the most important women activists in Iran's history. As editor and author of Iran's first women's magazine, she campaigned for women's rights, especially access to education.
Education as the key to the future
Sedighe Dowlatabadi and other women activists knew that education was the path to their own success. After the constitutional revolution, wealthy women funded girls' schools and founded women's clubs across the country. With them, the women's movement developed strong roots in Iranian society.
A new era began for the women's movement in Iran in 1925 with the coup of the Cossack officer Reza Khan against the Kajars. As the first king of the new Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Khan, then called Reza Shah Pahlavi, tried to follow his political model Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey and modernize Iran - with radical decisions and an iron hand. Reza Shah abolished the traditional dress of Iranians; he forbade women to wear the veil. Since 1936, January 7 was celebrated as "Women's Liberation Day" in the Pahlavi dynasty.
Reza Shah also had a nationwide "Women's Association" established. His two daughters, Shams and Ashraf, played important roles within the Iranian women's movement over the next decades. They became allies of key women activists such as Sedighe Dowlatabadi. In the shadow of official women's politics, however, a politically leftist women's movement also grew, mobilizing religious women with the slogan "justice for all women."
In 1941, Reza Shah was forced to abdicate at the urging of British and Soviet troops occupying Iran. His son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was enthroned by the occupying forces. In February 1963, he issued a decree granting women the right to vote and stand for election. It was one of the reform points of the "White Revolution" dictated by Mohammed Reza: The monarch tried to win approval for it among the population while eliminating any opposition. In 1967, the progressive "Law for the Protection of the Family" was introduced - an achievement of 60 years of the women's movement.
Until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, second-generation women activists were able to push through numerous other changes in the law. Mehrangiz Dolatshahi, for example, belonged to this second generation. She belonged to the upper class and had studied and earned her doctorate in Berlin and Heidelberg in the late 1930s. From 1976 to 1979, she was Iran's first female ambassador - to Denmark. Before that, as a parliamentarian, she had fought with others, for example, for the aforementioned modern family law. The law was a thorn in the side of the clergy, because it placed men and women on an equal footing and allowed the state to interfere in family matters and stand up for women's rights.
At the same time, after 1941, women-particularly from the conservative-traditional-religious families, as well as from poorer classes overall-again wore veils. This allowed many women to leave the house again. For many, however, modernization had a deterrent and alienating effect. The Shah's regime did not succeed in bringing conservative, traditional families along on its modernization course. Universities, for example, were seen by many as places of sin, because women in what they saw as inappropriate clothing came far too close to the male sex. The imposed modernization was particularly difficult for that part of society that lived below the poverty line-and under the modern, secular-authoritarian regime of the shah, this was true for about 40 % of the population. Beginning in 1978, there were repeated mass protests against the Shah. The Islamic Revolution began, Mohammed Reza fled into exile in January 1979 and the Islamic Republic was founded.
After 1979, achievements were lost again
"Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, one half of society, namely women, have been systematically oppressed by the other half," says Iranian women's rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. [2] "The mandatory hijab or the stadium ban are just the tip of the iceberg." Shirin Ebadi worked as a judge until 1979. She lost her post after the Islamic Revolution.
For an Islamic state, which Iran has been since 1979, Islamic law is a central element. Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini suspended the modern "Law for the Protection of the Family" of 1967. Instead, Sharia law was reinstated-Islamic law that refers to the Quran, traditions, and theological interpretations as sources.
Sharia law in Iran prohibits women from practicing various professions, such as judgeship. Marriage and family law privileges men: All important decisions are to be made by men. For example, it is up to the father to decide whether his daughter may study, work or marry. After marriage, the husband decides.
The Iranian women who had supported the 1979 revolution in the hope of a better life did not know that they would lose much after the victory of the revolution and the takeover of power by the religious wing under Ayatollah Khomeini. But what even Ayatollah Khomeini could not take away from Iranian women was the right to vote and to stand for election. And this despite the fact that he had been one of the most prominent opponents of suffrage for women in the 1950s.
Women's rights today - between frustration and struggle
Despite all the repressive measures, there have also been positive developments over the past 40 years. For example, the proportion of women at universities has increased significantly from 27 percent before the 1979 revolution. Now, the majority of students in Iran are female. However, even with their good education, women continue to have a hard time: according to official statistics as of October 2019 To dissolve footnote[3], the share of women in the labor market is still very low at only 18 percent.
The image of financially independent and emancipated women does not fit into a political system that seeks to further enforce religious customs and traditions in society. All state media and institutions are used for this purpose, from kindergarten to university. The budget of cultural institutions responsible for "propagating Islamic values" was 13 times higher than the budget of the Ministry of Environment in 2019. The institutions fund cultural programs such as trips to places of pilgrimage or leisure activities for schoolchildren and students. Prerequisite: they must follow religious rules; promote the hijab or even participate in state-organized rallies. Nevertheless, the massive investment in cultural institutions has not yielded much. The most important example of this is the mandatory dress code for women in public. Although there is even a kind of morality police that controls women and their clothing in public spaces, many still wear their headscarves and coats in their own way, boldly protesting the regulations. These enforce head covering and prohibit body-hugging fashion and even cheerful colors.
Challenging those in power with civil disobedience
Shirin Ebadi is the third generation of women activists in Iran today, or fighting from exile. She includes religious women: They represent Islamic values and fight for their position within the system. Narges Mohammadi, for example, is one of these voices. She was Shirin Ebadi's deputy at the Iranian Human Rights Center in Tehran. Narges Mohammadi has been in prison since 2015. Among other things, the human rights activist had organized a campaign against the death penalty in Iran. She was sentenced to a total of 16 years in prison - for her campaign against the death penalty alone she was punished with ten years in prison.
Shirin Ebadi has been living in exile in Great Britain since 2009. She was no longer safe in Iran. She also left her homeland at the request of many fellow activists to be their voice abroad. The lawyer knows about the important social roots of the women's movement: "Women and the women's movement in Iran have always been supported by progressive men. Because women always stood up for civil rights and for the general demands of society - and because they were willing to pay the price."
It was not only Shirin Ebadi or Narges Mohammadi who paid a high price. The women's movement was an important pillar of the protest movement in the summer of 2009 after the disputed presidential election. The mass protests were put down, sometimes brutally. Many women activists were arrested; many others - such as Shirin Ebadi - left the country for fear of reprisals.
Her fellow activist Narges Mohammadi remained in Iran. Even from prison, she continues to play an important role for the women's movement. On December 24, 2019, she was beaten up in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison and forcibly transferred to another prison. [4] It was punishment for organizing a prisoners' strike in prison. This was to protest the brutal crackdown on dissident demonstrations in November 2019.
Narges Mohammadi continues to believe in the effectiveness of civil disobedience and continues her protest. In early February 2020, she called on all Iranians to boycott the parliamentary elections in the same month. In light of the brutal treatment of protesters in November 2019, she questioned the legitimacy of the ruling system. Her call for an "election boycott" was also followed by twelve political prisoners from the women's section of Evin Prison, where she had previously been imprisoned.
Footnotes: Janet Afary: The Iranian Constitutional Revolution. Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy and the Origins of Feminism (History and Society of the Modern Middle East), Columbia University Press, 1996.
[2]
Interview mit der Autorin im Oktober 2019.
[3]
Büro für Frauen und Familien im Iranischen Präsidialamt. Online unter: http://women.gov.ir/fa/news/12366 (Stand: 29. April 2020)
[4]
vgl. Amnesty International: Iran: Further Information: Activist Reports Ill-Treatment in Prison: Narges Mohammadi, 13. Februar 2020. Online unter: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/1784/2020/en/; vgl. auch: Shabnam von Hein: Irans Zivilgesellschaft im Schatten der Krise, auf: dw.com, 10. Januar 2019. Online unter: https://www.dw.com/de/irans-zivilgesellschaft-im-schatten-der-krise/a-51952982 (Stand: 29. April 2020)
German Text: Shabnam von Hein für bpb.de, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0