The Islamic Republic and Iranian Feminism

As you read this text, ask yourself what feminism means? Who is a feminist and what goals do they pursue? The simplest way to align your definition of feminism is to refer to the Persian Wikipedia to read this definition: "Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve a level of women's rights that is equal to men in political, economic, personal, and social fields. This goal includes efforts to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment." However, if we are a bit honest with ourselves, the feminism that many of us think of differs from what is currently defined in society. Mehrdad Darvishpour, a sociologist residing in Sweden, believes that the change in the concept of feminism in Iranian society is due to the opposition of religious foundations to gender equality: "It is enough to refer to various verses that are officially misogynistic and see women's rights as inferior to men's to realize that there is no trace of gender equality in any of the religions, including Islam, and it is natural. How can you find traces of gender equality in a religion that dates back 1400 or 2000 years in the Quran or the Bible? Therefore, religions, as part of the old beliefs of humans, were shaped by the harsh and patriarchal conditions of those eras, and the traces of patriarchal thoughts in these religions are very, very naked, and this is something that cannot be denied. Of course, this does not mean that none of the Muslims or followers of various religions can align themselves with gender equality. This is practical. But it does not require that, for example, feminist thoughts or women themselves align with religious beliefs and expectations. Iranian women and the Islamic Republic's anti-Westernism A look at the early days of the Islamic Revolution shows that one of the laws that took shape and was quickly established under the Islamic Republic was the issue of mandatory hijab for women, with the argument that cultural immodesty is a product of the West. The issue of hijab remains one of the most important challenges for Iranian women, forty years after the victory of the revolution. Mahbubeh Abbasgholizadeh, a women's rights activist residing in Washington, believes that the struggle against the West has been one of the main grounds for the Islamic Republic's opposition to feminist concepts: "Let us keep in mind that the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran and one of its identity issues is the struggle against the West and being anti-Western, and this colonialism and anti-colonial struggles have roots in Iran's history that are intertwined with politics and ideology. This feminism or the idea of women's liberation or gender equality is fundamentally seen by the Islamic Republic as a Western issue that has come from the West, and even if women within the Islamic government want to work on equality or equality, and generally on the revival of women's rights or even improving women's basic issues, they must do so in a way that does not smell of being proponents of gender equality or feminism to policymakers. Therefore, the issue of feminism is one that, from the perspective of the Islamic Republic, is entirely intertwined with Westernization." Mehrdad Darvishpour, however, approaches the Islamic Republic's opposition to this concept from another perspective and says: "The Islamic Revolution project was essentially an attempt to push society back, to revive the Islamic empire. The Islamic Revolution, as a nostalgic masculinity approach that saw the relatively weakened authority of men as a threat, immediately after the Islamic Republic came to power, tried to reinforce Islamic authority by pushing women back, for example, by imposing mandatory hijab. Emphasis on motherhood, the necessity of staying at home, mandatory hijab, gender segregation, prohibition from many fields of study and work... Therefore, it promoted a kind of sexual apartheid. In a nutshell, I would say that the official ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran is misogyny." But how has this ideology managed to push women back to such an extent that they do not have a proper understanding of the most important concepts of legal equality with men? Mahbubeh Abbasgholizadeh answers: "Since the term feminism, from the perspective of the Islamic Republic and the Hezbollahis and revolutionaries who supported Ayatollah Khomeini and later came to power, has been entirely a Western term, for this reason, from their perspective, secular women who talk about gender equality and do not support Sharia laws and do not see Sharia as the source of family laws are fundamentally considered feminists by them. Specifically, Ms. Ebadi and Ms. Mehrangiz Kar in that first decade after the revolution, because their writings viewed family laws from a non-Sharia perspective, were considered feminists and part of the propaganda that had to be sidelined and were seen as Western agents." Mahbubeh Abbasgholizadeh's reference is to Mehrangiz Kar's articles examining the conditions of marriage contracts in the Women's Journal and Shirin Ebadi's articles that addressed the issue of male guardianship in the family. Islamic feminism versus secular feminism Margot Badran, an American researcher of Egyptian descent and a gender studies specialist at Georgetown University in the United States, believes that only Muslims have produced two models of feminism: secular feminism in the early twentieth century and Islamic feminism in the late same century; Islamic feminism, which Azadeh Davaji, a researcher and women's rights activist residing in Australia, says that women activists in Iran need secular feminism more: "In the late 1970s and later with the victory of the revolution in Iran, it led to the growth of Islamic feminism and, of course, extensive cooperation between Islamic feminists and secularists. The reason for the growth of Islamic feminism in Iran was the resistance against fanatical interpretations of Islam that linked secularism and Islamic feminism together, and in Iran, unlike some Middle Eastern countries, the efforts of Islamic feminists were actually in opposition to the realization of the values presented by religious conservatives. However, it should not be overlooked that the efforts of secular feminists before the rise of Islamists paved the way for the growth of Muslim feminists in Iran. After the victory of the revolution and in the following years, that is, in the late 1990s, Islamic feminism developed significantly. Efforts in recent years have changed the interpretation of religion and especially the different interpretation and reading of the status of women in religious texts. Over the years, changes in the status of women, especially after the protests of the Green Movement in 2009 and the government's crackdowns, have affected the unity between secular and Islamic feminists. In fact, Islamic feminism emerged after the revolution and with changes in social conditions and the awareness of average women and women with traditional and religious backgrounds, and women who were previously deprived of social conditions during the Shah's time could now participate in the discourse of Islamic feminism within women's movements.