Let's Talk About Sex and Gender: the Case of Iran a Book Review Hafsa

The Fletcher School Online Journal for issues related to Southwest Asia and Islamic Civilization Spring 2011 Let’s Talk About Sex and Gender: The Case of Iran A Book Review Hafsa Kanjwal During a widely reported and The second book, entitled Sexual Politics in controversial lecture at Columbia University in Modern Iran , by Janet Afary describes the New York, the Iranian President, Mahmoud evolution of sexuality in Iran as well as the Ahmadinejad, boldly declared: "In Iran we don't struggle for women’s equal rights from the 1 have homosexuals like in your country.” His nineteenth century to the present day. Although statement, which caused ripples internationally, both books overlap in themes they explore and especially in the United States, underscores the conclusions they draw, Najmabadi’s book prolonged tensions on the subject of gender and proves to be more unconventional as it moves sexuality in modern Iran, a nation experiencing beyond the traditional 2 what many have called “a sexual revolution.” historiography of women Mahmoud Ahmadinejad How do we come to understand the history and gender in Islamicate boldy declared that: “In behind these tensions? How does this history societies, while Afary’s Iran we don’t have relate to the broader historiography of gender and book is firmly situated 3 homosexuals like in sexuality in the Islamicate? This review will look within it. at two recent works, both published in the past your country.” His decade, that have attempted to address these HISTORIOGRAPHY OF statement… questions. The first book, entitled Women with GENDER AND underscores prolonged Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and SEXUALITY IN THE tensions on the subject Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity , by Afsaneh ISLAMICATE of gender and sexuality Najmabadi draws upon visual and literary The literature on in modern Iran. material from nineteenth century Iran during the gender and sexuality in Qajar period to demonstrate the centrality of Muslim societies gender and sexuality to the shaping of modern multiplied significantly in culture and politics in Iran. the early 1990’s with classics such as Leila Ahmed’s Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Hafsa Kanjwal , is a doctoral candidate in the joint Roots of a Modern Debate and Fatima Mernissi’s The degree program in History and Women’s Studies at Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist’s Interpretation of the University of Michigan, Anne Arbor. She Women’s Rights in Islam. In addition to graduated from the School of Foreign Service at highlighting the equality of women and men by Georgetown University in 2008 with a degree in reinterpreting the foundational sources of Islam Regional Studies of the Muslim World. (the Quran and the Prophetic Sunnah ), these works sought to incorporate the role of women in © The Fletcher School – al Nakhlah – Tufts University 160 Packard Avenue – Medford, MA 02155-7082 USA – Tel: +1.617.627.3700 2 al Nakhlah traditional Islamic history. They emphasized the As with women’s history in general, the feminist foundations of the Muslim faith, study of gender and sexuality in the Islamicate primarily manifested through the example of the has been limited. Much of the study has been Prophet Muhammed and his interactions with the based on the assumption of two distinct genders women around him, including his wives. They and sexes: the male and the female and the also detailed the downfall of this history and masculine and the feminine. Unlike later feminist situated it within the Islamicate’s encounter with theory, which challenges the whole construction European conservative mores in the pre-colonial of gender and sex, this scholarship has mainly period and, later on, the negative impact of the operated through a heterosexual paradigm. In this colonial and nationalist periods on women’s lives. way, this scholarship remains heteronormative. The work on the nationalist period (immediately Furthermore, in an attempt to write women into after colonialism) focused primarily on how the Muslim history, feminist historians have often modern nation state constructed and disciplined overlooked the study of men and male sexuality. gender and the role of women, as evidenced in Slowly, however, we are witnessing a shift away Women, Islam and the State , by Deniz Kandiyoti. from the “add women and stir” approach to one This work also highlighted the ways in which that challenges gender binaries and approaches 4 women resisted patriarchal structures (colonial, gender from an analytical perspective. Joan nationalist, or religious) and negotiated their Scott’s highly influential article, Gender: A Useful agency within such structures. For example, Category of Historical Analysis argues that the study Kandiyoti explored the relative autonomy that of gender must go beyond the study of women. women in polygamous marriages in sub-Saharan Scott states that gender analysis must encompass Africa exercise, especially in regards to their gender's role in constituting social relationships economic status. more broadly and in signifying other relationships of power. Many of these initial writers also sought to reconcile Islam and Muslim history with notions of Western feminism, but were criticized by some Muslims for seeking to enforce Western notions of SUMMARY AND CONTRIBUTION OF feminism and women’s rights on the Muslim NAJMABADI’S WORK World. Thus, a more deconstructive discussion of In Women with Mustaches , Najmabadi was gender and sexuality was often overlooked in an greatly influenced by Scott’s theoretical attempt to highlight the historical role of women contribution. She mentions in her introduction in Muslim societies. For these reasons, it is that “to consider gender as an analytical category important to emphasize that the study of gender poses questions different from those relevant for and sexuality in Muslim societies cannot be retrieving women’s history. My questions separated from contemporary politics, both local became, what work did gender do in the making and transnational. This work continues to assert of Iranian modernity, and how did it perform this 5 its relevance in current discourse about the role of cultural labor?” The number of ways in which women in Islam. Even while discussing the Najmabadi’s book has transformed and moved history of the role of women in the early Muslim beyond the traditional historiography of gender in community nearly 1400 years ago, comparisons or Muslim societies is remarkable. contrasts to present times are made, a prime example of how contemporary conditions impel The Islamic Unlike other feminist historians historical constructions. These new historical of Iran who have explored the role of women and constructions “talk back” to hegemonic Orientalist their agency within heterosexual and patriarchal and colonial constructions of the Muslim woman relations of power, Najmabadi manages to as oppressed, submissive, and lacking agency. “queer” Iranian, and thus Islamicate, history. Queer theory destabilizes and radically questions all forms of identity that presume to be the norm. © The Fletcher School – al Nakhlah – Tufts University Spring 2011 3 Thus, the theory rejects the binary categories of asked to produce visual material to homosexuality and heterosexuality when support an argument based on textual analyzing social identities, arguing that these evidence. Written texts are often categories are not inherent, but socially assumed to have an apparent self- constructed. Using this approach, Najmabadi sufficiency and transparency that visual states that the viewing of gender in terms of texts are assumed to lack. The challenge male/female is a modern day imperative and was for me was learning how to “read” 6 culturally produced. She argues that this binary visual texts historically and to use of male/female did not exist during the nineteenth methods of visual interpretation to craft century Qajar dynasty in Iran, especially when it a historical argument….Working with came to notions of love and beauty. She states visual texts made me more conscious of that, “the taken-for-granted man/woman binary avoiding the presumption of has screened out other nineteenth-century gender transparency about textual sources. 9 positionalities and has ignored the interrelated 7 transfigurations of sexuality in the same period.” It is through the Persian paintings of the For example, there were different modes of Qajar time period that Najmabadi is able to argue maleness in nineteenth century Iran that were that ideas of beauty during this era were not distinct from manhood and are not captured by gendered. Rather, certain traits such as a lean the male/female binary. These include the male waist, thick eyebrows, and a thin mustache were amrad (young adolescent beardless male) and considered beautiful, irrespective of the holder’s mukhannas (an adult man desiring to be an object gender. In one such painting, entitled Embracing of desire for adult men). A modern day Lovers by Muhammad Sadiq, the attribution of understanding of these two identities that male or female to the two figures becomes “fractures masculinity” would be translated as difficult, as they both exhibit these uniform traits effeminization, but this identification did not exist of beauty. Najmabadi argues that there were not 8 in Qajar Iran. notions of “female beauty” or “male 10 handsomeness”—both were identical. Najmabadi’s work is also unique in its use of sources. To be certain, written sources of women’s Najmabadi also challenges the dominant history during the Qajar time period are difficult notion that same-sex or homosexual practices are to come across. Furthermore, access to these a result of strict gender segregation and veiling. sources for U.S.-based academics is challenging This assumption again stems from a due to diplomatic hostilities between the Islamic heteronormative view of gender and sexuality Republic of Iran and the United States. that does not account for alternative sexualities. Najmabadi uses visual representations, including The amrad served as an object of male desire and paintings, illustrations, photographs, state was present in Sufi love poetry, painting, erotica symbols, banners, medallions, and political and satire.

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