Genealogies of the feminist fightback in Iran

by GEORGINA MARÍN NOGUERAS at La Directa, shared and translated with thanks, illustrations added

Policies that discriminate against women in Iran are one of the main factors of mobilization of the feminist movement to demand more rights. Consider this journey from the regime of the Shah until the present day…

“As I am dressed now, showing my neck without the veil-strap under the chin, would be unthinkable ten years ago.” she says and encourages us to pay attention to the young people in Tehran who subtly or blatantly defy the ultra strict dress code required, rebel against any ideology (.a blouse that does not cover the buttocks, a handkerchief pulled back so that it shows her hair, hair cut short or shaved ..) .

How much power and struggle we can glimpse in these symbolic gestures. For example Niloufar, 29,on Friday night, leaving her apartment in northern Tehran wearing pirate pants and a jacket with three quarters length sleeves, ready to receive looks of disapproval and weaving complicity.

The problem is not the hijab but its imposition, like so many other things, like life itself, it is subject to strict social and moral control, we have been reminded several times during a month long trip to the Islamic Republic of Iran. As if they want to make clear from the outset what is obvious to many.

Mahin refers contemptuously to the veil as ”that thing” when speaking about the political situation in Iran, with the tissue is stretched at both ends so it falls over her shoulders, and asserts that “we women in this country have fought hard, have fought back millimeter by a millimeter.”

Recalling how they have practised subversion to imposed dress code is a familiar story women in Iran, at the end of the 1940s, on the contrary, they had to offer resistance to the headscarf ban in public spaces decreed by the secular regime of the Shah.

The capacity for action of women in Iran is clear enough to be easily visible in the public space for any new visitor. As explained by the feminist researcher Sepideh Laban in her book Los Movimientos mujeres y feministas en Iran, “since the establishment of the Islamic regime [in 1979], women have adopted various forms of resistance, from the challenge or subversion of the codes on clothing, to the interpretation of the Koran. ”

In the context of the patriarchal and authoritarian state, as defined by Laban, there are strong control mechanisms that force and coerce ” those who intend to leave these shores or develop daily practices of subversion or hide behind the door in a room to sing Verdi [singing in public is prohibited for women], paint a naked body … and talk about women’s rights. ”

Sepideh Laban analyzes the strategies of Iranian feminists who have been qualified as an “attack on national security” during the last four decades. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 in opposition to the authoritarian and patriarchal monarchy of the Shah -was initially a secular heterogeneous and inclusive popular movement in which different ideological currents converged together due to the need for a radical change: including Islamists communists, feminists, nationalists … various trends and social classes.

Between January 1978 and January 1979, millions of people were mobilized in demonstrations, protests and strikes demanding freedom, democracy and the end of cultural imperialism. During these months there was intensified repression, executions and torture; until January 1979 when the Shah fled.

The triumph, then, of the conservative Shiite opposition, with the coming to power of Ayatollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader of the new Islamic Republic of Iran, with a constitution subject to Islamic law, sent other political movements back to secrecy and repression.

Islamic feminists, says Laban, were initially granted legitimacy due to their participation in the Revolution and their connections with

the State, they were used as a loophole to provide a progressive interpretation of Islamic law that would improve the situation of women .

Later, during the two terms of the reformist president Muhammad Khatami (1997-2004) -already with Ayatollah Khamenei as supreme leader, I suppose there was a time of ideological opening which gave an advantage to many women to organize. Burying old differences, secular and Islamic feminists jointly formulated demands for change through institutional channels, insisting on the need to review the approach of the Revolution of 1979, placing the discussion within the framework of Islam and making the critical legal law its priority.

One of the strengths of their activism, says Laban was the revival and propagation of the feminist press, not without obstacles-, and the ability to achieve certain political legitimacy and mobilize progressive intellectuals and clergy.

But as Laban insists, “the problem with the Islamic Republic feminists-whether Islamic or secular independents- rests more on the emancipatory potential of their approaches, on the fact that they are compliant or not with the moral values of Islam “. Khatami’s reform movement did not achieve the promised transition to democracy nor implement effective reforms: a new disappointment.

In this context of disillusionment with the reformist parties, coupled with a new conservative majority in Parliament (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 2005-2013), they began to articulate a radical , independent and pluralist, feminism, which does not identify with the political and religious elite and for the first time explicitly rejected its legitimacy. In June 2006 they held a demonstration in Tehran with the feminist slogan ‘We are women, we are human beings, we are citizens of this country, and we have rights’. It was severely repressed: with more than 70 arrests and physical violence on demonstrators. The Spark was already alive.

2 months later feminists launched the ‘one million signatures against discriminatory laws’ campaign in order to raise awareness of legal discrimination against women and expand the base of the movement. Dodging the prohibition and repression of demonstrations and events when spreading the campaign, they added activists through informal conversations at markets, on buses, in factories, universities …

In 2006 they created a new feminist movement categorically rejecting the traditional power and incorporating several generations of activists.

A new popular feminist movement popular was born, which categorically rejected traditional power and incorporated several generations of activists. Young feminists in Iran, says Laban, no longer appropriate a division between the Islamic and secular as part of the product of acadèmia or self identity…

They share an attitude of analysis of the social reality that defines their concrete action, “which is the most effective, appropriate and feasible to achieve the demands for change for women, considering the Iranian political context”.

It is a new intergenerational feminist wave that has led to new initiatives, new spaces for activism and had to face a harsh crackdown: the intrusion of the police in meetings with arrests and interrogations. Two years after the start of the campaign ‘1 million signatures against discriminatory laws’ forty people involved.were arrested. Since then, the list of imprisoned and exiled has continued to grow.

Sarah and Mehdi are presented with a fun question while sharing a bench in the evening in Esfahan Imam Square. “What city is prettier Iran Shiraz or Esfahan?” They compete at comparing hometowns and laughing with each other.

After a few questions and conventional answers , and with a little more confidence, they say that they have been together nearly three years and just two weeks ago were married in a simple ceremony, as it is the only way to live together in a state where “religion is not a choice, ..” So “we must be Muslim” and apostasy is punishable, Mehdi reminds us.

Sarah explains that when they walk down the street holding hands, the police often stop and ask about her relation to Mehdi..They never speak first to her. They say that Sara should wear hijab in such a way or other. “It also happens in Tehran,” they say, to show that the capital with its more progressive nature, is not exempt from the control exercised by the moral police.

Divorce is a right only for males in the same way as are polygamy, custody of children in cases of separation and passing nationality to offspring.

During dinner with a group of over thirty friends which we were invited to in Tehran, the host, strongly recommended the comic and the film ‘Persepolis’ by Marjan Satrapi to understand the

disappointment of many revolutionaries with the Revolution of 1979-

They complained of legal discrimination of women and assured us that men are also adversely affected, with young girls increasingly demanding higher skills as a condition for marriage. The campaign ‘1 million signatures against discriminatory laws’ showed up the feeling of insecurity and vulnerability generated in women by marriage.

The right of inheritance for women is half of that for men and women require permission of their father or husband to travel outside Iran.

A man can veto his wife’s work or study if he claims that his family life is harmed. All sex outside of traditional heterosexual marriage is illegal. Lesbians and homosexuals suffer harsh repression -generally the penalty of death for men and 100 lashes for women- and transsexualism is treated as medical problems.

The criminal age of the girls is fixed at nine, at 15 for boys. And the testimony of women in trials is worth half that of men. These are just some examples of how the patriarchal authoritarian state in Iran translates into the field of law and the penal code.

How it translates at present is the same as how it has done so historically. In an institutionalized misogyny which comes from way back in time, says Laban the discriminatory laws today in the Islamic Republic of Iran are virtually the same as 110 years ago.

The genealogy of the Iranian feminist movement is clear, especially as it demands: legislative change and combating discrimination as the legal priority from the Constitutional Revolution (1906), through the Pahlavi monarchy (1925-1979) and the Islamic Revolution ( 1979) until today.

original en català

Genealogies de la lluita feminista a l’Iran